Taking the Heat : Cooling Off Hot Spots Is What Hot Shots Do
The ground-pounders are tired.
Exhausted from grubbing through carpets of leaves until their shovels turn over the bare earth needed to form firebreaks, 10 of them lie sprawled around their U.S. Forest Service truck parked atop Mt. Wilson, chain-chewing Starburst candies. They use the sugar and the caffeine from Cokes to sustain them as they track down hot spots still smoldering in the Angeles National Forest.
“It’s good to be able to relax after what’s been going on the last few days,” said 27-year-old Sean McCollough--nicknamed “Big Sean,” to set him apart from smaller teammate Shawn Burke. The only flesh showing through the soot and stubble on his face was his tongue, as he licked soda off his lips.
One of 448 firefighters still on duty in the forest Thursday, Big Sean is a member of the Fulton Hot Shots, a forest service firefighting team based out of Glenville, a town 45 minutes northeast of Bakersfield. The Hot Shots--known by the diapered devil with a pitchfork emblazoned on their caps and T-shirts--have been on the mountain since Wednesday.
Of the 2,901 fighting last week’s blazes in the San Gabriels, more than 2,400 already have left the forest for Laguna or Malibu or have headed home, Forest Service spokeswoman Susie Wood said.
“We’re just picking up hot spots at this point, working with the helicopters,” said Pat Rebello, 27, one of the Hot Shots’ squad bosses who leads this crew of 20 ground-pounders and sawyers. The pounders use hand tools to clear ground for firebreaks and sawyers tote 35-pound fuel packs and 20-pound chain saws.
Rebello added: “We’re committed to this fire, so they’re hanging on to us in case something happens.”
The Hot Shots will not go to the Laguna or Malibu fires because they are not burning on national forest property, Rebello said--and that disappoints many members of his crew.
“I used to want to go home, but now I’d much rather be on another fire,” said Erin Pulcher, 21, before joining in a game of hackeysack with other team members. “I’ve always had a thing for fire. I like putting them out.”
Big Sean echoed Pulcher. “I like the glory of it,” he said. “I like the excitement--riding around in helicopters and having big planes coming over dropping Phos-Chek, that red gooey fire retardant.”
A five-year veteran of forest-fire fighting, Big Sean said he wants to stick with battling blazes as a career. “I want to move up to a city fire department at some point or maybe join the smoke jumpers,” he said. Smoke jumpers parachute into isolated areas to fight blazes.
“I’d really rather be on another fire right now . . . there’s more action and better pay. Just waiting around is pretty boring.”
The firefighters usually make about $8 an hour for normal duty, which includes clearing fallen trees and supervising controlled burns in parks. But disasters such as the Altadena fire offer $2 an hour more in hazard pay and 10% increases for night, holiday and Sunday duty, said Melissa Peterson of the Hot Shots.
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“We’ve each made about $1,000 over the past week,” she said. Peterson, 26, works as a team leader for the Hot Shots, the rank below squad leader Rebello.
“The taxpayers are going to love reading about that,” Pulcher said.
“But they have to understand that it’s very rare that we have to do this,” Peterson answered.
Team member Jack Medina, 23, chimed in, “And we do something nobody else can do. We fight fires in places where only donkeys go.”
Like many of the team members, Medina works part time for the Hot Shots: He serves for 180 days--June to November--each year and then goes back to school at Bakersfield College, where he’s pursuing a two-year degree in forestry.
Although he loves his job, Medina isn’t quite as gung-ho as Big Sean or Pulcher about rushing into a burning grove of trees. “My fiancee is expecting March 8,” he said.
“It’s hard being away, but you got to do what you got to do. And I find I’m more into my job rather than missing them most of the time,” he said.
The Hot Shots discount the danger from the fires--falling boulders are the biggest hazard in their job, because most of their firefighting takes place on steep hillsides or down in ravines. “Just climbing around this damn mountain has been the hardest thing about this fire,” Medina said.
Their biggest concern has probably been breakfast--they get hot showers every night, thanks to tractor-trailers made into portable showers at their base camp at Oak Grove Park across from La Canada High School.
“But they haven’t figured out how to cook eggs yet,” said Mark Garretson, 22.
“They put too much water into the powdered eggs. Dinner’s good, though,” he said as he stuck a pinch of chewing tobacco between his lip and gum.
For obvious reasons, Big Sean added after a few dry coughs, “Nobody smokes.”
Hot Line for Fire Victims
Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena is offering a free hot line for people affected by Southern California’s wildfires.
Mental health professionals will staff the hot line from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. until Nov. 10. Call: (800) 4HELP44.
Las Encinas is a mental health hospital that opened in 1904.