Wildfire Fighter

By Christopher Cook

I'm on day seven of the weigh station fire in Eastern Oregon. It's been a while since I've seen the sun. It has struggled to find me through the lingering smoke and the charred, skeletal reach of branches for a good hour now.

Sitting with my back against a tree stump with my exhaustion finally drowning out "Birch Tree," a song by Foals, that has been running through my head this whole trip. The stump itself is still quite energetic behind me, occasionally reigniting with a pop and hiss. I'm not worried though, as it is most likely the same little finger of flame I had seen just before unceremoniously dropping my gear, then myself, to the ground. The intense stuff is still smoldering its way through the root system underground.

What has barely got my attention right now is the sack lunch sitting in the upturned helmet in my lap. I'm only really focused enough to robotically bring the PB&J sandwich to my mouth. Eyes closed, no need to see it. I wish I could somehow sleep and eat at the same time. If I did open my eyes, I would just see the same strange moonscape that startled me that first day out.

The forest floor, once lush, green, and teeming with life, is now dead. White and gray ash a foot deep covers the floor. The trees become dark, smoking obelisks in the eerie silence, some still burning in the distance. I wearily reach for and crack open the water bottle half buried in the ash at my side. Drinking the warm water, I think about the old lady's cabin we saved yesterday. Our crew had done three days of solid work to protect that tiny cabin from the fire.

Everything from digging trenches around the whole of it, to removing any fuel sources, to laying thousands of feet of hose. Then I smile as the thought of the little old lady herself comes to mind.

We had just sat down for a break a good distance away from the cabin when she appeared, walking down the trail toward us. She stopped a few feet away from me and greeted us with a warm "hello." She was about to say something else, but froze abruptly. 

I followed her intent gaze to my fire pack and to the bright orange "Oregon Department of Corrections" seal emblazoned on it. Just below the word "Inmate" stenciled in big letters on the flap. Looking up, our eyes met, and what happened next I will never forget.

In the second of recognition that her cabin was saved by a crew made up of prison inmates, I saw confusion turned to fear flash across her eyes. Shame hotter than any wildfire seared through me as I desperately hoped all the soot and grime that covered my face hid that fact. Then something else showed on the lady's face: a determined change. With tears brimming in her eyes, she stepped forward and looked around at all of our weary faces watching her in stark silence and said, "Thank you boys. Thank you, thank you." Fighting back tears of my own, I became preoccupied with my hands in my lap, and said nothing.

And with that, she turned and went back to her quaint little cabin. 

And I would like to think with a new outlook on life. We spent the rest of our break in relative silence, each of us with our own thoughts. Though we wouldn't admit it, that little old lady gave us the energy to work all the harder the rest of the day, with infectious grins as well.

Still grinning, I'm pulled from my thoughts by the fire boss' shout that it's time to head out. I see the other guys grudgingly get up, grab their packs and tools and head up the mountain to our truck. Using the stump, I stand and grab my own gear. Working my way up, I know we'll never see that cabin nor the lady again since we're heading back to prison tonight. But it's okay, because we're going back knowing that what we did meant something to someone. It was more than just saving a property, this trip. It was a moment of understanding. A moment of acceptance. I can't wait to do it all again.

Christopher was released from Columbia River Correctional Institution, OR, in October 2019.

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