NFPA Journal - Summer 2022 - 39

with the wildfire effort, though, and the
following summer I landed a wildfire
job with the Washington State Department
of Natural Resources (DNR). I
worked as a crewmember on what was
known as a type five engine, an initial
attack apparatus with a three-person
crew. That was the summer I learned
the basics of wildland firefighting: how
to dig line, take weather, deploy a hose
lay, and whatever else my crew needed
me to do. It was also my first close-up
exposure to the damage a wildfire can
inflict on homes and property. One of
our assignments that summer included
a couple of weeks mopping up on a fire
outside a small town in eastern Washington,
cleaning up smoldering stumps
and hot spots around homes. As I'd suspected
when I was a kid watching the
firefighting aircraft pass over McCall,
wildfire was in fact a calling. I loved it,
and I was hooked.
Over the next decade, I spent eight
seasons-typically June through September,
though sometimes longer-as
a firefighter with the Washington State
DNR, progressing from a basic firefighter
to a qualified engine boss, and
was an engine lead my last five seasons.
I worked a lot of different types of fires,
from small, escaped campfires in the
forests to large wildland incidents that
threatened homes and communities.
Some of the assignments were low-key,
with easy conditions and straightforward
tasks. Others were more complex
and involved the protection of homes
in areas I didn't necessarily want to
drive into, landscapes defined by steep
terrain and narrow roads.
One of those occurred in 2012, at the
Table Mountain Fire in central Washington.
It was October and the fire
had been going for weeks, burning on
steep hillsides through stands of trees
already weakened by insect damage.
Our operations were an hour's drive
from base camp on narrow dirt roads. I
was an acting engine crew boss, part of
a strike team of five engines, and those
crews became a hand crew of about 15
firefighters. We worked the night shift-
we were never able to see the terrain
in daylight. The first couple of nights
were spent protecting structures and
conducting cleanup activities. But the
longer we were there, the worse it began
to feel. The fire would burn during the
day, with the potential for strong winds
at night and the added potential of damaged,
unhealthy trees falling on us. One
night, the crew was scoping out the fire
line, and I could tell it wasn't right-if
the winds shifted in
a certain way, the
fire could suddenly
be trouble, and we
didn't have a lot of
options to get out
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if fire conditions changed. The strike
team leader, other crew bosses, and I
discussed our options that night, with a
focus on keeping our crews safe. We all
got back to camp safely, but I remember
thinking, " Why are we here? What good
is this doing? "
I'd already been thinking of other
ways I could be involved with wildfire,
aside from suppression efforts, when
CONFERENCE
SESSIONS
Fire in the Wildland/Urban
Interface: Identifying and
Mitigating the Growing Threat
to Single-Family Homes
Monday, June 6, 10:30-11:30 a.m.
Birgitte Messerschmidt and
Michele Steinberg, NFPA; Simona
Dossi, Imperial College London
Weighing Western Wildfire
Preparedness: Code Use,
Community Engagement,
and Fire Response
Tuesday, June 7, 3:15-4:15 p.m.
Anne Cope, IBHS; Brad Bain,
Verisk; Birgitte Messerschmidt
and Michele Steinberg, NFPA
Ending Wildfire Destruction with
Sound Policy
Wednesday, June 8, 10:30 a.m.-
noon
Meghan Housewright, Michele
Steinberg, Ray Bizal, and Seth
Statler, NFPA
Wildfire Risk in the Northeast:
Helping Local Fire Departments
Respond to an Emerging Threat
Wednesday, June 8, 2-3 p.m.
David Celino, Mass. DCR; Justin
Green, Loudon County, Virginia;
Michele Steinberg, NFPA
Yarnell Hill occurred. That was the
2013 wildfire in Arizona that resulted
in the deaths of 19 firefighters, and
the event sent shock waves through
the nation's wildfire community. My
first response when I heard of Yarnell
was disbelief that something so
catastrophic could happen. My next
response was anger-a lot of anger.
And a lot of familiar questions: Why
were they there? What was the plan?
Why do we put people into situations
like that? It took a while for the lessons
of that incident to emerge, but even
then it was very hard for anyone who
wasn't there to truly understand what
had occurred or to pass judgment on
the decisions that had been made.
There have been incidents since Yarnell
that have been more of the same, and
it's extremely frustrating to witness.
Yarnell Hill felt like the final nudge
to give me the motivation to move on
from conventional wildland firefighting.
I still saw firefighting as vitally
important, but I wanted to move to a
role that helped protect people, homes,
and communities ahead of a fire so we
didn't have to put firefighters in that
position to begin with.
My opportunity came in 2014, when
I moved into a position in the wildfire
division of Washington's DNR-just
like my grandfather had. I managed
agreements with suppression resources
to support large wildfire response,
worked in the state coordination center
helping move resources to where they
were needed, and went on assignments
to local dispatch centers. I took phone
calls from scared and hurting residents
who were losing their homes to wildfire
as we spoke-it was exhausting and
heartbreaking work. The two years in
that position were some of the busiest
of my career, with both years experiencing
record-breaking fires in the state in
terms of size and damage.
As a result of Washington's then-unprecedented
wildfires of 2015, a new
position was created to manage state
funds that would help communities
complete fire-safe actions on the ground
and create new Firewise communities
throughout the state. It sounded even
closer to how I wanted to be involved
in wildfire, and I was thrilled when I
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NFPA Journal - Summer 2022

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