A battle, unfortunately, way too familiar.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Fighting fire is something I am familiar with. My dad fought them all of his life. My younger sister spent time battling them for the United States Forest Service. I mark various watershed events in my own life by the experience of fire.
"Andrew Zajac was a well-liked and active student at Downers Grove North High School, where he played football, performed cello in the orchestra and signed up for exciting trips abroad with fellow classmates," writes Annemarie Mannion and Gary Gibula of the Chicago Tribune.
"As news spread that Zajac, 26, was one of the three firefighters with the U.S. Forest Service killed this week while battling a fierce wildfire in Washington state, friends, family and former acquaintances in the west suburbs mourned the loss of a local kid who grew up to do heroic work," said the Tribune story last week.
"Zajac and two other firefighters — Tom Zbyszewski, 20, and Richard Wheeler, 31 — were killed and four others injured when what authorities described as a “hellstorm” of flames driven by shifting winds overtook their crew Wednesday after they crashed their vehicle while fighting a wildfire in north-central Washington."
Almost 30,000 firefighters are taking on 100 large fires in drought-stricken, and heat-ravaged Washington, California,  Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and other parts of the West.
The three, took their last firetruck ride along Twisp River Road,  as hundreds in smoke-stained Nomex removed their hard hats to honor the procession for the fallen — before heading back to the fire lines.
I noted, (not for the first time) that there is connection among those battling blazes. 
An unlucky 13 firefighters have been killed fighting Western fires this year.
Locally, Divide Fire Protection District, North East Teller County, and perhaps others, each have sent trucks west to fires.
The 13 recalls the South Canyon Fire on Storm King near Glenwood Springs in 1994 unfortunately, and makes me recall the 14 killed there.
Prineville Hotshots: Kathi Beck, Tamera Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Douglas Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso.
Missoula Smokejumper: Don Mackey
McCall Smokejumpers: Roger Roth, Jim Thrash.
Helitack: Robert Browning, Jr., Richard Tyler.
Five firefighters died from injuries sustained from a June 21, 2002 traffic accident en route to the Hayman fire in Colorado from Oregon: Zach Zigich, Retah Shirley, Jacob Martindale, Danial Rama, and Bart Bailey. I will never forget the disconsolate, but determined, looks on firefighter's faces when they announced those names at a Lake George fire briefing, then.
It is important to remember — always, I think.

Photo information:
The lone helicopter on the South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain, shown here before the blowup on July 6, 1994, shuttled the Prineville Hotshots from Canyon Creek Estates to the fire. Courtesy of Bowman Museum.

Appreciate you picking up the phone.

All the time I was growing up in a small town in southwestern Colorado, a strange, faceless phone with no dialing mechanism hung right on my dad’s side of my parent’s bedroom.  I think there might have been as many as eight of them (exactly alike) hanging in various locations (homes and businesses) around the small town of 800 residents.

All of them were the property of the local volunteer fire department.

Whether it be night or day, the loud, unremitting, urgent ring would sound continuously at the breakout of a fire -- until someone picked up and answered the call.

If the call was judged not to be a prank, or false alarm, then the lever on the black box next to the phone was shoved over, all the way to the right, and the fire siren down at the town hall would begin its mournful summons of the 25 or 30 volunteer firefighters in the area.

Later, of course, heavy, boxlike pagers were worn on volunteers’ belts and the siren (that also served as the noon whistle, because it was necessary to test each day), became obsolete. I am not sure what they use today in that town.

The volunteers serving on that department – all by choice – and all continuing to work their regular jobs or at businesses to pay the bills and feed their families, would drop everything when the siren wailed.

I considered that carefully this week, as we continued to evaluate how fortunate we are, and what a debt we owe, regarding firefighter’s response and effectiveness when called to serve. When everyone else is running out, they are unselfishly, and usually anonymously, running in.

Of course, this week we are lining the roads, making signs and remembering (quite correctly so,) to mark the firefighters recent efforts.

Wouldn’t it also be appropriate to also recall the locals, and on a regular basis, the efforts of people like Pineville Hot Shots Kathi Beck, Tamera Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Douglas Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso or Missoula smokejumper: Don Mackey, and McCall Smokejumpers: Roger Roth, Jim Thrash and Helitack Robert Browning, Jr., and Richard Tyler?

Or perhaps Oregon wildland firefighters: Zach Zigich, Retah Shirley, Jacob Martindale, Danial Rama, and Bart Bailey?

After all, it might be night or day, and they may have to drop what they are doing to hear our urgent ring.

Much like that faceless phone of my youth, we might forget about them for the most part, and never remember their names, or what kind of sacrifices they may have to make.

But local volunteers, paid professionals, and others who travel from across the country to help -- pick up, and answer the call anyway.

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