They wait. It is the bulk of their job, this waiting, and they fill it with necessary tasks. They roll hose. They clean the engine. They hone their bodies. They ready themselves for fire.
Few of them can articulate what compels them to fight wildland fires. They fall back on describing their obsession in bits and pieces: the hikes, the outdoor work, the camaraderie, the deadly magnificence of flame. To Brian Beresford, a Native American and captain in the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, it's simple: ''It's the only way left to be a warrior.''
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday December 21, 2002 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 9 inches; 342 words Type of Material: Correction
Wrightwood -- In "A Season in Purgatory," an article in the Dec. 15 magazine, the mountain town of Wrightwood was mistakenly identified as Wrightsville.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday January 12, 2003 Home Edition Los Angeles Times Magazine Part I Page 4 Lat Magazine Desk 0 inches; 21 words Type of Material: Correction
In "A Season in Purgatory" (Dec. 15), the mountain town of Wrightwood was mistakenly identified as Wrightsville.
This is the story of a half-dozen warriors and their season with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It is the story of childhood dreams and the adult realities that intrude on them. For some, the compulsion to fight fires started with TV's ''Emergency.'' They wanted to be Johnny Gage or Roy DeSoto, rushing on Rescue Squad 51 to Rampart General. Others panicked at the prospect of a bleak office cubicle. Some found a family they never had.
The warriors know that most people think they have the coolest job on the block. But while the post-Sept. 11 hagiography of firefighting aptly honors the dead of the World Trade Center, it's hard to be a hero every day. Particularly if on that day you scrub the station toilets, polish the truck, lug 65 pounds of hose on a practice hike, cook for your crew, and then watch someone else's fire on the news.
Even when the warriors get the fire they crave, opportunities for heroism are limited: smoke jumpers and dive-bombing water drops are the exception, not the norm. The vast bulk of firefighting is mule work, cutting and scratching lines around fires with simple hand tools, laying down hundreds of feet of hose to cool down the burn area well after the firestorm has subsided. That tedium is the equity, socked away a day at a time, cashed in for the few astonishing moments lived at the perilous edge.
Each spring and summer, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection ranks swell with 1,450 itinerant firefighters, hired for anywhere from a summer to nine months. They are mostly young; many can't order a beer legally. Another 200 of the agency's permanent firefighting cadre (3,800 men and women) are pushed up to temporary officer positions, the young leading the younger. Those who come to the Yucaipa station, at the eastern edge of the San Gabriel Mountains, are a mixed lot. A few have college degrees. Others joke that they picked CDF because those were the letters they saw most often on their report cards.
During this year's fire season, Todd Williams, a former business major assigned to a CDF hazardous-materials unit in Riverside, will bump up from engineer to captain of a wildland crew for the first time. He is 35. Shana Shuttleworth, 32, will struggle to prove she can drive a fire engine like the men, and lead a rookie crew. Rusty McCulley, 30, will chalk up what he hopes will be his pivotal season--or he'll have to go back to selling motorcycles. Brett Taylor, 20, will live with his parents, hoard his salary and spend it this winter on college courses that will boost his firefighting credentials. Rob Menor, who traded civil engineering for fighting fires, will see some of the best fires the year has to offer. He'll turn 20 during the burning season. David Roberts, also 20, will taste disappointment. They'll be watched over by Clyde Chittenden, a taciturn, 48-year-old battalion chief who juggles duty as Yucaipa's fire chief with supervising strike teams sent to battle wildland fires throughout the state.
The first reality check for wildfire warriors comes early. The job isn't just about forest fires. The men and women with the pine tree on their shoulder patch and the bear on their badge also fight structure fires, rescue people from wrecked cars and serve as the rural or municipal fire departments for 23 counties, a dozen cities and more than a score of special fire districts statewide. In Yucaipa, a city transitioning from chicken farms and orange groves to tract homes and golf courses, that means CDF firefighters run out to trailer parks a half-dozen times a day to attend to elderly victims of strokes, falls or loneliness. While there are plenty of CDF firefighters happy to fulfill these urban duties, for those looking for wildland blazes, serving on the city engine is like catching in the bullpen.
The ride of preference is Engine 3576, a short, muscular truck made for bad roads. It's one of a pair of wildland firefighting engines housed at Yucaipa that can be called anywhere in the state--anywhere in the country, if needed. For most of the year, Chittenden has struggled to keep either of the state-wide engines in house. They've been to fires every week, and other engines and crews have moved up to cover for them.
