My first wildfire season as a PIO (Public Information Officer)

Well guys, I did it. I survived my first wildfire season here in the southwest, working as a Public Information Officer on a National Forest in Arizona.

It was a bit busy.

In all honesty, I wasn’t really sure what to expect in terms of fire season. In broad terms, “fire season” runs throughout the entire spring and summer (and into fall) in the U.S., from April through October. Nationally, fire season starts earlier and ends later every year… which is actually why we’ve been trying to stop referring to it as “fire season” and start referring to it as “fire year” instead. Locally, fire season typically runs from late spring to early summer, which is when we traditionally get monsoonal rains here in Arizona.

We didn’t have monsoon season last year, though, so nobody knew how long this fire season would last.

Luckily, the monsoons came right on schedule, and our fire season wrapped up here on my forest (the Coconino National Forest) a few weeks ago.

It was a welcome relief. Fire season was bad here this year. Of course, I don’t have a point of reference given that it was my first year working in fire, but from what I’ve been told, it was bad.

This year, we had two “Type 1” fires — the Backbone and the Rafael — in addition to three smaller “Type 3” fires — the Cornville, the Slate and the Snake.

At the height of our fire season, four of those fires were burning at the same time.

For those of you unfamiliar with fire types, Type 1 fires are the one that need the highest number of resources, and they’re often the biggest in terms of acreage, and they have a high number of “values at risk,” so they’re burning in precarious locations — often by towns, recreation sites, landmarks, power plants, farms, etc.

From what I’ve been told, we (the Coconino) have never had two Type 1 fires at the same time before.

Fire season here started off fairly slowly… but then ramped up very quickly.

(As an aside, wildfires are also referred to in this industry as “incidents,” in case you see me use that term.)

My first wildfire was the Slate Fire, which burned along Highway 180 on the way from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon. I got the call at about 5 a.m. on a Monday morning, when one of our district Fire Management Officers called me to let me know that we had a fire that was going to be a bit of a bigger deal.

We have a lot of “starts” on our forest, mostly from lightning or abandoned campfires. Often, if our lookouts catch them early enough or a bystander calls dispatch soon enough, we’re able to send crews out to contain them fairly quickly, keeping them at a fraction of an acre.

But, when an FMO gives you a call, it means that whatever fire they’re calling you about is going to end up being somewhat of a big deal. Maybe it’s size, fire behavior or location — fires located near town, no matter how small, always generate a lot of smoke and concern — but either way, it’s something that the public will need to be informed about. Which, yunno, is my job as a Public Information Officer.

Turns out, there are a LOT of meetings that go into wildfire management. When a fire first breaks out, there’s a Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) meeting where ALL the specialists from across the forest come together and basically do a risk analysis. Then, there’s a morning briefing that occurs at 6 a.m. EVERY day that the fire is active where the Incident Commander (IC) (basically the person put in charge of the wildfire) gives an update on acreage and behavior, and talks about the day’s weather and wind forecast and planned operations. These are all listed in an Incident Action Plan (IAP), which is handed out to everyone working the fire. Then, there’s an evening planning meeting at about 7 p.m. which is a little bit along the same lines. They’ll go over the day’s operations, set a plan for the next day and answer all questions. Between those two meetings are… more meetings. If the fire is happening across multiple swaths of land (National Forest land, Bureau of Land Management land, city land, state land, etc.) you’ll have interagency meetings. There will be separate meetings to discuss things like coordinating media interviews and site visits.

And, on top of all that, I’m answering calls from the public, providing interviews to TV, radio, newspaper and internet media, writing press releases, updating social media, conducting site visits to take photos and videos, setting up “trap lines” (physical public information boards placed at prominent locations), communicating internally with rangers, fire staff, etc., updating our website and InciWeb… it’s a lot.

And to think… I’m not even a firefighter — I’m just overhead fire support staff!

During fire season, my work days typically started before 6 a.m. and didn’t end until about 10 p.m. At the height of it, I would be starting meetings in my apartment via Teams, then driving to my office to answer emails and pick up a pool car, then driving down to an ICP to answer phone hotlines, caption videos, etc., then driving back up to my office and then to my apartment, getting home at 10 p.m.

