Mike versus the Helicopter
Lassen Hotshots - 2005 Season
So there I was -- surrounded. Fire to the left of me, and fire to the right. It raced through the desert sage, and nimbly danced its way through the patchy Juniper and Pinyon tree stands that defiantly grow amidst this red rock desert. The American desert is home to what appears to be a long forgotten farm of Bonsaii trees, and I couldn’t believe the federal government deemed this arid landscape worth saving. After all, sixty-years ago, this place was a nuclear testing ground. I was with the Lassen Hotshots in the Southwestern corner of Utah, just outside of the city of St. George. The last outpost on the frontier before you hit the hedonism and debauchery of Nevada, some 10 lonely miles to the west.
After battling most of the day to contain a 500+ acre fire, we had it on the ropes, and we sat down to take a well-earned break. The break was rudely interrupted by air recon, who reported a smoke outside of our control lines to the west – in between our lines and a home. We all cursed silently, and waited while a helicopter flew over the spot to size it up. As we watched the helicopter hover, we began shaking our heads. No, this is not happening. The chopper was no more than 100 feet off the desert floor, hovering DIRECTLY over the smoke. Any lucid, reasonable person can see the stupidity in this. Fire loves oxygen, and with hurricane force winds now being driven down on it by the chopper’s rotor wash, this fire was getting all the O2 it needed and then some. Predictably, the thing flashed out.
“Idiots!” was the general consensus. Goose and Maverick just made our job infinitely more difficult with their fly-by. Thanks boys.
We got the call to check out the new spot fire shortly thereafter, and we geared up and hustled through a slot canyon, and scrambled up to the other side where we met a 1/2 acre fire that with a little bit of wind could have gotten big in a hurry.
Hell-bent on spoiling those plans, we fired up our battle-scarred chainsaws and set to work on flanking and hooking, while another squad starting setting up hoselays.
Saw Team Charlie, as my Saw partner and I were affectionately referred to as, took the west (stage left) flank and began in earnest to clear a six-foot swath along the blackened edge. Due to upslope, westerly winds, we were on the windward flank, spared from the smoke and punishing heat, and we were able to make excellent progress, though mainly because I was a stud, and so was my saw partner -a lad of tremendous height, who was known simply as "Tree.”
As I said before, we were working the cooler side of the fire, and as the helicopters began their mission, they focused first on the eastern flank (stage right). Aware of this fact, Tree and I continued our prodigious progress, mowing deftly through the desert brush, and paying little attention to the helicopters circling above.
The air circus hadn’t come to our part of town yet, so there was no reason to gawk at them. After three years in fire, the excitement of seeing helicopters had worn thin, and I now was seeing them as nothing more than a noisy distraction; a valuable yet annoying tool that we you just had to deal with. I used to sing the “Air Wolf” theme song whenever they came by… but no one laughs anymore when I do it, so I’ve stopped.
All was going well, until I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. As I cocked my head to the right, I saw my squad boss waving his arms wildly, his feet off the ground, his mouth open wide, and a giant vein throbbing down his forehead. What was this guy doing?
With the saw revved up, and the fire crackling, and the steady “whop whop whop” of the helicopters rotor blades overhead, I couldn't hear what he was yelling about. Confused, I began to turn my body towards him, when suddenly my world got turned upside down.
Without the slightest warning, it felt like someone had snuck up behind me and slammed a metal folding chair across my back a la WWE style. My initial thought was, strangely: “Ninjas?!!”
My knees buckled and I face-planted into the strangely muddy lake that was now the desert floor. Unable to breathe because, for one, I was now nose-down and snorkeling in a pond that was immaculately conceived, and second, my lungs felt like a piñata on Cinco De Mayo. I doubt even Moses could have made those things expand and contract.
Panicked, utterly confused, and morbidly amused that I might drown to death in the desert, I struggled to get to my feet. I couldn’t breathe, my back was throbbing, and I was sopping wet.
I looked for my saw partner, who was right were I left him, and I stretched out my arms with the palms-up – the internationally-recognized gesture for "What the F%ck dude?"
He was dry as the Sahara.
They made me sit down and my squad boss (an EMT) began doing a spinal assessment. I kept reiterating to them that I was fine, a few cuts and scrapes, nothing big…just bloody confused. All I wanted to know was what the hell just happened? Why am I completely drenched in water? Why did I get the wind knocked out of me? How come Tree is still standing and barely even wet? Were Ninjas responsible for this? Seriously what’s the score here?
Before I could finish my rant, the two of them buckled over in laughter, howling, and that just incensed me further. Laugh it up, guys, laugh it up I said sarcastically. I was livid! I could have drowned…IN THE DESERT! This is the kind of stuff that wins Darwin Awards. And by the way, does anyone know WHERE ALL THIS WATER CAME FROM?! And how come Tree isn’t wet?
When they regained their composure, my squad boss put his arm on my shoulder and said, "Settle down, settle down! So I was calling 29 Bravo [helicopter call sign] in for a bucket drop on my side, right, when I see him suddenly veer off and head towards you--”
“I got hit by a bucket drop?”
“It’s more like you got destroyed by a helicopter drop.” My squad boss corrected me.
“You didn’t try to warn me on the radio? Tree’s got a friggin’ radio!” I started angrily tapping the radio on Tree’s chest.
“Right here Matt, here’s his friggin’ radio –“
“ -- I did! I did. I tried. Seriously, I kept calling, but you guys didn’t hear it!”
I looked at Tree, and he shrugged, then smiled sheepishly. If he wasn’t such an ogre of a man I would have attacked him with a stick. But I didn’t. Luck and fortune were not on my side today.
They were, however, on Tree’s. Through sheer luck, Tree had been perfectly protected by the errant bucket drop by a Juniper tree. The water had cascaded all around him, but being safely in its shadow, he was spared the brunt of it. Which was fortunate, considering that he was running the saw at the time, and if he had been suddenly knocked to the ground with the saw running, it could have been ugly.
My squad boss continued. “I kept thinking, he’s going to drop right on you and you guys have no idea what’s up so I charged through the black. But…”
He moved his arms rapidly up and down to illustrate to me that he ran. I cared little. I was wet and he wasn’t. I almost drowned in a puddle of mud in the nowhere Utah $12.13/hr.
My squad boss started snickering. “…looks like I didn’t make it!”
More laugher.
I needed a chew, so I dug some Kodiak out from my breast pocket. It was delicious. I sat for a minute and just shook my head.
“Hey, look who’s back!” My squad boss pointed out to the horizon, where a blue Sikorsky-58 helicopter was coming in to view from the North.
“Is that him?”
“Yup.”
I picked up a rock and when he passed overhead, I hurled it at him like a Palestinian protester. I missed badly, but it was cathartic.
“Alright, you feeling ok, Mike?” My squad boss asked.
“Yeah, I feel fine.”
I picked up my helmet and threw my pack on. After only a minute or two of standing in 110-degree heat, I was almost dry.
As we began hiking out, my squad boss looked back at me and said, “Hey, there’s a hell of a story for your buddies back home.”
“You’re right. And Tree - how about I carry the radio for the rest of the day?”