Bad Boots
1986. Prineville Hotshots. Bladder Bag.
“So how do those new boots fit?” Bryan Scholz, my squad boss asked.
He must’ve noticed I walked funny with my weight on the outsides of my feet.
“Ok, I guess, considering the store didn't have any women’s sizes in fire boots. They’re a bit too big.”
When I was phone-interviewed for the job, they told me I needed a pair of boots. I should’ve waited for more direction. While staring at my boots, he continued.
“Why’d you buy such cheap boots? Every Hotshot worth his salt knows to buy Whites or Westcos.”
“Obviously not every hotshot knows! Anyways, I’m not gonna spend half my paycheck on a pair of boots! Who knows if I’ll even make it through the summer with this job.”
Scholz took this opportunity for education.
“Well, you get what you pay for. You paid for cheap material and shortcuts on design. Thing is, when we’re on the line and the fire decides to blow up, we may have to hustle to the safety zone. If your feet are covered in blisters, you won’t be going anywhere fast.”
I didn’t want to let Bryan down. Good at his job, I trusted his motives and respected his professionalism.
“If those boots slow you down, you’ll be slowing the whole crew down. Don’t jeopardize nineteen other lives with bad boots. Better figure out how to make ‘em work!”
Thoroughly schooled, I shouldered my pack wondering how to fix my blistered feet before the next fire call. Days later, dry lightning strikes hit the forests of Eastern Oregon. We were called to the John Day Wilderness Area near Ukiah. Wilderness means no roads. No roads equals a lot of hiking. Miles and miles of hiking with a blister the size of a quarter under my big toe. When we finally arrived at the fire, we were relieved to see its small size. We lined it and removed the heat within hours. Lucky for me since my feet were in bad shape.
We slept in what’s known as a spike camp, the designated sleeping area in the middle of nowhere. There’s no camp kitchen as our food is dropped by helicopter (if we’re lucky). With no roads nearby, the luxury of port-a-potties and the privacy they afforded were not available, nor did we use tents. After unrolling my sleeping bag on the ground for the night, I rummaged through the first aid canister looking for help for my poor feet.
A bottle of Absorbine Junior for sore muscles stood out as possible relief. In desperation, I drenched my blistered, burning feet with the minty green cooling liquid. Sigh. That’s better. Laying on top of my sleeping bag amid the sparse vegetation of the ridgetop, I looked up at the starless night sky with bare feet propped on a log to enjoy the exquisite pleasure in each pine-scented breeze that caressed my feet. The nagging rock poking at my back under the sleeping bag refused to relent, but I was too tired to move it.
Low rumbles of thunder followed flashes of lightning that lit the sky. I smelled the tang of ozone in the air, but no rain. Tomorrow we’d be busy. I applied bandages to the blistered areas of my feet and heels and covered them with two pairs of thick socks. Determined not to slow anyone down if we had to hurry to a safety zone, I tried to take care of my feet. I didn’t want to be a burden.
At dawn the next morning, we stood around a warming fire trying to eat the government-issued Meal’s Ready to Eat (MRE’s), food packages designed by the government to last indefinitely without refrigeration. If I were starving, those MRE’s would be edible, but…
“Hey Kelso, gimme your packet of peanut butter and I’ll give you this tuna casserole.”
“Ok, but I want some of your trail mix too… heavy on the M&M’s.”
“Fine. I’ll give you all the blue ones.”
“What’s wrong with the blue ones?”
“They’re bad for you… hard to digest. Imagine the energy required to turn blue into yellow.”
“Oh, brother!”
He stuffed a handful of trail mix and blue M&Ms into his mouth, chewed it to a pulp and opened his mouth wide for me to see.
“Gross! Kelso, knock it off!” I growled and shoved his laughing face away.
