Rochester Man’s Second Career
Fighting Wildland Forest Fires
By Martha Slater

Walter Wells, an employee of the U. S. Forest Service in Rochester, has been on duty across the country fighting forest fires, many of them in wilderness areas where many technicques are not allowed. (Herald photo / Tim Calabro)

Rochester resident Walt Wells says he began a second career as a firefighter with the US Forest Service, because he got bored after he retired to Vermont following a 26-year career as a state trooper in New Jersey. He’s not bored anymore.

This past summer, Wells was gone fighting fires for almost five months, with just two brief trips home.

"I’d work 14 days straight, with just one day off due to the nature of the assignment," he explained. "We worked as high as 12,000 ft. in Wyoming, and in addition to Mother Nature, we had to contend with grizzly bears, and rattlesnakes! There are other hazards, too, like trees that fall because their root systems have been burned out or the helicopter drops a bucket of water on them so they fall over. Firefighters always have to be mindful that things can change rapidly. For example, fire can create its own weather, so we carry portable belt weather kits that we check just about every hour."

Wells also goes out on crews at other times of the year, to do debris clearing work in situations such as the aftermath of hurricanes or tornadoes. He spent time in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

"I’m certainly enjoying have Uncle Sam send me on all these great vacations," Wells joked. "As a police officer, you do spend time responding to fire emergencies, but this is very different."

What Wells does is called wildland firefighting. There are several types of firefighters on a 20-person hand crew, with a crew boss and assistant, three squad leaders, and three squads of five firefighters. The hand crew generally digs line and does what’s known as dry mopping or gridding, he explained.

"Dry mopping is when you’re fighting a fire with no access to water, so you’re literally digging out and extinguishing the fire with the dirt that’s available, and gridding is when you set out a line of people on several acres to find and extinguish the hot spots."

The next type of crew is an engine crew, which includes a wildland fire engine truck, and a dozer that plows up the earth. "Hot shots" are a crew of 20 firefighters that are a self-contained unit with their own equipment, including vehicles. They travel from fire to fire for the whole season. The biggest part of the fire season is May through October, but there are fires to fight year-round in different parts of the country.

"There are also smoke jumpers, who jump out of airplanes with parachutes, and are generally assigned as one of the first groups in to fight a fire," Wells noted. "Then there are rappellers, who are helicopter crew members that rappel down a rope out of a hovering helicopter, as part of the initial attack crew on a fire."

On the Job

As a helitack crew member, Wells explained that he is part of a helicopter crew that has various types of assignments, "from initial attack to acting as a glorified flight attendant, shutting crew members to and from a fire. We may move cargo, loading and unlading helicopters, and part of our job for the helicopters that use buckets is to attach a bucket that contains from 100 to several thousand gallons of water for bucket drops.

"We also may call in air tankers, which are fixed wing aircraft of various sizes, which carry large amounts of water or retardant. One of the more exciting things is to stand directly under a helicopter that is hovering not far above your helmet to attach something to the helicopter’s belly hook!"

On his first assignment six years ago, Wells was sent to Washington State for 14 days, plus travel time.

"Its hard dirty work but its fun, too," he noted, "and it’s sometimes done in extreme terrain at high elevations and in high temperatures. A couple of years ago, we were working at an 8,000 ft. elevation at 100 degrees on a steep slope standing next to a fire—that’s hot! Your work day can be as long as 16 hours, and we have a mandatory work/rest ratio. For every two hours of work, we’re supposed to an hour of rest, but in initial attack you can work 24 hours straight through and we did a lot of that this summer."

‘Old," But Tough

Now 57, Wells said he has almost always been the oldest person on a crew.

"Most of them are in their 20s and 30s," he said. "I’m an intermittent seasonal government employee on a call-when-needed basis. Once I establish that I’m in the right shape and can run fast and jump higher, we get along fine. Older folks know that it's easier to stay in shape than it is to get in shape. Every morning when I get up, the first part of my day is physical training. It’s just part of my routine."

When Wells began his fire-fighting career, he took a 40-hour basic training course in Rutland, with fellow Rochester resident Keefer Irwin, who is now a helicopter crew trainee. After that first course, he went out on assignment several times as hand crew member. He then took another course at the Long Island Fire Academy in Long Island, N.Y. to qualify as a helicopter crew member.

