The Willow Fire in Leadville, Colorado

My second fire assignment this summer was the Willow Fire in Leadville, Colo.

It seems kind of crazy since this is my sixth season in the wildfire/ incident management realm, but this was somehow actually my first fire assignment outside the state of Arizona.

I’ve been all over the place lately with house/ wedding/ exchange student, so I honestly can’t remember if I’ve written at length about my day job lately.

Also, bear with me here. I went from Pocket Fire to Willow Fire to Pocket Fire and worked over a month straight, so my two remaining brain cells are a bit fried right now.

I think I last left off with a quick note about opening my Complex-level Public Information Officer (PIO) task book at the start of last summer.

To make a long story short, after two great assignments last year working with Southwest Area Incident Management Team 4 — the Dragon Bravo Fire and the Bronco/ Indian Creek fires — I decided to roster with SWAIMT4 at the request of one of the team’s incident commanders.

Rostering essentially means I’m committed to that team. I’m automatically included on every team assignment (if I can make it) and I’m considered a regular.

I also get a cool name tag.

I can still head out with other incident management teams (like I did during the Pocket Fire on my home forest, and like I’m continuing to do with my local Type 3 team), but Team 4 is my priority for assignments.

So, when the team got an order to the Willow Fire (while I was on the Pocket Fire, mind you), I was able to demobilize, take a quick reset day, and then drive out to Leadville to join my team for a two-week assignment.

I hadn’t been to Colorado since my and Ryan’s quick weekend trip to Durango a few years ago.

It was about a 10-hour drive from Flagstaff to Leadville — and while the last two hours of the drive were done in complet darkness — the first eight hours of the drive were stunning.

I arrived in Leadville while things were still getting set up, and after one night in a hotel and a few hours working out of a local fire station, the whole team relocated south to Buena Vista, where we had our Incident Command Post (ICP) set up at the local middle/high school.

I got my tent set up in an indoor sports practice facility, which was home for the two weeks of my assignment.

I was a little nervous about this fire being my first outside the state of Arizona — but as it turns out, a division is a division no matter where you’re at.

The fuel types were different, the roads were unfamiliar and the reporters were new, but I guess wildfire really is a universal language.

I was able to do a good number of things during my two week assignment.

A few of us organized a media escort out to the incident so a local newspaper reporter and a documentary filmmaker could watch firefighters work to protect the local fish hatchery, and visit the airport to learn more about aerial operations.

I lucked out last year and somehow had the Fourth of July off work, but that was not the case this year. However, our finance section was nice enough to decorate their classroom and hand out popsicles during our nation’s 250th anniversary… which I celebrated with a 16-hour work shift while things were literally burning around me.

There’s a greater message in there, I think.

I’ve worked out of schools on incidents a few times before, but this was my first time camping at a school during an incident.

We were all wedged pretty closely together (don’t let the photo of my tent fool you, the sports dome was packed after I took that photo) but it’s not bad as long as people are respectful and you have good earplugs.

One of the resources assigned to the Willow Fire was a bagpiper, and he played the bagpipes every night for a bit around dinner time, which was really cool.

The IMT also created this adorable pet wall, where everyone tacked up photos of their pets back home. Ochi made an appearance, of course.

I’m also two-for-two this summer on caterers that didn’t suck! We had Yellowstone Kelly’s this time around, and they were pretty damn good. I always appreciate real vegetarian options (like a lentil-and-farro “meat”loaf) instead of just, like, an ear of corn or a plate of sides without meat.

At one point, the caterer offered maple bacon doughnuts for breakfast, and one of the PIOs took it upon himself to make a maple bacon doughnut maple bacon sandwich.

I was also able to leave fire camp a few times, which was great! Because Buena Vista’s middle-and-high-school was so close to downtown, I made it out a few times for a jog around town and down to the Arkansas River.

It’s really easy to get into the habit of completely neglecting self-care on a fire assignment. It becomes routine to wake up at 5:30 a.m., attend morning briefing, get breakfast, and schlep from meeting to computer to meeting to computer to meeting to computer until 9 p.m. — so I was honestly pretty proud of myself for making time every other day to get up and either go for a long walk into town, or (if it was a shower day and I could get the timing right), to go for a run on some of the nearby trails.

While there’s always a caterer set up at fire camp (and there are definitely days where I’m so slammed with work that I’m barely able to scarf down a paper plate of food at my desk) we were also lucky enough to have a few afternoons or evenings we could squeeze in dinner or lunch at one of Buena Vista’s restaurants — which is cool because I love supporting local businesses.

I was able to try just a few restaurants — including Crave BV, Simple Eatery, Eddyline Restaurant, Cool River Cafe and Louie’s Ice Cream Shop… which we visited multiple times for huckleberry milkshakes.

I also had an afternoon right before I went home to finally check out some of the downtown shops in Buena Vista and buy my obligatory local stickers that I slap on my PIO kit‘s Pelican case.

While I spent most of my assignment in Buena Vista, I did have a chance to actually see downtown Leadville one afternoon while I was in town for work.

I managed to snag myself a Melly – the company was so sweet, and was offering free hoodies to all the incident personnel.

I happily paid for mine — wildfires decimate local economies enough, and I try to do what I can to offset that by shopping locally and supporting independent businesses while I’m out on assignments — but I was touched by the really sweet gesture.

Overall, it was a great assignment. I learned a lot, and worked with people I really enjoy working with.

Fire assignments mean you’re spending, like, every waking hour for two straight weeks with the same small group of people. Like I mentioned above, you’re even all sleeping right next to each other.

The whole thing works out a lot better if you enjoy working with the people you’re working with.

Aside from getting to know my team — both the PIOs and the rest of the IMT functions — better, I was also able to finish my PIOC task book.

So, now I have one more class to take (and pass) before I can officially get signed off as a qualified complex-level PIO.

After my 14 days on the Willow Fire, we transitioned command of the fire to California Interagency Incident Management Team 8, and I packed up and went home (aka: back to the Pocket Fire).

Fire season is always a bit of a double-edged sword. Nobody really wants a natural disaster, right? I certainly don’t. But I try to remind myself that — rather than sitting on my hands wishing I could help — I at least get to use my skill set to serve local communities.