When your job is in the line of fire...

by Sally Jack
Contributing writer
Mark and Janiece Atwood were enjoying an evening meal with their family when the call came: “Fire in Idaho!” And Mark, a professional firefighter, is given orders and a few details. He takes one last bite of his half-eaten dinner, grabs his fire bag, kisses his wife and children goodbye, and he is off to fight fire.
Soon he and his team are being flown in a small fixed wing aircraft to the middle of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness area. They jump off the plane, jump onto a raft, and spend four or five days navigating down world-class whitewater river rapids to assess structures, bridges, and campsites along the river.
Using this assessment, the other half of the crew can go in with the right tools and the right approach for protecting these values.
Mark has been fighting fires professionally for 25 years. His wife Janiece has been working in the industry for seven years, and they never know when or where they’ll be called out next.
Sometimes the call comes at midnight. Sometimes it comes in the wee hours of the morning. But one thing is certain—it’s always an adventure.
“I’ve had interactions with wolves in the wilds of Alaska, water moccasins in Florida, and alligators in Texas,” Mark says. “In Wyoming, a mama moose and her calf walked right into my camp just a few feet away from me. When North Carolina was on fire I was back there fighting those arson fires. I’ve been all over the place with my job.”
Mark recalls a time when he and a fellow firefighter were stationed in the middle of a designated wilderness in Idaho. For nine days they were confined to the top of a peak that could only be described as “a knob,” no bigger than the size of his property in Monticello.
Their job was to watch what the fire was doing across a huge canyon. Every hour in the daylight they took turns taking pictures of the fire and reporting the weather conditions.
One night it began to rain like crazy – not the five minute San Juan County special we are accustomed to, but a drencher! Lightning sliced the night sky with such pulsating intensity it felt like they were trapped inside a giant strobe light. Thunder growled, rain pounded, lightning zapped all around them.
Mark said, “It was so loud that we couldn’t hear each other shouting, even though our tents were only a couple of yards away from each other. The wind was blowing so hard that my tent was concave, hovering just inches above my face. It was super scary! And I remember lying there thinking, ‘This is it! I am going to die right here in my sleeping bag.’”
On another occasion, Mark crawled into his sleeping bag without putting up his tent. When he woke up, a quarter inch of frost covered him and his sleeping bag.
Firefighters are pretty much away from home for several months during the fire season, which for Utah extends from May through October, with assignments lasting two weeks or more at a time.
Naturally Mark misses his family, so when he comes home after surviving wolves, lightning, and quarter inch frost, he’d say, “Hey everybody, what shall we do as a family while I am home? And inevitably the kids would clamor, ‘Let’s go camping!’
And good man that he is, Mark would pull out the sleeping bags once again, (though not wholly without a sigh for a good night’s sleep in a real bed).
“I’m pretty sure some years I’ve spent more days, weeks, maybe even months, of my life in a sleeping bag than I have in my own bed,” he laughs.
A degree is not required to become a firefighter. At the beginning of his career, Mark passed a physical fitness test and medical examination, and received two weeks of training in the basics.
The government provides training through the National Wildland Coordination Group (NWCG) where fighters can receive courses and certifications.
Through the years, Mark received progressive training through these courses and classes as well as valuable on the job learning and experience to round out his skills.
On the educational side of things, Mark spent a lot of time on his own, away from fire, taking classes in subjects such as ecology, wildlife, flora and fauna, and a wide range of courses to increase his knowledge and expertise.
In the beginning, Atwood fought fires in the summer and worked construction in the winter. After two to three years his position became permanent and included benefits.
By then he was working eight or nine months of the year as a natural progression on the job, and now he works year round.
As a firefighter, Mark works for the government, working for or with the Forest Service, the BLM, and currently, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
His current skill set is in fire behavior – fire modeling and sciences. He serves as Fire Management Officer in the Southwest Area for the Ute Mountain Ute Agency.
(This is Part One of a three part series on firefighting. Next week in Part Two, we’ll take a look at Janiece Atwood’s job in the line of fire, as well as a closer look at the operation of firefighting in general.