Roughing It: Tent, Stove, Satellite

SHOSHONE NATIONAL FOREST, Wyo. — Life at the camp for crews battling the Clover Mist fire might not be quite as comfortable as home, but now the firefighters can at least see what’s going on in the rest of the world.

The camp sits on a sagebrush-covered plateau near the Crandall Ranger Station along the western border of the Shoshone National Forest.

Until last weekend, firefighters with time off from the fire lines on the 322,000-acre fire relied on a videotape collection of movies to pass the time.

Now they’ve got a television satellite dish and can tap into just about anything being broadcast, said Bill Mack, of Rezek Equipment Co., a San Bernardino, Calif., company that provides fire camp services and helped arrange for the dish.

While it is not unusual for fire camps to have televisions and videocassette recorders for entertainment, it was believed to be the first time a camp got its own satellite dish.

“This is kind of an experimental thing,” Mack said.

The signal from the dish runs to a 40-inch television set in the “Grand,” a large canvas tent equipped with 17 log benches and a wood-burning stove for the cold Wyoming nights.