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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018
Unique firefighting crew has
common trait: Military service
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
SALEM — After being
in firefights in Afghanistan
and Iraq, members of one of
America’s newest elite wild-
fire crews are tasked with
fighting fires in rugged coun-
try back home.
On the U.S. Bureau of
Land Management’s only
hotshot crew focused on
recruiting veterans, mem-
bers have traded assault rifles
and other weapons of war for
chain saws and shovels.
But, like in the military,
they have camaraderie, struc-
ture and chain of command.
And the occasional adrena-
line rush.
“Being in a firefight is
way different than being in
a wildland fire, but both are
mentally taxing,” said Chris
Schott, who served two
tours in Afghanistan with the
Army’s 7th Special Forces
Group. “In a wildland fire,
no one’s shooting at you, but
conditions can go favorable
to unfavorable very quickly.”
The Lakeview Veterans
Interagency Hotshot Crew,
based in Klamath Falls,
received its hotshot certifica-
tion after rigorous training and
testing, the Bureau of Land
Management announced last
week. It’s now among 112
elite U.S. wildland firefight-
ing teams and the only target-
ing veterans for recruitment,
the agency said.
Crew
superintendent
Michael McGirr said he
and other managers took
then-President
Barack
Obama’s initiative to hire vet-
erans to heart.
“We felt it was important
for them to transition back
home,” McGirr said.
Their maturity and ability
to follow and lead are benefits
that quickly became apparent
when the crew started operat-
ing in 2012 as a lower-clas-
sification unit, McGirr said.
Their military experience
also means they’re used to
enduring tough missions.
“It’s a lot of arduous hik-
ing in nasty terrain,” McGirr
said. “The steeper the terrain,
that’s usually the ground hot-
shots are on.”
Kenn Boles, a member
of the crew since 2012 who
did three tours in Iraq as a
Marine, agreed that veter-
ans can withstand the intense
work.
“You’re working hard,
sweating; the fire doesn’t stop
because of those things,” he
said. “It’s like in combat —
just because you’re hungry,
tired and thirsty doesn’t mean
the firefight stops.”
The crew is on leave and
Kari Greer/BLM/USDA Forest Service
Members of a fire crew out of Lakeview work on the Cougar Creek Fire in August in central Washington state.
Christopher Schott
Christopher Schott
Christopher Schott in 2007 in northern Kandahar Prov-
ince, in Afghanistan.
hasn’t been battling the recent
deadly wildfires in California.
Of the 25 positions on the
crew, 17 are filled by veter-
ans, McGirr said. There are
three additional openings,
and McGirr said he wants to
recruit female veterans, too.
Schott, the Army veteran,
said the crew felt they had the
potential to achieve elite hot-
shot status after fighting fires
in 2015, including one in Cra-
ter Lake National Park that
they almost had contained
when winds picked up and
changed direction, pushing
the flames behind them.
They worked two weeks
in a row, digging fire lines
and doing prescribed burns to
deprive the fire of fuel. After
three days off, they worked
another two weeks straight.
“After that, we thought
we could be the first veterans
hotshot crew in the nation,”
Schott said.
The crew usually works
for nine months, with three
months off.
“We spend more time
together than with our fami-
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in action. It was his best
friend.
“Myself, I was in denial
for quite a long time about
my PTSD,” Schott said, add-
ing that joining the crew and
opening up to other veterans
“helped me get my life back
on track and where it needs
to be.”
The Bureau of Land Man-
agement is proud of the crew
and efforts to develop a work-
force of veterans, said Jef-
frey Fedrizzi, agency deputy
director for fire and aviation.
He said the men attain-
ing hotshot status “demon-
strates the exemplary quality
and performance ingrained in
this crew.”
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L
lies,” McGirr said. “It’s a gru-
eling pace. We eat together,
sleep together.”
That creates a camarade-
rie that allows the veterans
to share their wartime experi-
ences with those who under-
stand what they endured.
Boles lost a close friend a
week after he left Iraq. That
was the biggest contributor
to post-traumatic stress disor-
der that hit him later, he said,
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ASTORIAN
A
Schott works in Utah with
a firefighting crew out of
Lakeview.
describing it as “a lot of sur-
vivor’s guilt.” The veterans
have each other’s backs when
PTSD issues arise, acting as a
support group.
“Instead of bottling it up,
we’re really receptive to hear-
ing people’s stories and prob-
lems,” said Boles, who was
in the invasion of Iraq and in
heavy fighting in Fallujah and
Ramadi.
Schott, who served in
Afghanistan’s Urozgan Prov-
ince north of Kandahar, said,
“A lot of times you think, this
can’t get any worse. And yet
you made it through.”
He was in an operations
center when he heard radio
traffic about someone killed
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