Their Words – Comments from a Firefighter About Deploying a Fire Shelter

...PLEASE BEWARE WHEN IN THE FIELD...HAVING TO DEPLOY YOUR SHELTER IS SOMETHING THAT YOU WILL NEVER FORGET...THAT IS IF YOU LIVE THROUGH IT!..TOO MANY THROUGH THE YEARS HAVE NOT...HAVING DEPLOYED TWICE IN MY TIME..I CAN TELL YOU FIRST HAND..IT IS CONSTANTLY ON YOUR MIND..YOU WILL NEVER EVER FORGET IT..SOME EVEN QUIT THE JOB OVER IT AND HAVE SOME SEVERE PROBLEMS FROM IT...MY ONLY PROBLEM IS...I CAN NOT FORGET IT...BUT...I CAN MOVE ON AND FIGHT THE FIGHT!...I HOPE NOBODY EVER HAS TO DEPLOY THERE SHELTER...UNFORTUNATELY IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN FOR SOME...BUT I FEEL WITH SOME EDUCATION AND TRAINING....IT CAN BE AVOIDED!...IF YOU KEEP IN YOUR MIND WHILE DIGGING LINE THAT IT CAN BLOW UP AT ANYTIME...I MEAN ANYTIME!!...JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT CANNOT HAPPEN....IT WILL!...IT JUST BREAKS MY HEART TO HEAR OF SHELTER DEPLOYMENTS!...IT ABOUT KILLS ME TO HEAR OF A SISTER OR BROTHER FIREFIGHTER WHO HAS PERISHED!!...PLEASE...KEEP A SHARP EYE AND EAR OUT...IT CHANGES IN A SECOND...AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT...YOU ARE REALLY DANCING WITH THE DEVIL!...BE SAFE AND HAVE A GOOD FIRE SEASON!

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Here is an excerpt from my book One Foot in the Black (Amazon) which describes the moments after a burnover, where a crew has been trapped, tries to escape, and deploys fire shelters. It’s fiction, but this is the way it happens:

I dimly saw deployed fire shelters and a couple of bodies lying face down, gloved hands holding helmets over their heads. I lay against the rock and felt the unbearable heat of the fire. My lungs fought for the small quantity of oxygen that remained near the ground. I was certain I would die from inhaling superheated air. I smelled burnt hair. It was mine.

The firestorm reached the top of the ridge where it paused for a few seconds in the cross winds, then blew past us down the other side of the mountain. I heard hissing and popping, rocks exploding from the intense heat. Silence. I had survived. We had survived.

I sat up coughing and vomited the banana and my breakfast onto my shirt. We struggled to clear our lungs and to breathe. My chest hurt, my eyes burned. Everyone was blackened with ash. Hector was on his hands and knees, saliva dripped from his mouth, black snot and soot ran from his nose. Luis sat, legs crossed, staring straight ahead. Blood ran down Red Eye’s forehead.

If you are interested in a technical description of a fire shelter, it is posted on my blog – http://kurtkamm.com/blog/

 

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