By Meghan Gunther, MTI Contributor
Interagency Hotshot Crews respond to Initial Attack fires, or IA, and large, complex incident fires all over the nation. My Hotshot crew fights wildfires the rural and rugged terrain of Northern California. The Preseason and Postseason preparation play critical roles in being fit for duty and finding success both mentally and physically during fire season.
Preseason and Early Season
Preparation for fire season starts months before day one with the crew. It even starts as soon as the season ends in the fall for folks like myself. In January the crew is given PT resources, via the Slack platform, like strength and aerobic training suggestions, mobility, and recovery tools. These tools are provided weekly and daily until the crew comes on in May. These suggestions include sandbag workouts, strength focused barbell lifting sessions, high intensity intervals and zone two or long steady state blocks. The intent is to be a well rounded athlete, both strong and aerobically capable, fit to push to the “red zone” limit for short bursts, (comparable to picking up a spot fire out on a wildland fire incident), and able to grind consistently (comparable to being on a fourteen day assignment working sixteen hour shifts every single day) Dedicated individuals spend the winter training for fire season. This looks like barbell workouts, sandbag sessions, trail running, backcountry skiing, hiking, snowboarding and other outdoor winter activities for those on the crew who are avid backcountry athletes. There is no “off season”, while there is a decompression and rest time needed in the postseason, it takes training year round to be as fit as possible for tactical athletes like wildland fire hotshots. Being strong enables us to hike swiftly with heavy packs, move heavy objects, hike chainsaws around in the woods and run tank after tank on those chainsaws all day. Strength is also one of the best ways for us to avoid injury during the busy, strenuous season.
Fire season starts in the early Spring when we report to duty with eighty hours of refresher training, typically called “Critical Eighty” during which we go over operational tactics, air operations, burning, working with equipment and other resources, and more. We spend time in the field doing line digs, saw cuts and practice fire shelter deployments. In addition to fire line tactics, we train heavily in medical and extraction drills, and intense PT.
My crew’s PT mountain is the marker for physical fitness and fireline readiness within the crew. It is right in our backyard, just a few minutes from our duty station. It is a rocky single wide trail up with roughly two thousand feet of vertical gain in just over one mile.
We hike the PT Mountain in full fireline uniform, which is boots, green Nomex pants, a long sleeve yellow Nomex button up shirt, gray hardhat, IA fireline pack and assigned tool or chainsaw. The sawyers carry their full fireline complement for the chainsaw but are not required to wear their chaps while hiking, those are carried on the pack. Our IA packs are Mystery Ranch or Nargear and weigh between thirty five to fifty pounds with saw teams carrying more weight than toolers because they carry extra chains, sharpening tools and repair kits with them.
The standard is completing the hike in under sixty minutes. This standard is intimidating even for crew veterans. It tests will power and mental strength.
We line up in crew order, also called Tool Order or TO, at the start of the hike, but after about fifty yards, it becomes a free for all, with the intent of completing the hike as swiftly as possible. Adrenaline and nerves are high on this. The trail only allows single wide hiking, so you have to pass strategically and promptly in order to gain ground. We hike everyday, unless weather dictates differently, during our first two weeks as a crew. This is strategic to increase mental and physical strain while we are doing early season training and not yet on fires. It’s a painful grind, on purpose. During the first week we hike during the warmest part of the morning to acclimate to heat which adds additional strain. After some of our crew hikes, we will put in saw cuts, dig line on top of the hill, and run other practice drills for several hours as part of our refresher training. This intense training pays high dividends during fire season when we find ourselves hiking steep ridges in the Klamath National Forest to fight lighting fires or doing twenty mile scouting missions into fires that are very interior in the wilderness. Along with what is a long grind during the season with no slowing down until the crew lays off.
During the beginning of our season, after critical eighty, we hike every week and do crew sandbag based workouts to build strength. It mimics what we do out on the fireline because we hike, carry weight and move heavy, awkward things around. Once we get deployed out on a fire assignment, we usually roll back to back on fourteen day assignments all summer long with three days, called “R&R, ” which are days off unavailable, between each assignment. The physical fitness routine shifts to maintenance and lighter movement on days off since the physical strain on the fireline during assignment is very high.
