PLACERVILLE . INFO

By Andrew Becker June 28, 2001 They say they are summer vagabonds, gypsies, on the ultimate camping trip. Some will tell you they are trying to save the planet, while others mention they are earning money for college. It's a childhood fantasy come true or a family affair for a few. Most are in for several seasons before moving to easier, more comfortable jobs, giving their young bodies and already old, perhaps ruined knees a rest. The men and women get up when they're told to, toil 16 hours or more a day when needed and work until told to bed down to do the same thing the next day. With pride and patience they spell out their names, share a joke, explain their job and their attraction to it. Some were drawn to the excitement of the front end and the voracious flames. For others it was the freedom of being outside. For one, it was this or homework. That's how it was and how it is for Jared McElhannon, one of the 20 members of the Eldorado Interagency Hotshot Crew, an elite group of wildland firefighters stationed out of the Eldorado National Forest's Placerville Ranger District in Camino, Calif., who have fought the Martis Fire since it began June 17. McElhannon, 22, started fighting fires as a 16-year-old when a family friend staying with him and his brother gave the boys a choice: come with him to a volunteer firefighting course at the fire station or do their homework. When Jared turned 18 after two years as a volunteer, he became a hotshot. Last Thursday afternoon the lanky four-year crew veteran and his company were lighting backfires for a containment line in Murphy Meadows, near the California/Nevada border, where two nights before the burning slopes lit up like San Francisco hills on a moonless night, smoke pouring over the mountains like rolling ocean fog. It's the danger and the beauty that provide a certain romance to the work and life of a hotshot, a romance that charms him or her to return one fire season after another, to travel around the country, one fire to the next. As an interagency unit, full-time hotshot crews, which currently total around 70 nationwide, not only go to the hottest spot of the fire, helping with the initial attack operations, they also work scratch lines and reduce fuels in burnout operations, often at high altitudes and with long approaches. They work the remote areas, in steep, rocky and smoky terrain. For these reasons, a minimum of 80 percent of any crew must have at least one year of firefighting experience, so this is not an outfit for the green. Their intensive and continuous training is varied enough that they can be assigned to any phase of the fire and also be called in for other natural disasters like floods and hurricanes. Self-sufficient for the most part, hotshots, in addition to a chain saw, shovel or a Pulaski - a long-handled combination axe and hoe - carry what they need in hip packs (backpacks can put a strain on crew members and inhibit movement when swinging a tool), including water, food (Meals, Ready-to-Eat, or MREs), fuel, fusees (explosives for backfires, especially in brush) and other basic necessities. The teams, known as a type-one hand crew, spend the entire season together, some for several fire seasons, training, conditioning and learning in ... Read More - Click Here