(During bigger incidents, we’ll set up what’s called an Incident Command Posts (ICPs). It’s basically where everyone working on the fire converges. There are hundreds of support staff working out of an ICP doing everything from logistics to information to planning to medical. These pop up literally wherever. This year, we had one (Backbone) at a middle school and one (Rafael) at a county park/fairground.) Teams will often also set up fire camps, so personnel can sleep on site and commit even more time to fire management work.)

I felt awful. There was a stretch of time where I didn’t have time to take care of Yukon. I dropped him off at the kennel with a bag of food one morning and said “I don’t know when I’ll be back, I’m so sorry.” Luckily our kennel takes AMAZING care of Yukon, and — being located here in Arizona — they’re pretty used to it and have a lot of customersthat work in wildfire and incident management.

Anyway. My fire season started with the Slate Fire. My boss made me the main information officer since it was the best way for me to learn, and I was able to ease into it by going to the WFDSS meeting, the 6 a.m. meetings and the 7 p.m. meetings, as well as writing the press releases, updating social media, having daily calls with the IC myself, basically everything listed above. Because the Slate Fire was fairly slow-moving and wasn’t located too close to anything important (as we call them, “values at risk,”) we were able to keep it as a Type 3 fire, which meant we were able to handle everything at a smaller, more local level, and we didn’t have to call in additional support. I had long days, but they were very stable.

I was able to diligently answer media questions, put a lot of time and effort into press releases, coordinate and escort media visits and personally step out to photograph and visit the fire site.

I even got to relax and “enjoy” a vegetarian MRE during a field visit.

Then, all hell broke loose about a week later.

We ended up with three new fires — the Backbone, Rafael and Slate fires — all within the span of a few days. Plus, my forest made the executive decision to close to the public, which meant we needed a communication plan for that as well.

Because both the Backbone and Rafael fires were designated as Type 1 fires, we had two separate Type 1 Incident Management Teams (IMTs) come in to manage both. That meant that luckily, my boss and I were able to shift the bulk of the work for those two fires onto the Type 1 teams while we handled everything else.

The fires were bad. There was smoke in the air for days and it was raining ash all across Flagstaff.

I spent days alternating between meetings for fires, going from one fire camp to another, coordinating with multiple forests and Type 1 teams…

It was A LOT.

There were a few other challenges as well. My boss had a family emergency, so he ended up having to leave when the Backbone Fire broke out. My work cell number was listed as an “incident hotline” number by Gila County, so I ended up getting hundreds of calls an hour from concerned residents asking about evacuations.

Then, a few days later, I was diagnosed with strep throat. I could not call in sick, so I ended up running to Urgent Care on my lunch break for antibiotics while continuing on with my 16-hour work days. It was definitely not fun.

Then, as fast as everything started, it all ended. Thanks to the fire crews, all four of our fires ended up mostly contained at about the same time. We transitioned the two Type 1 fires back to local leadership, shut down the ICPs (aka: de-mobilized/ “demobed” them), and then sat around and waited… and then the monsoons finished the containment job for us.

After a few days of trickling responsibilities, my work calendar went from 10-plus meetings a day to zero. We reopened the forest, marked off all the fires as contained, pulled all our resources and went back to status quo.

Whew.

It was a lot all at once, but I learned so much. In the future, I’ll be able to fill out what’s called a task book that proves I know what I’m doing, and then I’ll be able to head off to other incidents as support staff when needed, but since this was my first fire season, I opted to remain “on-forest” in order to learn locally.

Anyway, that’s kind of about all for now! I’m sorry this is pretty long and text-heavy without a lot of photos, but I was honestly so busy working that I didn’t have much time to really document things outside of work.

I’ll try to do a better job next fire season! Any questions? Turns out that working in wildfire means a lot of lingo and “fire-isms,” so I’m more than happy to answer any questions.

As always, be safe, and FOLLOW FIRE RESTRICTIONS! Listen to Smokey Bear and don’t make my job any harder than it has to be, please!