I just got back from a quick extended weekend work assignment on the Pius Fire, a full-suppression wildfire located on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.
I’m on my fourth summer (aka: fire season) as a public affairs officer with the Forest Service, and as a red-carded Public Information Officer (PIO) working on wildfires.
I’ve worked on a number of fires now around the state of Arizona, but this was my first ever time getting to fully experience fire camp, which was really cool!
Most of the fires I’ve worked on have been local to my forest, which means I’ve always been able to go home at the end of every work day.
However, this is the first assignment where I’ve been far enough away from home (and civilization) that I’ve actually needed to work, sleep and live at fire camp.
I reported for my assignment Thursday, and since camp still hadn’t been set up, a lot of us overhead personnel set up shop at a local fire department in a nearby town (Heber-Overgaard).
(“Overhead” means the pencil pushers that do a lot of computer and paperwork. We’re pretty far removed from the wildland firefighters, who are the total hardworking badasses (like Ryan) who do the actual work out on the fire line!)
I immediately got to work running trap lines, which basically means I get to play town crier and go around to local establishments to share info and resources for fire information.
I spent Thursday in both Heber and Overgaard proper, handing out news releases and maps to businesses along the main roads.
Afterward, I met up with the rest of the PIOs that had already arrived: Celeste, Brie and Kaity. We had a few meetings, took care of a few tasks, and then it was time for dinner.
We went to the Wild Women Saloon & Grille for appetizers and veggie burgers.
Then we called it a night. We had the option of staying at a hotel in town and waking up at 4 a.m. to make it out to ICP for the 6 a.m. briefing, or sleeping out at camp.
I decided to stay in the hotel for the night for safety reasons, so we all checked into our rooms and passed out for our 4 a.m. wake up call.
I packed up all my stuff Friday morning and the four of us caravanned off to fire camp for our 6 a.m. briefing.
After briefing, we settled in to our new workplace.
A few notes about fire camp:
On incidents close to town, Incident Management Teams (IMTs) and fire crews are usually able to set up at an established facility, like a school that’s been emptied for summer, or a community recreation facility, or a hotel, or an established event center. Fire personnel are then able to book hotel rooms if they’re available, or camp if they’re not.
But, on more remote incidents, there likely aren’t any facilities available, which means everything has to be set up from nothing. In instances like this, alllllll the infrastructure needed for employees is trucked in.
On the Pius Fire, incident personnel were set up at the forest’s old Chevelon Work Center, which had been decommissioned and recently razed.
So, time to make a new work center!
Contractors and crews had been hard at work setting up everything we needed to live and work on a bare plot of land for however long it would take to get the fire under control.
When I say everything… I mean everything.
Let’s start with the offices.
Mobile offices, usually composed of trailers and yurts, are established for overhead personnel.
I’ve worked in the temporary yurts before, but the trailers were new to me. We (PIOs) were given one, and they’re so nice!
Each trailer had desk space for eight, as well as counter space, a refrigerator, a microwave, a coffee maker, three air conditioning units, a printer, a door to section off a meeting room, and a closet full of office and cleaning supplies.
The walls were made of dry-erase material (!!!) and the windows opened and came with little snap-shades.
All the trailers and yurts are set up, and it’s where those of us “overhead” personnel work.
Overhead basically means those of us who aren’t actual fire crews on the ground. Those of us in overhead do things like finance, and logistics (ordering supplies and meals), planning (preparing fire documentation and records) and actual firefighting strategy.
Before we’d set up camp, there was no cell service or internet on this lot… but logistics trucked in cell towers and Starlink dishes to get both WiFi and LTE cell service.
In addition to mobile offices, fire camp also includes meals and dining.
Fire days are long. My first meeting is usually at 6 p.m. and my last meeting is usually at 7 or 8 p.m. — which leaves not a lot of time for non-work things. Fire days can often be as long as 16 hours, but luckily, meals are usually provided.
Catering trucks are contracted out to fire camp to provide breakfast, lunch, dinners and snacks to everyone working the fire.
I’ve heard some horror stories about fire food from not only Ryan, but other PIOs in fire.
