While most college students spend their summer slaving over a grill at the nearest grease-slinging joint, Matt McQueen has discovered an even hotter summer job – fighting wildland fires.
McQueen has been red card certified for the past year, making him eligible to fight fire. He spent last summer working on a timber crew for the Forest Service in San Juan, Colo. His crew was sent out to research forests as part of a timber management operation and, when the need arose, fight the blazes.
McQueen received his red card certification through the Ohio Fire Academy in Reynoldsburg with only the hope of fighting fires his first season.
Training lasts eight hours a day for three weekends, said Mike Bowden, fire supervisor at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry.
Bowden is responsible for all aspects of fire management, suppression, education and prevention in Ohio. He is also the instructor for the red card classes which are held in fall and spring by the Division of Forestry.
After students have completed the class and written portion of their red card, they are required to pass a pack test. A pack test is walking three miles on flat ground carrying a 45-pound pack in under 45 minutes.
This physical requirement ensures the firefighters are in shape to be able to work more than 12-hour days cutting fire line.
Bowden said most first season firefighters never make it to the fire line.
“The list is much longer than the spots we have open,” he said.
McQueen lucked out. With his job placement in Colorado, his chances of seeing time on the line shot up.
“I worked a short crew on the Missionary Ridge fire last summer,” McQueen said. “There were only five of us, so we just tagged along with other crews.”
While in Colorado, McQueen worked as a swamper. He said it is the swampers job to spray the brush with water and put out small fires while the sawers cut down bigger trees with chainsaws. McQueen said these jobs can sometimes be dangerous.
“One of the guys we were working with was cutting down a tree. From the outside you couldn’t tell that the tree was burnt out inside, and the tree suddenly collapsed and fell on him. He was the first casualty on Missionary Ridge,” McQueen said.
“It really shook us up. Most of us didn’t even consider death as part of the job risk,” a sullen McQueen said. “After that they let our crew go home early.”
According to Bowden, firefighters usually go out for 10 days.
“They are obligated each time they’re called to go out on the line for 14 days, but with travel time, they’re usually gone 16 to 18,” he said.
McQueen’s crew was unusual because it had only five members. A standard crew has 20 individuals – a crew boss, a crew boss trainee, three squad bosses and 15 firefighters.
“In terms of a typical crew, we build on experience first. I select the crew boss and the squad bosses before I select the rest of the crew,” Bowden said. “Then I generally pick two to three fighters with Western experience per squad. That only leaves about four positions for new people to go out on fires.”
Even though his trip was cut short, McQueen still came home with a wad of cash for his efforts.
“I made well over a $1,000 in the week I was there,” McQueen said. “You get hazard pay, which is time and a quarter, and then there’s overtime, which is time and a half.”
Red carders earn $11 an hour and usually work more than a 100 hours a week.
“On a two-week assignment, a firefighter can bring in around $2,200 to $2,500,” Bowden said.
McQueen said will be heading out West again this year because the fire season in Ohio is already over.
“Our fire season is typically Feb. 15 to May 1 and unless we get a drought this summer, nothing too significant will happen until the middle of October,” Bowden said.
According to the Ohio Department of Forestry, the average fire size in Ohio is between five and eight acres; there are typically around 1,000 fires a year with four to five large fires in the fall. A fire is considered large if it burns more than 100 acres in forest or 500 acres in grass.
Ohio’s budget for fire is around $600,000 a year, including suppression costs, management, prevention and education. Put against the national statistics of $1,661,314,000 provided by the National Interagency Fire Center’s Web site, Ohio’s costs are minimal.
With the constant rise of fires in the past decade, there is a need for people to manage and fight fire. Roger Williams, an assistant professor of forest ecosystem analysis and management, teaches Natural Resources 734 on forest ecosystem management. His class includes the ecology of fire and how to use fire as an ecosystem tool in management practices.
“It is my goal to develop a course on fire ecology and management,” Williams said. “The course would end with students taking the S130 and S190 red card certification classes so they will be able to have a knowledgeable understanding of fire management before they go out on fires.”
