WHAT DOES A HOTSHOT DO?
WHAT A HOT SHOT CREW DOES-. The job title is anything but glamorous. Fire-fighting is 90 percent physical labor for the Hotshot Crews. The nature of the work is demanding. Only those of high strength, agility, coordination, and stamina can cope with the sustained physical exertion. As a Hotshot, you will be required to not only produce physically, but to live, eat, and sleep together in close, crowded conditions.
You must take orders, and carry out those orders at all times, day after day. The emotional strain is extreme and the competitive pressure from your peer group is always present. A crew is only as good as its weakest member! When not on fire duty, you will engage in daily, structured physical fitness training that consists of running three to five miles, coordination exercises, pushups, sit-ups, chin-ups, stretching, etc.
The rest of your day will be like every other day: hard labor using various hand tools. You will be expected to be ready at all times to answer fire calls throughout the United States. This requires you to be on a twent-four hour alert.
On the fire line, Hotshot Crews are singled out for the most hazardous and difficult assignments. It is normal for Hotshot Crews to be on the first shift up to thirty-two hours before relief is available. Succeeding shifts of up to 16 hours are necessary. On occasion you will be “spiked” out away from the main fire camp, thirsty, hungry, and sleeping on rocky ground, sometimes without even a sleeping bag. You will hardly have the luxury of washing your hands, much less facilities to bathe. You will be filthy, exhausted, underfed, and hurting. There will be no privacy, no sanitation, no shelter, and no doctors.
The Hotshot Crew is so named because of the need for tough, knowledgeable, rugged individuals who can be sent ahead of the main contingent of ordinary fire crews to construct holding lines around critical segments of the fire and survive with little or no support.
You will be required to walk long distances, sometimes packing heavy loads, up and down extreme mountainous terrain, carrying packs of hose, chainsaws, or backpack pumps. You will cut trees, drag limbs and brush out of the fire’s path, dig 3 to 10 foot wide fire lines to down to mineral soil, build trenches, haul hose, pack heavy portable pumps and tanks, and burn out your line before the fire gets there.
And that’s not the end of it. The dirty work of mop-up begins – digging and scraping out all hotspots and extinguishing the heat source. Other features of the job are living and breathing smoke for days, contending with mosquitoes, ticks, gnats, flies, stump beetles, snakes, scorpions, spiders, rolling rocks and falling debris, thorns, and cactus.
It is dirty, dusty, hot, and you are always either sweaty or freezing cold. Hotshots travel all over the United States and Alaska, often seeing home only a few days during the summer. Being a Hotshot can be exciting, but very challenging. Many people try out for the Hotshots and don’t make it. This is not the time or place to get in shape, you must be in outstanding shape and mentally tough when you start work.
