What Is a Fire Hand Crew- What Does It Do
What is the Davis Fire Crew?
An organization of United States Forest Service Type-II On-Call Hand Crews dispatched by the Mendocino National Forest to wildfires across the western United States. Since 1976, we have fought forest fires as close as Lake Tahoe and as far as Montana and New Mexico. Each of our nineteen person crews consist of a crew leader, three squad leaders, four certified chainsaw operators and 11 crew members. The crew is joined by a Forest Service crew boss.
Our season typically starts in mid-June and can last as late as November, depending on precipitation and fire potential.
Short job description: We use hand tools and chainsaws to cut containment lines around wildfires and assist in “mopping up” the fires once they are out, making sure there are no hot spots to flare up again.
Long job description: We set up fire camps, carry water containers, set backfires, tear down fire camps, set up mile-long hose systems, play cards for hours while waiting for an assignment, hike around all day looking for smoldering trees, rehabilitate burned areas, ride in helicopters, on boats, in canoes, on airplanes to and from fires in places you’ve never even heard of, spend nights in junior high gyms or freezing alpine fields, weed the flower beds at a ranger station, have all-you-can-eat dinners at restaurants or Army rations for three days straight in the woods, and just generally have a good time being alternately bored and exhausted in some of the most beautiful country imaginable all while earning a very respectable hourly wage for the demanding and dangerous work performed in the interests of protecting people, property, and natural resources.
