Members of the wildland fire community contemplating the tragic deaths of the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots are being affected in similar but usually different ways — we see the event through a prism, everyone with a slightly different vantage point.
Jenna Penielle Lyons, a young firefighter like many of the Granite Mountain 19, is in her third year, with two of those being on a hotshot crew. In a very well written piece titled To the Hotshots Who Died, from Your Sister, she sheds some light on what it was like to be working on a fire as a member of the Snake River Hotshots and hear the news about the 19.
Below is an excerpt; you can read the entire article at elephantjournal.com:
…After the Granite Mountain Hotshots died, I looked at my job differently. I wondered how it happened—how the wind and fire could have changed so quickly and unexpectedly. The entire Hotshot community was thrown for a loop when that incident happened. The day of the memorial, we sat at 11,000 feet and listened to the C-SPAN live feed of the service. I watched 19 men sit in complete silence for two hours, obviously contemplating the tragedy at depth. Whatever happened at Yarnell Hill, those men died doing what they loved.
You can check out Ms. Lyons work and follow her adventures at www.thelyonsroarliterature.wordpress.com, which she describes like this: “The Lyon’s Roar: A blog about a little girl creating art, living from the earth and imagination, and fighting fire in the great states of Montana and Idaho.”
You earned all of your rewards George. Thank you for your efforts and service in protecting the rest of us from wildfires.
Excellent work Ms Lyons! You did a fine job of describing what it is a Hotshot does. I would confirm that in my experience, there is no more physically/mentally demanding job out there. The long shifts, the grueling hikes, 50 degree diurnal temperature changes, the the heavy pack, swinging a tool or running a saw all day; these things are demanding. But the one thing that really sets it apart from anything else is the fact that at times, you cannot just stop because the fire won’t allow you to. When you’re walking and dragging fire inside the line, you literally cannot stop and sit down for a minute or you’d be consumed with the fuels you’re lighting. Sometimes you’d be in serious trouble if you just tripped and fell. The average person would trip and fall at least once a day going off trail in steep terrain. A Hotshot may go years between stumbles. A Hotshot learns the art of endurance- to make every step and every tool swing count for something. No wasted motion. Another thing that is true of Hotshot’n is that there’s absolutely nowhere to hide out there if you can’t hang. You have to love that job to want to return. I could usually tell when guys were thinking about quitting. I’d tell them, “If you quit now, you will carry that with you for the rest of your life, but if you finish the season, you get to take that with you into whatever you do next, and you can say that you were one of the Hell Dudes.” I loved the Hotshot life. There was nothing better. I finished my career on Engines, but there was nothing more fun, more rewarding, than Shots. Thank you for taking me back.
So glad you posted this Bill.
Nice to see the feelings put into words by one our own.
And ahead of the well intentioned but meaningless drivel sure to come from management shortly.
Keep up the good work.