A history of the hotshot crews in the United States has been updated and is available for download at the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center.
Brit Rosso distributed some information about the document:
You might remember the first version of the Hotshot Crew History book we ever saw was at the second National IHC workshop in Phoenix back in the early 90’s. Tony Sciacca with Prescott HS helped to assemble it. Over the years there have been many attempts to get the book updated with limited success.
Dave Provencio was the latest Supt to take it on and worked on keeping the project alive. He worked with Johnny Klamath, who is the current National IHC Steering Committee chair to get it updated. Johnny came to me last fall to see what we could do to help him get it converted into an e-book and up on the internet.
The final product is now posted on our LLC web site and will be released to all of the current IHC Supts soon. The book is in three sections;
1 – Crew History
2 – Hotshot History Articles
3 – Interviews with old SuptsWhen you open it in a PDF reader, click on the bookmark icon on the left side, and then you can click on the + icons to open or close different sections.
Thanks and a hat tip go out to Jim.
Great read Bill, Made me think of the days in the mid 70’s on the Mendocino HS (Bob Moore, Rusty Witter, and Jerry Barney) all outstanding leaders…. Then 79 with the Redding HS (Charlie, Lanky and Jim), and then in the early 80’s with Mill Creek HS (George Motchell, Richard K, and Tom Waker) those were the days, 24, 36 hr shifts, work the fire till it was OUT or it ran you out, Waiting for the right time to “fire it”, “it was asshole and elbows”, “One more chain to tie in” those were the days, I learned allot from all these great leaders……
Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Yes those are very good memories Brad! – nice to see your name here.
Somewhere I saw some discussion of a group that was looking to form a retired ICH Supt group. Of course now that I want to pass this information along I cant remember where I saw this. …If someone knows, please chime in. Thanks!
Thanks for the link. As an observation, if a crew boss from 1977 winds up as university faculty, teaching wildland fire behavior in 1999, you can expect field trips to go straight up the mountainside, ignoring any easy trails to the same spot. 🙂
Yes and it would be hard to find a better qualified person teaching it.
Nothing about the Roswell Hotshots (1990-93)? BLM IHC crew based out of Roswell, NM.
Jerry Soard was the Roswell HS Sup
Jerry was fun to work for. I was a squad boss on the crew. We had quite the eclectic bunch. Also, it was 1990-92 (my typo).
I knew that Johnny Clem loved being the Klamath Superintendent, but who would have thought that he’d change his name to “Johnny Klamath” .
He didn’t… thanks Rosso
The name ” Johnny Klamath ” fits perfectly though, I would know I was one of his first Captains.