Having been a firefighter in a large city, I find it hard to imagine what it’s like to fight the huge forest fires now burning in rural California. We had some bad fires in my day but they never went into the next day. You always had time to recoup and be ready for the next one. There are Firefighters in those forest areas that have been on the fire lines for months. Men and women with families and friends and all they want, is to go home and be with them, if only for a few days. But the fire seasons come earlier every year and last longer and the troops are stretched thin.
You sit on the top of a ridge with someone’s precious home behind you and you watch the fire coming up the hill at you. You have a hose line fogged out in front of you but the heat coming up the hill is like opening the door to a blast furnace and it hits you before the actual flames, which are farther away then you can possibly squirt water to douse them. Somewhere around 500 degrees the house behind you will combust on its own, even if you yourself can stick it out. Then all you can do with a fire in front of you, and one in back of you, is run for your life. It happens a lot.
The ambient temperature is over ninety degrees, sometimes close to a hundred and that’s away from the main fire. You wear Nomex hoods, helmets and fire retardant gear for protection but there is a point when they break down too and then you can get third degree burns right through your gear. But even without the fire being there, its very hot with all of that gear on. Did I tell you its over ninety degrees outside? You sweat profusely and you can’t drink enough water. If the fire get’s by you, you have to retreat and make another stand. There’s no calling time out.
The air around you is not safe to breath but it’s all you have to breath, so you breath it. It’s full of smoke and soot particles so small they get into your lungs and stay there. There are chemicals burning, plastics and metals, pesticides and herbicides along with the brush, trees and homes. You try and stay up wind but at some point there is no upwind and you just breathe it or suffocate. If you live to get a pension someday there is a good chance you will be sick a lot with lung disease or cancer and by the way, you have to pay your own medical bills. There are no special hospitals for firefighters and police officers supported by the government.
I don’t tell you this for empathy. Most firefighters chose their profession and they’re proud of it. They feel that all of this goes with the territory. When they’re not fighting fires, they are the first responders who come to help you when you are sick and hurt. They cut people from car wrecks, rescue them from mountaintops and search the river bottoms and lakes for drowning victims. All life is sacred to them, people and animals. They see things they wish their eyes could unsee but somehow know those sights are locked in their minds, for the rest of their life.
Firefighters are proud people and they are proudest when their sons and daughters take up the cause. But if the kids say, “That’s not for me.” They understand. If you know a firefighter or a police officer tell them thanks. They don’t hear it often.
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