It’s Their Baptism of Fire : 650 Troops Dig In to Battle Burning Forests

Hundreds of troops from the U.S. Army’s rapid deployment forces were moving out Sunday night to face their first enemy, but they were going by bus, leaving their weapons behind and under orders to run if things get too hot.

After a five-hour, crash course in firefighting, about 650 soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division were being pressed into action to battle 12,000 acres of burning forest in Oregon.

“We took an oath to defend our country against both foreign and domestic enemies, and now we’re defending it domestically,” said Pvt. Everette Smith, 21, of the division’s “Wolfhounds” platoon, whose members have been in the Army just four months.

Some soldiers viewed the mission as an annoying duty, since it ruined a four-day holiday at Ft. Ord. Others saw it as a chance to fulfill boyhood dreams of being firefighters.

‘An Experience’

“I can’t wait to go,” one soldier confided to a buddy, his eyes shining. “This is going to be an experience.”

Before piling into buses Sunday for the 12-hour drive to Cave Junction, Ore., the foot soldiers spent Saturday night watching fire videos and listening to advice from instructors sent by the Boise Interagency Fire Center, the government’s firefighting hub.

The making of a firefighter usually takes a minimum of 32 hours’ training. But with the West’s worst firestorm in a decade still raging out of control, there was little time for formalities.

No practice fires were set and no evacuations were staged. The soldiers didn’t have a chance to try out hoses or the dozen or so different shovels, axes and picks used on a fire line. Instead, an instructor mapped a hasty, imaginary trail on the recreation room’s linoleum floor.

Safety Stressed

“Our main purpose is to teach you safety,” said Ron Phernetton, a fire management officer sent to the Monterey base from his post at Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.

The tips ranged from the obvious--”Never turn your back on a falling tree”--to the not-so-obvious--always wear cotton underwear to a fire because polyester melts to your skin.

The only hands-on experience the soldiers got at Ft. Ord was in deploying fire shelters, the fiberglass and aluminum pup tents that firefighters use as a last resort when trapped by flames.

“Is this normally a one-use item?” a soldier in the back of the room wondered.

Yes, he was told, and be sure to stay inside even if you’re burning, hopefully lying face down with your feet facing the fire.

The troops suffered their first casualty even before leaving Ft. Ord when a private practicing with a fire shelter hit the ground and cut his hand on a piece of broken glass.

Course Was Inadequate

The instructors were worried enough about some soldiers’ fire shelter fumbling to schedule a remedial class the next morning.

Phernetton readily admitted after an evening of lecturing the soldiers that the course was inadequate.

“But a person is never ready to fight fire, no matter how much experience they have,” he said. “Fire can always do something you don’t expect it to.”

Phernetton noted that the soldiers already were experts at many facets of firefighting--first aid, organization, discipline and transportation.

“We’re probably short-changing them eight or nine hours,” he said, adding that he wished there was time to tell the troops more about weather and fire behavior.

Phernetton said the instructors will serve as crew bosses for the soldiers on the fire line.

“They will not be involved in initial attack, hot-line situations,” he said.

‘I’m a City Boy’

Pvt. Scott Johnson, a 19-year-old Detroit native, has never seen a forest, much less a burning one.

“I’m a city boy,” he shrugged.

“The only time I came close to a fire was in my hometown on Devil’s Night,” Johnson said, recalling Halloween riots there a few years ago.

Johnson already had his battle strategy planned if the enemy in Oregon advances.

“That’s when I start using my legs,” he said. “Running.”

The 10,700-soldier 7th Infantry Division fielded a similar emergency request to fight fires in 1985, but never got a chance to use the training.

This batch of soldiers is packing duffel bags and rucksacks for a 10-day stay.

Air Force C-141s were being used to ferry 63 Army vehicles to Oregon, including a forklift.

“Of course, we won’t have any weapons or bayonets,” said 2nd Lt. Peter Bechtel, leader of the Wolfhound platoon.

Packed Sneakers

Bechtel made his men pack sneakers for some forest jogging to make up for missing a fitness regimen that usually includes a 12-hour road march once a week with 60 pounds of gear.

Although the fire agency has promised to feed them, the troops are taking their own rations just in case.

“They’re pretty good, really,” Johnson said. “You even get dehydrated pears.”

The division hasn’t seen action since the Korean conflict, Ft. Ord spokesman Jim Davis said, but the troops have some crisis experience.

“We helped out in the Big Sur mud slides,” Davis said, “and our helicopters retrieve motorists from Monterey Bay quite frequently.”

Pvt. Beny Ruiz, 20, remembered watching a block of Harlem burn when he was a boy growing up in New York City.

“It took out the whole block, even a fire station,” he said. Ruiz watched from his bedroom window with binoculars.

“My parents wouldn’t let me go out,” he said. He hasn’t told them about his Oregon mission yet.

Past Experience

Pvt. Smith said his experience extended to “my own fires I set when I was little.” He hastily added that he had been burning garbage in his hometown of Sandusky, Mich., and still thinks he was not responsible for a small brush fire that resulted.

“I was trying to stomp it out but my feet weren’t big enough,” he said.

Smith’s grandfather was an assistant fire chief and would sometimes let his grandson come watch a fire.

“At one time, I thought about being a firefighter,” Smith said, “but I joined the Army instead.”