Fire Season
There are two strategies for fighting fire, indirect or direct. With indirect, wildland firefighters build a big box around the fire using roads, dozer lines, ridge lines and other topographic features that make sense to stop the forward process of the fire. We prep those lines by cutting out the brush and trees that have potential to torch anywhere from twenty five feet off the line to fifty feet or more if dictated by the fire behavior and terrain. Once prepped, we burn to remove remaining ground fuel with the intent of getting several hundred feet of good depth in the black. Good burn windows, where winds, temperature and relative humidity are conducive to putting fire on the ground usually happen later in the evening.
When burning, it is not unusual to work into the night or early hours of the morning, like 3 am or longer, after a full day shift working, to complete the burn mission. It entails a lot of walking with drip torches putting fire on the ground. You can end up crashing through brush, walking down drainages, up and down ridges and climbing over fallen timber in the dark all while putting a mixture of gas and diesel from the drip torch on the ground in full line gear. Once a burn is started, the crew doesn’t stop working until the burn is completed or we hand it off to another crew. It is an exciting and physically taxing task especially on large scale burn operations.
Direct strategy puts the crew at the edge of the fire to secure it by cutting out any brush or trees left remaining where it burntthrough. If the edge is still hot, a handline is put in after the saw cut to put bare mineral dirt between the edge of the fire and the unburnt ground fuel next to it. If the edge looks cold, it is “cold trail” checked by hand to validate that there is no heat on the ground in order to call it secure. If water is available it can be used to put out remaining heat. It is an effective tactic and you follow the black edge until you tie into another crew doing the same thing, a natural topographical holding feature or the end of the fires edge. It entails crashing brush, swamping brush, and digging miles of handline.
We work in all kinds of terrain and around many hazards when on the uncontrolled fire’s edge inclluding rolling rocks, dead and down timber, snags, and bees nests. High situationalawareness is a must. When it is possible to use heavy equipment, like dozers, lines can be pushed and the crew can work behind the heavy equipment cutting out the edge of the fire and securing anything the dozer wasn’t able to get direct.
We work sixteen hour shifts on large wildfire assignments. Assignments are fourteen days long, plus any travel days required to reach the incident. Our “war bags” go with us which hold our sleeping gear and bare necessities for being on the road for over two weeks.
Weight is restricted in the event we have to fly into a fire. We are issued two sets of our wildland fire uniform which is a pair of green fireproof Nomex pants and a yellow long sleeve button up Nomex shirt. Most of the time we all wear the same pair of pants and shirt for the entire assignment, the other set is for back up if we rip up what we are wearing which is not uncommon working in dense brush and the rough wear and tear of a season.
The uniform becomes stiff from dirt, sweat, bar oil, fuel and anything else we brush up against. I wear one pair of boots for the season, a pair of JK leather loggers and keep a pair of Scarpas as my back up boots at the station in case I destroy the pair I use all summer. We put a lot of miles on our boots each summer as a hotshot crew. The soles of everyone’s boots get worn out by the end of our six months in the summer. To help foot hygiene and avoid blisters I use Darn Tough socks and change them out every two to three days. Other folks on the crew pack enough socks to change every day. There are a variety of brands ranging from normal cotton socks to high quality Merino socks used among the crew.
During the peak of fire season we can be fighting fire in over one hundred degree heat with the added heat of burning fuel from the fire. We don’t fight fire directly on structions although we work in what is called the Wildland Urban Interface. WUI is where forest and wilderness areas meet up with urban elements like homes, ranches, cabins and any other human construction structures that are surrounded by large timber stands and wilderness areas. While we can go in and do prevention measures like wrapping structures in foil, clearing around them and setting up sprinklers, we do not stay to protect them since we are not equipped to do so.
Because of the heat we work in and around during the summer season it is critical that we hydrate adequately. We carry our water for each shift in our fireline IA packs along with electrolytes that we can supplement in to replace what we are sweating out everyday. The minimum water requirement is five quarts but usually we are carrying six to seven or more especially during the hottest part of the summer.
