Five Year Journey of an Ontario FireRanger

The summer of 2000, started off with the old adage of “hurry up and wait”.  In some parts of the province fire crews wondered if the job entailed anything other than watching water levels rise as the rain kept falling, while other parts of Ontario experienced drought like conditions.

 

For me, the summer of 2000, was an exciting fire season. 

Figure 7. Ontario FireRangers in base camp looking at the smoky mountains of Montana.

I came back to my third year of fire as a Crew Boss with a rookie Crew Member of my own to show the ropes!  Looking back, I wonder if I really asked that many questions and was so eager for everything.  It’s funny how easy the transition from rookie to veteran firefighter is once you’ve been in the fire program for a few years and have a number of initial and sustained attacks under your belt.

 

One of the big highlights of the summer occurred when my crew along with most of the fire crews in the province were sent to the United States to aid Montana and Idaho with one of their worst fire seasons ever experienced. During this trip everyone was a rookie, as we all had to learn a new method of fighting forest fires. Fighting fires in

Figure 8.  Climbing up the mountain to put in a scratch line around a fire.

Montana was very different than fire suppression methods in Ontario.  We traded in our nozzles and stranglers for fire rakes and Pulaskis, Pulaskis:

A combination chopping and trenching tool, which combines a single-bitted axe-blade with a narrow adze-like trenching blade, fitted to a straight handle.our flatlander bush legs for mountain climbing legs and our closely-knit three to four-person crews turned into 20-person crews with a Strike Team Leader calling the shots.

 

I can still vividly remember our first day out on the fire line in Montana.  We looked like orange billy goats going up a mountain.  Some were faster than others, but two hours and three miles later the last of us made it to the fire’s edge and started digging a scratch line around its perimeter.  At the end of the day I think everyone was cursing their steel-toed boots and low heels that were better suited for our beloved black fly infested Ontario forests and swamps!  Within a few days however,

Figure 9. Fire crew going down the mountain.

Ontario FireRangers were headed up the mountains sporting new leather boots with higher heels and no steel toe, which made walking on the steep terrain much easier.  I called them “Mary Poppins Mountain Boots,” because of the heels and the tassels at the toes.  I don’t think many of my colleagues liked my new name for them. 

 

The Montana trip in 2000, set a precedent for Ontario FireRangers aiding suppression efforts in the United States and since then, there have been subsequent crew movements to Washington and Oregon during extreme fire situations in 2001 and 2002.

• Five Year Journey of an Ontario FireRanger - Year 4