February 27, 2018
Now, a Red Card is the certification that qualifies you to fight wildfires for the Forest Service ... and it is *not* something to be taken lightly. The job is like being a normal firefighter who's on a permanent, quadruple dose of steroids. These guys will hike for miles, battle the craziest, most unpredictable fires you can imagine using only the tools they carried in with them, and they will sometimes do it for days at a time, from dawn to dusk. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it's easily one of the most hardcore jobs in existence -- not to mention one of the most dangerous. At least two of these guys were killed fighting fires here in Montana last summer.
As you might guess, a job like that attracts a pretty hardcore group of applicants, too. They're kids, most of them, in their late teens and 20s, and they're astoundingly fit. Most of them act like they constantly have an extra dose of adrenaline constantly running through their veins. They live hard, but do it in a pretty endearing sort of way ... not at all toxic. And of course they live for the outdoors. I've met a lot of these guys over the years, and liked pretty much all of them.
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So, yeah. The guy said I probably wouldn't actually have to *go* to a fire -- I'd mostly be their communications link -- but I'm wondering what it would be like to do the training with that crowd, the old man in a group of super-hardcore outdoor kids less than half my age. Would I survive it, and would I have even a tiny shred of self-respect left afterwards?
There's also the fitness requirement. To get a Forest Service Red Card you need to pass something that they informally call the Pack Test. It's very straightforward: you need to carry a 45-pound backpack for three miles at a walking pace, in less than 45 minutes. I've backpacked enough to know how hard that is, even for a youngster. If I go through with this, I'm going to need to do some serious training. (And find a friend with a portable defibrillator! :-)
So had a long conversation yesterday with the Forest Service guy about my next potential summer. It was a good talk, and I learned a lot about what they do up there, but the guy did casually add one sentence that's left me pondering things ever since. He told me, "We'll probably have you get your Red Card, too."
Now, a Red Card is the certification that qualifies you to fight wildfires for the Forest Service ... and it is *not* something to be taken lightly. The job is like being a normal firefighter who's on a permanent, quadruple dose of steroids. These guys will hike for miles, battle the craziest, most unpredictable fires you can imagine using only the tools they carried in with them, and they will sometimes do it for days at a time, from dawn to dusk. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it's easily one of the most hardcore jobs in existence -- not to mention one of the most dangerous. At least two of these guys were killed fighting fires here in Montana last summer.
As you might guess, a job like that attracts a pretty hardcore group of applicants, too. They're kids, most of them, in their late teens and 20s, and they're astoundingly fit. Most of them act like they constantly have an extra dose of adrenaline constantly running through their veins. They live hard, but do it in a pretty endearing sort of way ... not at all toxic. And of course they live for the outdoors. I've met a lot of these guys over the years, and liked pretty much all of them.
----------
So, yeah. The guy said I probably wouldn't actually have to *go* to a fire -- I'd mostly be their communications link -- but I'm wondering what it would be like to do the training with that crowd, the old man in a group of super-hardcore outdoor kids less than half my age. Would I survive it, and would I have even a tiny shred of self-respect left afterwards?
There's also the fitness requirement. To get a Forest Service Red Card you need to pass something that they informally call the Pack Test. It's very straightforward: you need to carry a 45-pound backpack for three miles at a walking pace, in less than 45 minutes. I've backpacked enough to know how hard that is, even for a youngster. If I go through with this, I'm going to need to do some serious training. (And find a friend with a portable defibrillator! :-)