Yesterday when I heard the news about the deaths of 19 hotshots in Prescott, AZ I was immediately angry and sad. Angry that this has happened yet again, fighting fire in a forest, scrubland, possibly defending homes that are not defensible in that environment. What a waste of young lives.
I've calmed down a bit and put my feelings where they belong. I remember when I was an active firefighter people would ask me why I did it because, after all, it's very difficult and dirty work, not to mention dangerous. At the time my co-workers would say they were in it for the adrenaline rush and I'd shake my head, pretending to be knowing, and say that's a dangerous attitude. Quite honestly it is but the people who said they were in it for the adrenaline rush were being honest, perhaps more honest than I was. What was my answer to that question? Well, I couldn't quite bring myself to be altruistic and say that I wanted to help people because then I'd really be lying. I used to say that I loved being out in the woods, the hard work made me feel like I accomplished something. I mean, really, I just put out a fire! Now that is an accomplishment! All those things were true, and probably the most true thing was the feeling of accomplishment. I will not deny that it was exciting. And very meaningful when the knots tied up my stomach out of fear of what we might face and then loosening when we methodically dismantled the "dragon". That feeling of facing the fear and working through it was very important to me too.
Now that I've moved from firefighting and have a far less exciting job, although it is very interesting on most days, I spend my free time skiing the backcountry and climbing mountains. Again, facing the fear and working through it in a methodical way to accomplish something that is difficult and fun is very important to me.
Pondering the deaths of 19 firefighters who died on the job… is it any different than skiers dying in an avalanche? Or climber falling off a mountain? I'm not sure about that right now. I mean, they're all out there for more or less the same reasons. I could probably add people who ride motorcycles to that category. And this is where my brain stops for now and goes to the place where I feel really bad for the families and the one survivor from that crew. What an awful place they must be in.
I want to add that I have a very strong sense of self-preservation and so have have obviously known when to turn around and go back when whatever I was doing became too much for me. However, the knowing comes with experience and some people just don't get to become that experienced and some are very experienced and perhaps become careless or simply unlucky.