Stiff, hundred-year-old peanut butter spread over stale crackers was savory. The crunchy, freeze-dried peaches were flavorful, too. Washed down with hot cocoa mixed with campfire coffee, it was a breakfast of champions. We used the metal holster of the green plastic canteens to make coffee. Fill the holster with brackish canteen water, add instant coffee and cocoa mix and carefully place in our campfire’s hot coals. It worked well without wind. Sometimes I looked down at my hot beverage wondering, is that a melted miniature marshmallow or ash? I’d start to fish it out with my finger until I noticed my black, grimy fingernails and dirty hands from the previous day’s cold-trailing.
Pulling out our protein reserves of sardines or beans and weenies, someone new to the crew dared to open a can of Spam. Before long, someone gave a hilarious performance of Monty Python’s Spam advertisement. Most of us drew the line at Spam, agreeing that we’d have to be literally starving before we ate it.
While picking ash out of our coffee, we listened to radio chatter from fire look-outs constantly scanning the horizon in search of “smokes,” the first stage of a fire. When lightning hits a tree or other fuel, it will smolder in the early hours of the morning until the humidity drops and the temperature rises along with afternoon winds. Then smokes become flames. The sooner we got to a smoke, the easier to put out. With the lightning strikes we witnessed the previous night, the airwaves crackled with excitement.
We walked to the edge of a nearby rocky bluff for the best view of our surroundings. Counting seven smokes below us and recognizing the early hour, we knew it would not be an easy day. In fact, it became a blur of fast hiking in steep, rocky terrain. The crew split into squads to divide and conquer. Navigating through sometimes thick brush to reach a smoke, we put a line around it, removed the fuels and hurried on to the next smoke.
My squad boss handed me an empty bladder bag, also known as a piss pump. It’s a rubber bag with a squirt gun attached to spray embers in a spot fire. A little water strategically placed on a hotspot can be the difference between a fire going cold or eventually blowing up. It was a novelty to me. Thinking it would be fun to use, I volunteered to fill it down at the creek.
A gallon of water weighs eight pounds. The rubber bag holds five gallons and I didn’t consider how the weight sloshing from side to side on top of my regular pack would affect my balance as I climbed the steep slope. Nor did I consider the chafing on my shoulders and neck from two sets of nylon straps rubbing against sweaty skin. I swayed back and forth across the slope wearing my “fun” bladder bag. The ease of dousing hot embers with a squirt of water instead of chopping them off the burning wood, and the fun of spraying crewmembers was not worth the trouble of the extra weight. After that, I thought twice before volunteering to pack a bladder bag through the wilderness.
A few days into chasing smokes and small fires, one of the unreachable smokes grew into a spot fire. It started moving with the increased afternoon winds. We spent long hours constructing a fireline when the sawyers stopped their relentless sawing. In the ensuing quiet, we could hear the fire getting hot, like the rumble of a passing freight train in the distance. A dense plume of smoke expanded across the sky, deeply shading our surroundings while ash began to fall. Fire behavior manuals warn how these conditions shout “Watch Out!” On a word from the boss, the sawyers abandoned their cutting. Never a good sign, they shouldered their saws for the downhill trek toward the safety of the meadow.
“Reverse line order and move out!” Yelled our squad boss.
Despite our current fatigue, we hiked faster than I’d ever seen our crew move. It wasn’t panic; more like determination. Striding down the slope trying not to trip, turn an ankle on the rocks, or get whacked in the face by branches, we blasted through the trees. It didn’t matter how blistered my feet were because adrenaline blocked the pain. Every atom of my being focused on breathing and moving. We could see the meadow below us.
Arriving at our safety zone breathing hard, we watched and listened as the power of wild fire gained momentum. Dense smoke transformed the sunny meadow with a surreal afternoon twilight. A day’s work literally up in smoke. In that moment, I understood the wisdom of wearing the best boots possible and spending hours on physical training every day. When a fire burns that hot and moves that fast, there’s nothing to do but get out of the way.
Prineville Hotshots of 1986: Rick Bushnell and Jon Kelso watched as Katie Mergel doctored her blistered foot.