I went into this assignment expecting the worst: I always bring enough food to be self-sufficient for the first 48 hours of a fire, but I also brought some of my favorite vegetarian backpacking meals and snacks, because sometimes being a vegetarian on a fire is really hard.
However, I was honestly so impressed with this caterer. I had a vegetarian protein at every meal, and the food was actually pretty good.
We even had real eggs, and not powdered eggs, at one point.
You might have noticed… these portions are HUGE. The caterers scoop wildland firefighter-sized portions. While a lot of us who sit at desks all day will ask for “fun-sized,” “happy meals,” “princess portions…”
…we still end up with SO much food.
Meal time goes like this: After washing up, fire personnel walk up the ladder to collect their food from the truck.
Then they proceed into that little tent to the right, which has silverware, a salad bar, sides, desserts, etc.
Then out to grab drinks at the drink trailer.
Then you find a seat in one of the several “dining halls.”
Because crews are out working on their lunches, lunch is handled a little differently. There’s a big truck full of bagged lunches and ice that anyone can stop at during the morning to pick up ice and lunches to go.
I was also impressed with my vegetarian lunches. I got either hummus, string cheese and pita bread with fruit and other various snacks, or black bean patty sandwiches.
The catering at this fire set the bar really high, so I’m sure I’ll experience severe disappointment on my next assignment.
In addition to meal facilities, there are also bathroom facilities.
Banks of portable toilets are set up all around camp, as are a few banks of mobile sinks and mirrors.
There are also mobile showers!
The mobile showers have little dressing rooms, “towels” (large, body-sized paper towels) and another trailer of sinks and mirrors stationed outside.
I didn’t take any photos, but there’s also a supply shop set up. You can borrowx pretty much anything you need from supply, including office kits (paper, notebooks, pens, dry erase markers, staplers, flash drives, etc.), coolers, extra Nomex (fire clothing), sleeping bags and pads, tents, etc.
Which brings us to: sleeping facilities.
Sleeping facilities aren’t really provided as much as they are designated.
I was pointed in the direction of a dirt forest road slightly away from camp, and told I could set up along that road.
Finding a camping spot is an art. There were about 500 personnel assigned to the Pius Fire at its peak, so there were tents and sleeping accommodations set up everywhere. I ended up finding a spot just far enough away from camp that I didn’t have to hear the generators or deal with the light pollution and foot/ vehicle traffic, but close enough that I still had cell service and was a quick walk to the portable toilets. All of us PIOs set up camp together. No boys allowed.
Sleeping is kind of at your own discretion. You can throw a sleeping pad on the ground and cowboy camp, or set up a tent. You can also just pass out in the back of your vehicle, and some fire personnel will sleep in the yurts and mobile offices pictured above.
I brought my tent, but ended up just sleeping in the back of the agency vehicle (a Hyundai Tucson) I drove out to the fire.
I think that covers fire camp.
Other than my first experience at fire camp, the work itself was pretty routine. PIOs came and went. I met up with Tara, our American Sign Language interpreter at camp, and Katy — the lead PIO for the team in charge of the fire — eventually made it in as well.
I did a good amount of work updating InciWeb, working on news releases and doing standard documentation.
One of my favorite parts of most fires is usually trap line work, and this one was no exception. I spent a few days handing out fire information to businesses in Heber-Overgaard, as mentioned above, but also got to spend a day venturing out to campgrounds and day use sites near the fire, where campground hosts and visitors didn’t have cell service and were excited to receive our daily updates.
Kaity and I got to spend a good amount of time driving around forest roads along the rim to meet people and take in the views.
We stopped to take a lunch break at one of the scenic vista points, which reminded me exactly how lucky I am to have this job.
Other than that, it was usual shenanigans. I always love working with the Southwest Area Incident Management Team 1 (Katy and Celeste, the team’s lead PIOs, rescued me from my traumatizing first Type 1 fire here on my forest, and I will gladly pick up assignments with them as much as I can when they ask!) and this time was no exception.
Anyway, time for a shower! Til next fire.
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