Along with bringing water out with us, there are a lot of “pocket snacks” as they are fondly referred to. Wildland firefighters and hotshots in particular are estimated to burn somewhere between four thousand and seven thousand calories a day while working a shift on the fireline. At camp, we eat breakfast and dinner, for lunch we are issued a sack lunch that we carry out on the line in our packs. It is typically a sandwich of some kind along with an assortment of snacks, protein bars, veggies, some fruit and jerky. Anything in a small packaging can be stuffed in the side pocket of our “greens” or pants so that you can graze during shift while you work is considered a good pocket snack. We try to eat carbs in every hour to avoid boinking from low blood sugar.
During the season we sleep outside on the dirt. We are issued tents which we will put up if rain is forecasted, otherwise we sleep out under the stars.
The goal is to get around seven hours of sleep nightly. This doesn’t always happen and a sleep debt builds up over the course of the season due to the physical exertion and the shift hours. This affects fatigue mitigation and overall health. This is especially evident when we work night shifts on a fire.
Earlier this season we spent fourteen days on night shift on an incident. We were working indirect, prepping miles of road getting it ready for a burn operation. Nerves can get short. During these types of shifts, we do our best to keep eating, drink enough water and move with purpose and keep a good sense of humor when things really suck. Usually there is at least one firefighter who cracks jokes and keeps the crew from spiraling into complaining. Moving with purpose and always pushing forward progress on a plan is another good way to stayfocused. Complaining is not condoned on my crew.
We come off the line at the end of the shift, and drive to camp to eat dinner. After dinner we complete our buggy chores, like filling up water jugs for the next day’s shift, then we head to bed. In the mornings one of our captains gives a wake up call for the crew. At camp there usually is cell service but sometimes we are spiked out in remote areas with no service. It can be challenging to stay connected with loved ones and family while on assignment. Lots of little and big life moments that connect us as humans are missed due to fire season. Birthdays, weddings, the first day of school, anniversaries and family time. Even though you have three days off after each assignment, you can’t catch up on missed life in those short couple of days.
Post Season
Post fire season is a critical time period for recovery, maintenance and improvement physically and mentally. When the fire season ends, it is like being on a roller coaster for months and months and then abruptly stopping in its tracks. The structure, tempo and focused discipline of the fire season all stop. No longer are you around your crew members whom you just spent almost all your waking hours with during the summer. While it is a relief for the season to end, you miss the excitement, the mission driven purpose, the problem solving and the camaraderie that can be built among crew members. It can be easy to drift in unhelpful ways if another structure is not put in place during the off season. Alcohol abuse, suicide and depression are not uncommon issues in the wildland fire community.
Bodies need time and tools to recover from the wildfire season’s physical demand. It takes several weeks after the crew disperses in the fall to allow this healing, muscle recovery, feet to heal and the sleep debt to be balanced out.
I have found that active recovery physically and mentally is more beneficial than going static right after the season ends. Light movement and PT help promote healing for my body without increasing the fatigue debt. I use a wide variety of decompression tools that are helpful mentally, like faith, reading, journaling, ice baths, saunas, connecting with community, family, and friends.
Maintenance and physical improvement starts after the recovery phase. Similar to preseason, strength and aerobic improvement are of high importance. The barbell and sandbag are my tools for strength training. Running, hiking, sprinting, and snowboarding, along with other outdoor winter sports are where I focus my aerobic increase. Staying in shape allows me to do the outdoor hobbies I love and those hobbies help me do my job during the summer. Over the holidays my PT structure is light and flexible so I can enjoy spending time with family and friends. Starting in January I structure intense blocks of training to prepare for the upcoming season, focusing on improving my physical fitness. Throwing in a challenge like training for a half marathon helps keep training interesting and fun. The intense training continues up until a couple weeks before the season starts then it starts to taper to allow a recovery before the grind of fire season begins.
The environment of wildland fire is dynamic. It is fast paced and challenging. It takes you to remote, rugged places that are both beautiful and difficult. You can find yourself on ridge tops overlooking vast wilderness or in desert landscapes stretching out before your eyes. It’s constantly changing and you never know what the next assignment or next shift will bring. It is mentally, emotionally and physically challenging but very rewarding.
Meghann is a full time Wildland Firefighter in California.