Battling Western Fires Excites Some

Aug. 23, 2000 -- As the devastating wildfires in the West rage on, firefighters dedicated to extinguishing the flames continue their effort. The work is dangerous, but some like the excitement, and the pay.

Hot Shots is a group of professional firefighters that travels as a 20-person crew. They train, work, and live together for five months a year, fighting wildfires in areas of the nation in need of additional manpower.

The men and women of the Hot Shots are on the front lines in severely scorched Montana, hiking into fires, finding an open road and driving in, or being dropped in by a helicopter.

“For myself, personally, it’s the need for being outdoors and experiencing the adrenaline of fire itself,” said Tim Laroche, a Hot Shot from Missoula, Mont. “It seems like most people that are in fire enjoy the outdoors and are happy to be out there. Being in the office makes you cringe a little bit.”

The work is lengthy and dangerous, but the pay can sometimes add up.

“It can be pretty good ... based on overtime. We get hazard pay when we are on the firelines. Hazard pay is a 25 percent increase for your pay that day,” Laroche said.

Approximately 25,000 people are dedicated to the firefighting effort each day, including those on the fire lines as well as support workers and managers. There are at least 1,700 military personnel and 1,800 National Guard members involved.

Long Days for Firefighters

Generally, firefighters battling the blazes work 12-hour days. They are allowed to work 14 consecutive days, and then they must have at least two days of rest.

Three-year Hot Shots veteran Charles Savoia, who likes the adventure of firefighting and traveling the countryside, says his shifts have been varying from 12 to 18 hours.

“I’m not sure how I do it. You just do it...it’s something you do and then you come back, sleep and go back out and do it again,” Savoia said.

Firefighters get paid overtime, a time-and-a-half rate, for any hours they work beyond an eight-hour shift. The military personnel get their regular pay.

Most of the firefighters are from government agencies, but there are others, like Hot Shots, pitching in as well.

“The [other] firefighters are mostly seasonal, although some do work the year. We get a lot of students, people who work part-time, teachers,” said Lorraine Beck, Public Affairs Specialist with the Bureau of Land Management.

This year, the demand for those extra workers is greater than ever.

Wildfires have burned more than 5 million acres this year in the nation’s worst fire season in decades. In addition to the size of the blazes, the National Interagency Fire Center, which organizes and allocates resources to battle wildfires that cross Federal, state, and local lines, is facing the challenge of regions burning at the same time of year.

“It’s unusual for the South to be burning this time of year. Usually the time frame is more balanced out over the year. We are strapped to get crews,” Fire Information Officer Roberta D’Amico said.

The fire center says they are at “level five” status, which means that all of the geographic units are actively engaged in fire, resulting in the need for the additional resources to work these long hours.

Who’s Picking up the Tab?

All those extra hours add up to a pretty hefty price tag. The rough estimate by the federal Bureau of Land Management is that it’s costing $15 million a day.

While states have some money allocated to fighting fires, they mainly rely on the federal government.

For the 2000 fiscal year, the Department of Interior was allocated $290 million in fire funding. The federal agencies of Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service divided that $290 million into two parts: $162 million for fire preparedness, which includes training and other prevention efforts, and $128 million for fire suppression.

In June, the Department of Interior got an additional $250 million from Congress in emergency funding.

Beck says if the current trend of the firefighting effort continues, the Department of Interior will have to request more money, but the fire suppression fund is not completely tapped out yet.

Tim Ahern with the Department of Interior says all of the additional funding allocated to the Department for firefighting efforts is new money from Congress, and not taken from another agency.