On a brisk Saturday morning at 7 a.m., dozens of people gathered around a few maps and a wooden stage in the middle of the Ennis Fairgrounds. The men and women gripped steaming cups of coffee, shielded from the cold by their hoodies and thick cargo pants. After a brief introduction, their leader got up on the stage and led the Pledge of Allegiance. After the final stanza, the Southern California Type II crew’s commander, Mike Wakoski, yelled “Play ball!” to kick off the day’s briefing and following work on the Monument and Wigwam wildfires.
Wakoski has been an Incident Commander for over 20 years. As commander, he oversees his team’s little wildfire cities that pop up for weeks at a time all over the country. These cities provide management expertise and resources needed to minimize the negative impacts of wildfire on local communities. Wakoski said a lot about fighting wildland fire has changed over the years —seasons are getting longer and more taxing on fire personnel and their families, technology keeps expanding the crew’s planning capabilities and strategies. Wakoski also said a lot has stayed the same.
“We run in when everyone else runs out. For two to three weeks, these bases are our homes. These people are our family,” Wakoski said.
Monument and Wigwam Incident Command Post, Ennis Fairgrounds
On Aug. 15, Wakoski’s team took management control of the Monument and Wigwam fires, both burning in the Gravelly Range south of Ennis at about 9,000 feet. According to one of the team’s public information officers, Jay Nichols, their Type II management team gets called in when a wildfire reaches a certain risk level. The risk level determines how the fire is managed. Nichols explains that the more values or assets become at risk, the greater management and more resources are assigned.
For example, when a wildfire is first detected, a Type V or Type IV crew is generally involved in the “initial attack” of the fire. These crews don’t have special management personnel or many resources, and are not assigned for very long. As the fire grows in complexity and size, so do the crew and team types. Type III crews are assigned as extended initial attack groups, followed by Type II crews that come with a separate management team and base camp, and lastly by Type I crews, usually more specialized and assigned to very large, complex wildfires. All of these crews and their management teams are a part of an interagency, national Incident Command System.
The California-based Type II management team had about 57 people running the Ennis Fairgrounds base, along with various firefighting crews. A circle of tan wall tents surrounded the briefing area, each labeled with titles of the experts working within. The first Nichols visited was labeled “FBAN/IMETS.” Inside, the fire behavior analysts and an incident meteorologist were working together to determine the growth potential for Monument and Wigwam.
Nichols first greeted Oscar Vargas, a fire behavior analyst trainee. Vargas has been running short term analyses on the Monument and Wigwam fires. As part of his analysis, Vargas uses on the ground observations, weather forecasts, satellite imagery and climate, vegetation and terrain data to run model scenarios. These scenarios show how fire could spread given current conditions, which Vargas then interprets and relays to the fire fighters on the line.
To be a fire behavior analyst, Vargas must complete a task book, which could take several years. Before his analyst training, Vargas worked as a hotshot for 15 years.
“I’ve done a lot of firefighting and was ready to try something new. I want to provide quality information for firefighters to give them a sharper decision-making edge while they’re on the line,” Vargas said.
To provide this quality information, Vargas works closely with both the long term fire behavior analyst, who uses the same data and similar models to predict spread over a longer period of time, and the incident meteorologist. Bob Nester was the meteorologist assigned to Monument and Wigwam. He works for the National Weather Service, which has about 70 meteorologists qualified to work within the incident command system. Nester has been an incident meteorologist for 23 years.
“This is the most rewarding part of my job,” Nester said. “When I’m working from the office, I don’t always know how people are taking my weather updates. Here my weather briefs help support decision-making on the spot.”
Nester said his main responsibility is to keep track of the most current weather forecasts through weather stations set up within the fire area and satellite data. He uses the forecasts to inform managers of conditions that could trigger fire activity. Wind is usually the greatest factor, Nester said.
Not only does Nester and Vargas’ forecasting help in fire management decision-making — it also helps protect firefighters from dangerous situations.
Doug Elliott was the safety officer for Monument and Wigwam. He used weather and fire behavior forecasts to determine whether or not it was safe for firefighters to be working out on the line, outside of the risks posed by the fire itself.
“There’s a lot more out there besides the fire that could hurt and kill you,” Elliott said.
