Story 1: Out of Their Element

So I'm on a helicopter crew and we respond to this rangeland fire, light fuels and rapid, active fire behavior, rapid rate of spread, and it's in an area with a lot of canyons, and so you're going to have a lot of wind influences. Because of the helicopter we are the first ones there, so we have an IC-qualified individual so we take over the command of the fire.

We typically used people that were more experienced with rangeland fires. And we were in such dire need of resources that we had a hotshot crew that was ordered and arrived on the fire. And they are wonderful in the environment that they work in and know, but in this era there was less crossover between range fire skills and forest fire skills. And I could tell the crew boss, the person in charge of this hotshot crew, an organized, cohesive, excellent crew, was out of their element, and you could see the indecision and the apprehension in the person's face and their eyes. And I made the assumption that being's how that person is a crew leader that—that went, you know, then throughout the crew; that kind of atmosphere can permeate a crew, and I just felt like it needed to be addressed.

They were apprehensive enough that, and I wanted to have good coordination with this crew, that I took a member of the helitack crew that I trusted and just assigned them for the duration of the incident to this crew. And it was a technique that worked very well, and then you had the ability even though you had radio communication and stuff with that crew, because you had somebody that you knew, even though they weren't part of that crew, was a great contact for a coordinated effort between the helitack crew and the hotshot crew, and it's a technique that I've used numerous times since. It works so well developing a greater team between those two diverse groups by doing that.

I think it's worth the time to take a minute to try to develop a little bit of a personal relationship, "Hi, my name's, what's your name, and how are you doing, and well this fire's really going to town, isn't it? And, you know, how do you feel about it, and what are you planning on doing." And maybe see, get a little feel for their comfort level, and if you can detect any concern you say, "Well, you know what? I've got a person on our crew that's had a lot of experience at this fuel type, or maybe this location, or what we're getting into. What would you think about this person going along with you guys and helping you out and if you've got any questions then maybe it would be a good contact between the two crews so that we can have a coordinated effort?" So try to ease into it a little bit with respect. If I was in that crew leader's position, I would feel a lot more confident and relaxed if I had local knowledge, local skills right at my beck and call; somebody that was right there that I could ask a question to, so I would think that atmosphere of confidence would go through the whole crew. It gave them the reassurance they needed to be able to operate, and they also knew that if they had any questions —and it could be—we've talked about entrapment, it could be a question that had to be answered in a timely fashion and they had somebody there, right with them that had the skills to answer that question.

Story 2: You're on People's Turf

You know, a national, basically a national fire organization, is that you can be in Washington one day and end up in Florida the next, fighting different, completely different kinds of fire. Those kinds of perceptions will lead to other people's differing comfort levels.

I'd mentioned I'd been up in Michigan a couple weeks ago and we were helping them do some initial attack; we also helped them do some prescribed burning. They approached fires completely differently than we did down here, just because that was their local method and they had used it for so many years. The first fire that I went on, I had a local IC with me. We took care of it, but then after that, they said "Okay, you're on your own." And that was, okay, I've got one whole fire underneath my belt up here—but I also have local people, local leaders working for me. So in that case, I had to trust them to do what they thought needed to be done in that particular fuel type. My job as the incident commander was to get people on scene, get them assigned, identify the hazards, you know. Every day we'd have a briefing and we'd sit down and talk, and this is what we're going to do, and this is how we're going to do it, and then just talk with the folks, but just find out what they're able to do.

If I had marched in and told one of the local engine bosses if they said, "Well you know, this is probably a pretty good idea to go ahead and go around the fire this way." If I had said, "Nah, I want to do it this way" that would have been the best way for me to just completely kick my own legs out from underneath me. You don't want to, "I'm Ramrod, the fire god from South Carolina and I'm up here in Michigan, and I'm going to tell you how to fight fire up in this jack pine that I've never seen burn before." That's just not going to get you any kind of respect at all, and actually, probably end up probably causing you more troubles. Because, basically, everyone's just—you're going to say, go do this, and everybody's going to be off doing what they thought they should have been doing in the first place. You're on peoples' turf. You're there to help them out, but at the same time, you're from outside. When you go other places you've just got to find out how it's done locally.