In his role as a helicopter crew member, Wells wears a helmet that has a microphone so he can talk to the pilot, and communicate with him about what he sees on the ground.

"When we’re flying, it’s everyone's job to look around and keep an eye out," he explained. "I sit in the left rear front-facing seat, which gives me access to open and close the door, as well as access to the cargo hold behind me. When we get off the helicopter, I get off first and open the door. The main rotor is still spinning and there‘s a tail rotor going, too. The crew members all have to get past me as I direct them safely away from the aircraft. I’m the last in and first off."

Wells noted that when he and the crew go out to a restaurant, "I always have to sit with my back to the wall. It’s a holdover from my years as a police officer, so I can see everyone who comes in the door."

This past June, the initial helicopter attack crew he was part of flew into a remote cabin area in Wyoming, where the forest borders on wilderness. There was a fire burning there at that time, reasonably close to the border of the designated wilderness.

"In the wilderness area, we allow a fire to run its course, although we monitor it to make sure it stays within those boundaries," Wells said. "Due to where the fire and cabin were, we were flown in to defend the cabin, so we set up sprinklers and removed dead fuels such as downed trees, in the vicinity of the cabin. Then, we were backed up by a fire use module, which is a group of firefighters who monitor wilderness fires. Meanwhile, up in the fire, smoke jumpers had come in and were also monitoring where it was going."

Since they were technically in a wilderness, Wells explained that, "generally speaking, we would not be able to use power tools, so we worked with crosscut saws and axes. We’re also not supposed to use helicopters any more than necessary in the wilderness, so after we’d been there two days, we hiked 10 miles with all our gear on to come out of the area to meet the helicopter. We then boarded it and flew off to another fire, where we got on the ground and dug line! It’s all in a day’s work!"

Wells demonstrated the tools of his trade: a Pulaski, shovel, combi (combination shovel and spike), a bladder bag filled with 5 gallons of water, and his PPE, which stands for "personal protective equipment" and includes a hard hat, leather boots, leather gloves, a Nomex shirt and pants that are fire retardant, eye protection, and hearing protection. He also carries line gear, which includes a backpack holding whatever he needs for a 24-hour period, including a galloon or more of water, snacks and MREs ("Meals Ready to Eat"), a change of clothing, rain protection, a space blanket, compasses, a GPS, notepad and pencil. Another important piece of equipment he carries is a single-use mandatory fire shelter, which is like a small fiberglass tent with aluminized lamination on the exterior to reflect the heat away from it.

All in a Day’s Work

Asked for an example of an extreme day, Wells recalled that "My assignment for most of the summer was on the Wind River Indian Reservation, which is home to the Arapaho and Shoshone tribes. We had the helicopter crew and five or six engine crews, and we were all initial attack crews. On July 4, the helicopter crew of six to eight people went out on three initial attack runs, did a search and rescue for a lost child, who turned up; and then at the end of our flight day, we manned the fire engines until midnight! At 8 a.m. the next day, we were back on the helicopter. Our days are a lot of running and jumping!"

Most often, Wells said, the crews sleep in a tent in a fire camp where they have access to showers and a mess tent with food provided by big catering trucks.

"Initial attack people do eat some MREs but it’s not our steady diet," he explained. "While we were up at the cabin in Wyoming, it was so remote that they sent in our meals by pack horses."

Wells added that, "Sometimes, when I’m out fighting fires, I lose track of time, because one day blends into another. In Alaska, where I was a few years ago, they have the midnight sun during the summer and it’s light out for so long—that’s when we really lost track of time!"

He may lose track of what day it is while he’s gone on extended trips, but he still has to take care of things at home. He uses a credit card to pay his household bills, by using the company’s 1-800 phone numbers, and the post office holds his mail for him.

"When I got back to the Rochester Post Office this September, after I threw out all the junk mail, I still had a two-foot tall pile of mail!" Wells said with a laugh.

"Some places we go, there are people who are resistant to the government and that can be difficult for us, but most people are very appreciative of what we do. We’ve had kids make us cards, and people have brought us cookies and other things like that."

"One of the perks of this job is that we get to go places that other people don’t," Wells concluded. "Flying with a helicopter crew, I’ve seen mountain lions, big-horned sheep, and big-horned elk, and flown above the eagles! Granted, we’re fighting fires, but we get to stand on top of mountains and see things that other people don’t get to see."