Safety is the number one priority for every management team, Elliott said. Each management section has its own expertise, and the team relies on every section to look out for each other. When Elliott is assigned to a wildfire, he says he meets with the local forest’s safety officer to learn more about the area. Elliott asks about things like historical fatalities, the local officer’s biggest safety concerns and the resources used in the area to start developing a safety plan.
On the Monument and Wigwam fires, Elliott said there were a few unique safety concerns he had to address: grizzly bear and moose encounters.
“Most of the firefighters here are from southern California. There hasn’t been a grizzly bear down there in over 100 years,” Elliott said.
Each region often comes with different unique safety risks, which Elliott has to prepare for, along with the normal side effects of fatigue, Elliott said. However, the number one killer of fire personnel isn’t on the fire line or in camp. Most deaths happen on the drives to and from the fire.
“We can’t get rid of the risks. If we were not willing to risk, we wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning,” Elliott said.
Goldstone and Beaver Creek Incident Command Post, Private land near Jackson
About two hours west, a similar tent city is set up on a ranch near Jackson. Instead of a circle, the tan yurts form a “main street” of management for the Goldstone and Beaver Creek fires.
Andrea Chavez, a public information officer trainee, made her way up the main drag. She is responsible for communicating with every management group to provide the public with the most thorough, up-to-date fire information. Some days she works from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
At the top edge of camp, Chavez listened in on an air operations briefing. Helicopters have helped managers map the Goldstone and Beaver Creek fires, Chavez said, and were instrumental in the initial attack efforts.
In a field just above the briefing, Johnny Whiteshirt shows off one of the air base's three helicopters, a Type II A-star. Whiteshirt is with the Crow Agency’s helitack crew. Helitack crews can help assess and survey fires, rappel down within fire areas to build fire defense lines and quickly transport resources. Whiteshirt said the Type II helicopter can’t carry as much as larger, Type I helicopters, but works well for surveying.
Whiteshirt joined Crow Helitack last year. He has worked on wildfire hand and engine crews for over 10 years.
“All firefighting is the same, we all have the same job. How we get there is the only difference,” Whiteshirt said.
Air operations are usually the most expensive aspect of fighting fire. Whiteshirt’s helicopter is worth $2 to $3 million, and each flight’s cost varies. However, according to the team’s finance division, camp and crew support have been the most costly for the Goldstone and Beaver Creek fires. So far, the Goldstone fire has cost $4.5 million and the Beaver Creek has cost $500,000.
“A fire is never denied resources because of money. There is no daily cap. We get crews whatever they need and figure out the money issues later,” Brenda Psycher, a finance team member said.
There are a lot of supplies needed to fight fire and run the pop-up communities. One step inside the team’s supply tent and that need is apparent. Tables stacked with pants, shirts, hygiene wipes and batteries line the walls. In the space adjacent to the tent, tables, chairs, coolers, boxed water and other necessities are piled neatly in the grass. Supply team worker Joe Read said the initial truckload into camp is worth over $1 million.
“We got here about a week ago and in the next four days this will all disappear,” Read said, gesturing to the piles of gear around him. “Almost everything we give comes back to be reused.”
Read orders supplies two different ways. Cash items, or fire specific gear, come from a warehouse in Missoula. Everything else is considered a supply service, and buyers are sent to Butte to purchase items and bring them back to camp.
Once at camp, the supplies are distributed to personnel in camp and at what are called strike camps. Strike camps are where most of the firefighters stay, designated areas closer to the fire area to minimize driving time. Each day, the operations section of the management team determines what work these strike camps will take on and how their various resources will be used to manage the fire.
But as Read mentioned, the Goldstone and Beaver Creek fires are winding down, along with the Monument and Wigwam fires. Over the course of a few days, the camps shut down and the teams head home before reporting to their next fire. Before they leave, the Type II management briefs the local ranger districts and ensures they can smoothly return to managing the fires again on their own, Goldstone and Beaver Creek’s Incident Commander Steve Millert said.
“A huge part of managing wildfires is building a relationship with the local community,” Millert said. “We want them to trust us.”
Millert said his team is doing its best to repair any damage fire suppression may have caused to the landscape, keeping in mind they are guests here. The goal is to impact the community’s life as little as possible, Millert said. To build their cities and break them down without a trace.
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