Yep, that picture is of me on a fire on the Payette National Forest. Technically, my squad boss should have reprimanded me for rolling my sleeves up, but I was taking a break. Besides, he was the one who took the picture.
I became a wildland firefighter in 2002. 9/11 was still fresh on everyone’s mind, and while I wanted to do my part where I could, I was also tired of reporting on events and wanted to go out and live my life for a change. And I wanted to give something back to my community. I’m not going to pretend that I’m some tough old fire dog who has years of experience under his belt and a library of war stories. I was in it just long enough that I get a lump in my throat and an unscratchable itch every spring when I see the engines rolling out.
I trained for the “misery of the pack” test, which involved traveling three miles in 45 minutes while carrying 45 pounds. I did push-ups, bench presses, and curls, and iced my shins down every night. Once I passed the test, I enrolled in fire school, which at the time lasted a week.
You learn quite a bit about situational awareness. You have to be conscious of the fire’s behavior, the terrain, fuel, wind, and relative humidity, all while you keep an eye on the sky for building cumulus clouds. You need to know where the safety zones are. Depending on the fire, a safety zone is referred to as “the black” (areas that have already been burned). It could also be a road, a rock outcropping, anyplace you can go in a hurry if necessary. You also have to monitor yourself for dehydration, heat exhaustion, and hunger. If you are staying on a fire overnight, you need to factor in the danger of hypothermia when the sun goes down, even in the high desert in the middle of summer.
We learned how to deploy our fire shelters, which was only to be done when all hope of escape was lost. I remember the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources turning an airboat on us, so we could experience firsthand what the wind might be like if we ever had to deploy. We were taught about the July 1994 South Canyon Fire in Colorado that took the lives of 14 firefighters. I am sure that new firefighters coming up are taught about the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, where 19 hotshots were burned over.
We were taught about human dangers as well. I ran into a couple of cranky landowners who were angry that we had shown up on their land to deal with a lightning strike or an illegal or escaped burn. We are warned about the possibility of encountering UXO (unexploded ordnance), but at the time, there was greater concerns about fire crews running up on meth labs or somebody’s weed grow. The possibility of an active shooter waiting for us never entered our minds.
In HazMat, things were a little different, since in the shadow of 9/11, terrorism was very much on the minds of every responder. We were taught about the various chemical and biological products and agents that could claim lives, the strategy of “time, distance, and shielding,” and the nefarious concept of secondary devices. By way of explanation, a secondary device is something that is timed to detonate after a primary attack. The idea is that the secondary device will take out firefighters, law enforcement, or EMS, adding to the destruction and chaos, and hampering the response infrastructure. It is similar in theory to what happened in Idaho on Sunday. But at the time, none of us thought we would have to deal with this eventuality: Shooter Ambushes Police and Fire Crews in Idaho; 2 Dead.
While the murders on Sunday were in a wildland situation and hit close to me, firefighters responding to structural incidents and accidents in urban settings have been dealing with all sorts of violent attacks from onlookers and bystanders for some time now. I was speaking this morning with a former ER nurse, who explained that at one time, ER staffers did not have to worry about getting kicked, hit, stabbed, spat upon, or otherwise assaulted. There was a time when medical personnel did not have to think about someone strolling onto the unit and opening fire.
Some may be tempted to say, “What is the uproar over these murders, when murders happen every day?” I’ve never met a firefighter, cop, member of the military, or a healthcare worker who called themselves a hero, and yes, while some will strenuously object, all lives matter. But there is something uniquely diabolical about someone who sets such a trap, or who takes advantage of people in stressful situations to commit cold-blooded murder. Many join those professions because they love what they do, and they want to make the world a better place.
Years ago, on my lunch hour, I went to visit my wife at the hospital where she worked in the ICU. It was a small town, and no one had an issue with me strolling in to bring her a treat or a coffee. We were walking down the hall when a group of other nurses sprinted past us. A patient was coding. She didn’t say a word; she just handed me her drink and took off with them. I chuckled a little since I had been relegated in status from husband to cupholder, but I was so very proud of her and her instinct to jump straight into the fray without a second thought. Of course, that left me with a warm Diet Coke to get rid of. I left it on her desk. And talk about war stories: that woman saw things in the ER that made what little hair I have left stand straight on end when she told me about them. Sometimes, you really have to dig deep to do those kinds of jobs.
On some other sites, people have been calling for a return to the “good old days” when such things were not commonplace. They have been answered by people who snarkily replied that even in the good old days, people had the capacity to commit atrocities. There is truth to that; people have been acting like savages ever since Cain Googled “How to hide a body.” The 24-second news cycle brings us more information than we are prepared to handle. But I don’t think that the notion is entirely true.
With the advent of social media and the rise in rhetoric, tragedies are becoming commonplace. We are learning to accept them and move on as part of life. Yes, there is momentary outrage, followed by thoughts and prayers, but people never do seem to learn the lesson, do they? Our leaders and what is left of the media will decry January 6 on one hand, while ignoring or encouraging chaos on the other. A person feels they have accomplished something of significance because they lectured the world on their sexuality or staged a meltdown on TikTok.
The fact that one can post on a comment section, X, Facebook, Instagram, or Bluesky with impunity allows them to say horrible, inciteful things while being reasonably sure that they will never see the effects of that violence. If, by some miracle, they are held to account, they can simply shrug it off by saying that they were quoted out of context, misunderstood, or trying to make a point. Or they don’t say anything at all. Violence is fine, as long as it is happening to someone they don’t like, and at a safe distance.
The New York Post is reporting that internet sleuths uncovered the fact that the shootings occurred on the 24th anniversary of the Coeur d’Alene fire department burning down a white supremacist building in Hayden Lake:
Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler was forced to sell the site in a bankruptcy sale after being ordered to pay a Native American woman $6.3 million in 2001 as part of a lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The hate group’s security guards had opened fire at the woman, Victoria Keenan, when she stopped outside the building with her son. Keenan bought the dilapidated compound for $95,000 and sold it to a local philanthropist, who let the local Coeur d’Alene fire department burn it down as part of a training exercise. Conspiracy theorists and locals are now questioning whether Sunday’s incident may have been a revenge attack for the fire department’s destruction of the compound.
Naturally, this is all conjecture as of this writing, and the theories will no doubt fly until the facts are known. And they will likely continue to fly, even after all the facts are known.
When I was growing up, crudely drawn swastikas would occasionally appear on the local synagogues. That was bad enough, but back then, a group of Jews could gather without someone lobbing Molotov cocktails at them. A person could air an opinion without their address and family members being doxed. You could bring up an idea without being ostracized for it, even by people on your side.
One can make the argument that the world is no more violent than in years past. But what cannot be denied is that more and more people are turning to violence as a response to whatever they feel ails them. Violence is encouraged and tolerated. Yes, we can bring up the chaos of the Third Reich or the Bolsheviks, or whatever horrible moment in history you would like to recall. However, humanity has not turned away from such things. We are turning back to them and hitting the accelerator. Sadly, the response to violence will likely be more violence. People seem more prone to letting current events drive them further over the edge.
Whether one is shouting “Allahu Akbar” or “Christ is King,” the taking of another life is a sin. Whether one is advocating for white supremacy or black or brown power, equity, or whatever moves one, destruction and murder are still affronts to humanity. One can justify one’s actions all one wants, and bolster their beliefs with the Bible, “Das Kapital,” “Rules for Radicals,” or “Mein Kampf.” If your beliefs lead you to want to burn the world down, it’s time for a new set of beliefs.
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