A Just War

By Jon D. Hull

Fire Fighter Jeff Brand looks like hell. His unshaven face is covered with grime, his eyes are swollen and bloodshot, and his raspy speech is punctuated with third-degree coughs and sniffles. "I'm sick as a dog," he growls. The dense smoke on the fire line in Northern California's Klamath National Forest has cut visibility to a lung-searing 150 ft. It is eclipsing the sun like a primordial fog and slowly choking the solemn line of fire fighters. Brand, 26, from Kentfield, Calif., pauses occasionally on the steep slope to vomit discreetly in the woods. "This is unhealthy as hell," he says, directing his crew toward a smoldering hot spot. "But I love fighting fires. When these things get going, the adrenaline really kicks in."

More than seven weeks after a series of dry lightning storms ignited a wave of fires across the West, thousands of weary fire fighters remain on the lines, battling a dangerous combination of flame, smoke and exhaustion. So far, at least ten people have died. In one tragic incident, a five-person "helitack" team was dropped by helicopter into a remote spot in Northern California and promptly overrun by fire before it could be rescued. The terrified team members quickly crawled into the fire-resistant shelters strapped around their waists, but 31-year-old D. Lee Cullins, of Arcata, Calif., was overcome by smoke and flames.

Since late August, more than 900,000 acres have been destroyed, the worst loss of timber since 1910. When one fire is contained, crews are quickly dispatched to other outbreaks. "They are just putting them out by sheer force of will," says Matt Mathes, a spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service in San Francisco. Hardest hit: California, where over 700,000 acres, an area almost the size of Rhode Island, have burned. It's the third severe fire season in a row for the West, where drought conditions are so extreme that bears have been forced down from the mountains to imbibe from residential swimming pools.

"The trick is to keep your energy up," says Jerry Midder-Rider, 32, a veteran fire fighter from the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Mont. "You just work, sleep and eat." Midder-Rider is warming himself by a gas heater at a base camp deep in the Klamath National Forest, scene of the worst fires and several deaths. Exhausted after twelve hours on the line, he enjoys relaxing briefly with companions from as far away as Maine and Alaska. "We're all equal out here," he says. "That makes all the difference."

Nearby, other fire fighters with faces like chimney sweeps exchange tales of close calls and prior battles. Their constant coughing sounds like a tuberculosis ward. As they talk, each fire takes on its own mischievous personality, some quick and cagey, others plodding and stubborn. Despite the laughter, some fire fighters appear homesick. The constant, tortuous line at the only two available pay phones is full of long faces. After waiting for 2 1/2 hrs. to call his wife, one man is greeted by an answering machine, and his howls echo through the smoke as he storms back to his tent.

The fire fighters sleep, eat and work in the worst ways possible. The base resembles a cluttered MASH unit, littered with the makeshift tents of 1,600 fire fighters from several dozen states. Others endure the 40 degrees nights in U.S. Government-issued sleeping bags that resemble disposable diapers. Some days the smoke gets so bad that flashlights must be used to read maps at midday, and fire fighters can be found sprawled out in a twelve-person oxygen tent called the fresh-air lounge. A 20-bed hospital run by the National Guard and equipped for surgery and X rays awaits disaster. One luxury: a long military tent called the Bijou that offers two new movies each day on a generator-powered VCR.

At the command post, the fires are charted on huge, colored maps, and meteorologists use portable computers to monitor the weather. Each night planes carrying infrared devices capable of detecting a glowing coal 1 ft. in diameter from 15,000 ft. crisscross the sky like silent bombers, tracking the fires. But the real work is done by the ground crews. Trucked each day to the fire lines in lumbering military transports, buses and pickups, they often trudge the last few miles by foot, lugging shovels and their trusty hoe-ax combinations, called Pulaskis. Despite sporadic assistance from helicopters and planes that dump fire retardant, their backbreaking work remains the same: they scratch out broad fire lines in the dirt, ignite counterfires from these lines that will burn toward the oncoming fire and watch for spot fires caused by airborne embers. Says Lee Poague, a fire-information officer from Tucson: "The old groundpounder is still the one who turns the tide."

Sometime before being put on the line, the fire fighters have each received at least 32 hours of classroom training and eight hours in the field. Starting pay is about $5 an hour, along with a 25% hazard bonus for fighting on the line of an uncontrolled burn. Divided into crews of about 20, they work twelve-hour shifts, night and day. Most are given a five-day break after 20 days on the line, though some have worked since the fires began. Fiercely proud, many crews have worked together for years, abandoning college, odd jobs and families each fire season to search for adventure. All prefer to be first on the scene, and they dread the mop-up work that requires them to dig through ashes in search of warm coals. Despite the conditions, their mood remains good. For many, fire fighting is the ultimate war game, complete with battle lines, a just cause and a deadly foe.

The conflagration grows eerie at night, and the fire fighters stay close together for protection. Their sooty faces, set against the foreboding backdrop of a pitch-black forest, are lit by a crackling orange glow. The flames, as they are dimmed by the cooler air, creep through the dense brush like a flow of lava, casting strange shadows behind the smoke. "You hear trees falling constantly, but you can't see them through the smoke," says Bill Thompson, 51, a timber cruiser from Salem, Ore. "It gets real spooky out here."

Anything less exciting might send many fire fighters packing. "A fire is quick and dirty," explains Larry Humphrey, 40, a natural-resource specialist from Safford, Ariz., who is in charge of 250 fire fighters. "I guess I don't have the patience for any other job." A 15-year veteran of forest fires, Humphrey has had only one day off in a month, but says he would keep on working for free. As he talks, nearby flames shoot several hundred feet up a Douglas fir in a matter of seconds. The tremendous roar is followed by the thunder of a "widowmaker" -- a falling tree -- crashing through the dense smoke. Soon other trees ignite almost spontaneously in an effect known among fire fighters as crowning. "Those flames can leap across the treetops faster than you can run," warns Humphrey. "This fire is a real tenacious son of a gun."

) A hundred yards down the fire line, Greg Geisen, 32, from Alderpoint, Calif., blasts away at a burning tree with a hose. He wears the regulation fire-retardant green pants, yellow shirt and hard hat, and a dirty cloth is stretched across his mouth and nose. "My wife was crying when I told her I'd be going out," he says, leaning against the force of the water. "But I love it out here. It's just me against this fire." Bill Ream, a 40-year-old from Weaverville, Calif., puts it another way: "I sleep in the back of my pickup, I eat old food out of a bag, I breathe smoke, and I haven't washed my clothes in days. But you've got to understand: this is war."

Arthur Cavanaugh Jr., 27, agrees. While crossing a steep slope one morning, he slipped and tumbled 60 ft. into a river, severely spraining his left ankle. It took 45 minutes just to get him back up the hill. For Cavanaugh, the war was a welcome respite from unemployment. "I tried working in an office once, but I spent all day just gazing out the window," he says, sitting on a plane bound for home, still proudly adorned in his smoke-ridden fire-fighting clothes. "This job gets me outside, fighting to protect something I believe in."