OCTOBER 15, 2003 SMOKE SIGNALS
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Most of the Grand Ronde team are "(Class) B
fallers," said Kuust, meaning they are certified
to cut down trees two feet across, and the crew
willingly shifted gears time and again through
out the fire's life, doing whatever job was re
quired at the moment.
Over the course of the fire, crew members also
filled in as strike team leader, task force leader
and dozer boss, said Wakeland.
"I'm often quick to write letters when a crew is
not doing its job, but not this crew," said Poet.
"I'd have them back any time I can get them."
He called them his "utility crew."
Though it is easy and tempting and often ac
curate to describe danger as the business of these
and all the young men and women who fight
our nation's forest fires, Shane Harmon said that
any firefighter who finds himself in trouble in a
fire is doing something wrong. The protocol is
very specific and includes measures to keep
firefighters safe,
even as they
sometimes find
themselves face to
face with a "wall of
flames," in the
words of crew
member Chuck
Chapin.
Working with the Grand Ronde crew for part
of this season was 32-year-old Lew Mendez, In
cident Commander Trainee for this fire, work
ing in the field while Poet handled the overall
organizing responsibilities.
An employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
Mendez also is Assistant Superintendent of the
Mescalero Hot Shot crew, a man near the top of
the forest firefighting pecking order. He is a
'smoke jumper,' meaning that he parachutes into
fires, and said that while fighting a fire in Wash
ington last summer, he "lived on wild grouse and
fish for 11 days." He grabbed a pack of
Winterfresh gum and held it up. "I used this for
bait," he said.
In describing his respect for forest fires, he re
called one of his earliest experiences. He was
looking at a fire a safe distance off and think-
Team Effort When the Clark Fire was all but out, this Grand Ronde Crew along with Incident Commander
Trainee Lew Mendez, stuck around for the less-than-dramatic but vitally important rehabilitation work. Those
pictured included, from left, top row: Mendez, Shane Harmon, Jeff Kuust, Jennifer Orlowski Robertson, Chuck
Chapin; bottom row: Lawney Havranek, Oscar Frias, Craig Van Scoyk and Tribal member and Natural Resources
Manager Pete Wakeland.
ing, "Oh my God. You can feel the heat through
your clothes."
Mendez is a Mescalero Apache Indian from
New Mexico, and has worked before with mem
bers of Grand Ronde crews "We were down
on their reservation in 1997," said Wakeland,
and worked together last year on the Carizzo
Mountain Fire in Arizona and it turns out
that the closeness of this community is one of
the things that makes fighting forest fires so
gratifying.
"The fire community is really
large," said Wakeland, "but you see
faces you know 'Hey, I know
you!'"
Crew member Jennifer Orlowski
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member Lynn "Bear" Robertson, also L
a veteran forest firefighter, at the
Oakridge Fire in 2001. This trip, Bear stayed
home with their baby.
To hear Robertson tell it, however, her work
in the forest might as well be on a cruise ship.
"It's a great job," she said. "You meet different
people. You go different places." Crew mem
bers also have the opportunity to learn and grow.
This was her first time on an engine crew, for
example.
Harmon and Orvie Danzuka, a NR Forester,
earned their engine-boss certifications this year,
joining six others in the Grand Ronde crew with
this certificate.
Although the firefighters this time encoun
tered cougar, bear and poison oak, the memo
rable face-offs came courtesy of hornets and
bees. "I don't know how many bee stings I got,"
said Jeff Kuust.
The worst of the forest's ills, however, was nei
ther plant nor animal, but bad attitude. "You
either love (the work) or you hate it," said Kuust.
The work is demanding and "we're all think
ing the same thing," said Wakeland. "Griping
and whining will spread through a crew like can
cer. It only takes one person to bring a crew
down. Of course, the other way, it only takes
one person to motivate us."
"It's a mental challenge in a
way," said Robertson. "Some
times it's physically strenuous,
hiking 1,000 feet vertically,
packing hoes and polaskis and
35-pound saws, day in and
day out."
"We're down to twelve-and-half-hour
days," said Harmon.
"We were doing fifteens."
"It wears on you. It's a chal
lenge," he added, "but there's
a sensation of being part of
something good. No other job
is like it, regardless of pay."
Fighting fires throughout
Oregon is not only good work on its own, but
also keeps the crew in shape for potential fires
at home, said Wakeland. "We (Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde) have 10,000 acres (of
our own) to protect. This work challenges you to
think very quickly. You got to figure how you're
going to do it, and mitigate for safety concerns.
The worst thing that can happen is to get some
body hurt."
The best, he said, is that "somebody will come
by and say, 'Wow, you got a lot done,' or when
they look at the job ahead of you and say, 'Those
poor bastards.'"
When Smoke Signals staffers arrived for this
story, the crew had done the rehabilitation work
for two to three miles. They had 15 miles to go.
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