WHEEWWW I am TIRED.
I mentioned it in my last post about Ryan obtaining his pilot license, but while we were flying around northern Arizona, we saw smoke from the Miller Fire, which I’d been doing a little bit of public information work on early last week.
(Before we get too far, if you’re new here, here’s a little bit of an explainer about my job as a Public Information Officer (PIO) on wildfires, and how incident management as a whole works!)
My forest decided to pull in a Type 3 Incident Management Team to suppress the Miller Fire, and since the team they ordered — the Northern Arizona Type 3 IMT — doesn’t have a rostered PIO…
…that meant I got to work as the PIO.
Sweet!
I’ll keep this fairly brief since I’ve been working 16-hour days since Thursday and man I’m beyond ready for bed, especially since I’m getting ordered out for another small local fire soon, but I just wanted to share a few highlights from the Miller Fire.
It reminded me a lot of last year’s Committee Fire, which also based its Incident Command Post (ICP) out of the ranger station down on our Red Rock Ranger District (RRRD).
The fire was pretty remote and not very complex, so there weren’t any values at risk and there wasn’t a lot of public or media interest due to a lack of visible smoke. That meant we didn’t really need to order a slew of PIOs to set up trap lines and info boards or answer calls and emails.
I ordered one PIO — my mentor Karen — for a day so she could supervise and complete some paperwork I need to get fully qualified as a PIO3, but other than that, I was the sole PIO on the incident.
And, it was great! There was limited media and public interest, so outside of my daily meetings (morning briefing, Command and General Staff [C&G], planning meeting, etc.) and my daily work load (news releases if applicable, InciWeb updates, media interviews, emails, general paperwork, etc.), I had a lot of unstructured time.
And, I made the ABSOLUTE most of it.
I love working on wildfires, so much. It’s honestly my favorite part of my job. My background is in journalism, so incident response reminds me a lot of breaking news and I’m really great at prioritizing, delegating and snapping into focus mode when a million things are happening on an emerging incident.
But, since my background is in media and NOT in fire, I have some MAJOR imposter syndrome when it comes to what I do. A lot of C&G positions come from on-the-ground fire positions. They’ve all worked on engine crews or hand crews and have that kind of experience.
This is my third fire season and I’ve definitely improved so much as a wildfire PIO, but my lack of experience in wildfire operations (ops) is a huge insecurity of mine.
So, I took this fire as an opportunity to learn more about ops.
Once my daily PIO work was done, I was able to fit some field trips in between meetings.
First, a few guys on one of our engine crews were nice enough to take me along with them on a scouting mission that took most of my entire Saturday.
I bummed a ride in their truck — which had a UTV hitched to the back of it — and we set off.
We battled holiday traffic and drove about an hour up from the ranger station to a forest road near Fort Tuthill County Park.
Then, we hopped in the UTV and spent another hour and some change driving down Woody Mountain Road (Forest Road 231) out to the edge of the canyon that the fire was located in.
THEN, we got out of the UTV and hiked out to a vista overlooking the canyon.
Which, btw, gorgeous.
There wasn’t a lot of smoke or aggressive fire behavior, so I couldn’t see anything, but plans are to put a camera up to monitor the fire area long-term so that we as a forest can check for activity over the coming months. Crews couldn’t fully suppress the fire because it shoots up a canyon wall, and it’s impossible to put fire line in on a sheer vertical cliff face. It’ll remain hot in the area, so the camera will help us keep tabs on the fire until we get sufficient rain later this year that suppresses it for us.
So, Troy and Cody — the engine crew members I tagged along with — were scouting areas to set up the camera as well as helicopter landing spots for equipment hauls.
We hiked back to the UTV — our hike was about four miles round trip — and then drove back to the truck and back down to the station.
And, because it’s me, every day comes with some kind of embarrassing personal crisis or another.
(Please see: practice fire shelter deployment during basic wildland firefighter training.)
This time around, it was ants in my pants. Yes. Ants. In. My. Pants.
During our hike out to the canyon, I ended up having a red ant crawl up the leg of my Nomex pants and I had to stop Troy and Cody so I could hide behind a tree, take my fire pants off, and shake out ants.
So professional.
So… anyway. Cooler than the ant bites all over my right leg?
Air ops!
I got to bum a ride in one of the incident helicopters and join along on an aerial recon mission the next day.
Sweet, right?!
It was a quick 20-minute flight over the fire. Our pilot looped us around a few times so we could look at fire activity, behavior, growth and damage.
And so I could take photos and videos.
…and selfies. Duh.
It was also cool because one of the crews we ordered for the Miller Fire — Durango Helitack — has a familiar face on it! Our friend Moldy, who used to work on Ryan’s former Hotshot crew, was all set up at helibase.
(We visited him and his girlfriend Kailey out in Durango earlier this year.)
The worst part of the day was the holiday traffic in Sedona. We spent about 90 minutes driving from the ranger station to the Sedona airport because traffic was absolutely at a standstill.
Other than my two field days, it was business as usual! I completed my task book again (I previously completed it on the Committee Fire, but my position was reconfigured and the National Wildfire Coordinating Group [NWCG] changed the PIOF to a PIO3, and issued a new task book I had to open and start), got some more experience with the formal assignment aspect of incident response, like checking in, filling out various Incident Command Systems (ICS) forms, and de-mobilizing (demobing).
Also… the Type 3 team that I worked with — the Northern Arizona Type 3 Incident Management Team — rostered me as its PIO! Which is exciting! I’ve worked with the team several times in the past, like back on the Tunnel Fire, and they’re all really great to work with. So that’s really exciting! Now I get to wear a shirt and a hat with the team logo on it, hah.
Anyway, the Miller Fire was such a great learning experience, and it was a really, really fun wildfire! It was small, and slow-paced, and there weren’t any values at risk, so it was a great chance to build relationships and learn new skills and background info that’ll make my job as a wildfire PIO a little easier from here on out, because I hope to keep doing this work for a while. I really love it!
Anyway. I’m likely heading out to a different fire on our forest within the coming days, so I’ll leave you with a photo of a wildfire staple: A foil-wrapped breakfast burrito in front of an ops map.
Stay safe!
My views are mine alone and don’t represent those of my employer, agency or the United States government. All photos were taken by me and/or credited photographer unless otherwise noted. You can read more on my disclosure and privacy policy page.
