Firefighters Itching to Get Into the Battle

By TOM GORMAN

May 31, 2002 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ALBUQUERQUE — Hundreds of antsy firefighters from across the country are killing time here at a large, dusty camp, playing cribbage and rummy, watching movies or napping on stiff cots beneath Russian olive trees in the still of the afternoon heat.

They would rather be roiling in the adrenaline rush of a forest fire--coughing acrid smoke, wiping their eyes clear of tears, wincing at the stinging blisters caused by pounding hoes, rakes and axes into rocky soil to clear dry brush ahead of oncoming flames.

But for now, even as fires roar near Tucson and Santa Fe, N.M., these men and women must wait on standby at this onetime government nursery, a sprawling 222 acres of soft sand and crumbling asphalt.

With daybreak, they stir from their cots, lined up like dominoes beneath massive blue, green and red-striped tents. Cooks in a kitchen-equipped truck serve breakfast--chicken-fried steak, eggs, biscuits and gravy, hash browns and plenty of salsa. In another corner of the camp, they wait for their turn at truck trailers equipped with showers and disposable towels.

As fire camps go, this is as comfortable as any, but it’s not where these firefighters want to be. Their backpacks are cinched tight, stuffed with clothes, paperback books, pictures of family, boxes of raisins. They are waiting for the announcement across the public address system, to cue up for a ride into the fire zone aboard a turquoise school bus painted with the words, “Firefighters Express.”

“The best part of this is, at least we’re here and not back home,” said Jessy Thurman, 20, one of a handful of seasonal firefighters employed by the Mendocino National Forest in Northern California who arrived here Monday after a hard, 2 1/2-day drive. “But the bad part of this is, we’re still here in this staging camp and not out there working.”

Mike Willardson, 36, who drives a fire engine for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, knows his patience here will pay off.

“Staging is a necessary evil. Nobody likes to sit around in 90-degree heat, doing nothing,” said Willardson, who raises horses and builds homes back in Coram, Mont. “But you have to, until it’s your turn to go out.”

This holding camp is testimony to how nervous officials are about this fire season, which is growing more volatile in brittle-dry Arizona and New Mexico with every passing week. Already, nearly a quarter-million acres have burned this year in the Southwest and Rocky Mountain states, and government forecasters say hotter-than-normal temperatures are expected here this weekend.

Never before have so many firefighters been positioned in the Southwest as a contingency. Their presence here--versus remaining at their home camps two or three days away--can be critical in defeating a blaze that can grow exponentially in its first few hours.

Officials believe the strategy may save lives, homes and tens of thousands of acres of pines, junipers and desert brush.

“These are the worst conditions I’ve ever seen, but at least we’ve got fire crews here, in hand, ready to send out, and we’ll be bringing in more,” said Brian Lee, who heads the multi-agency Southwest Area Coordination Center.

At the command center, housed at the National Forest Service headquarters a few miles from the staging camp, a handful of men and women coordinate the ebb and flow of firefighters, bulldozers, airplanes--and food caterers, shower facilities and other supplies and services--needed to battle fires in Arizona, New Mexico, western Oklahoma and Texas.

An overhead computer monitor displays weather fronts, lightning strikes, even live “Web cam” video of ongoing fires.

Down a hallway, meteorologist Chuck Maxwell charts the various factors--humidity, precipitation deficit, fuel types, temperatures and other criteria--that together create a fire-danger index.

“It’s as high as it’s been in the past 30 years,” he said. A co-worker chimes in: “Parts of Arizona had the driest winter in 70 years.”

Such assessments last week prompted managers of various firefighting agencies--the forest service, park service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs and a host of state agencies--to ask the national wildland firefighting headquarters in Boise, Idaho, for 400 firefighters to be assigned to the staging camp here.

They didn’t want to take chances: A dry weather front spewing lightning was expected to sweep across northern Arizona and New Mexico earlier this week, and scores of fires were anticipated.

Firefighters began arriving over the weekend.

The dry storms failed to materialize, but the fire crews were kept here anyway because the fire potential remains extreme.

Some of the firefighters are sent daily to nearby forests, to cut fire lines and clear brush. Others have relieved tired crews near Santa Fe and Tucson.

“Coming here was a release for me,” said Denver Holder, 42, who also works at a Canton, N.C., paper mill. “My job at the mill is done in a 10-foot space, which is pretty confining. This job lets me get out. And besides, all of us in the fire service are drug addicts. We’re adrenaline junkies.”

Kristina Okonski, a 22-year-old chemistry student from Libby, Mont., normally works on a quick-response firetruck, extinguishing small fires sparked by lightning before they grow out of control. “I’ve never been on a big fire,” she said. “I have no idea what to expect. I’m excited to be here.”

Levon Loncassion, 22, a fine arts student, was biding his time in camp this week drawing brightly colored, Southwest-flavored sketches thick with Indian imagery.

A Zuni Indian, he came here after hearing his pueblo’s fire siren last Friday, setting off a town of barking dogs and signaling Zuni’s firefighters to get in line--first-come, first-serve--to help form another 20-man BIA fire crew. More than 25 crews already have gone out this year.

“With overtime, I can make almost $2,000 in 14 days,” Loncassion said. “I can’t make that anywhere else. But if there’s no fire, we’re only getting paid for eight hours a day.

“That’s one reason we want to go out on a fire. The money. But we’re restless,” he said. “We want go to out to a fire. We’re here to do a job.”