#HOT SHOTS FIREFIGHTERS CALIFORNIA FULL#

I’m pretty sure everybody on that crew is dreaming of quitting at some point. “The first three days, we had somebody quit every day. Otherwise you’re putting everybody in danger,” he said. If there’s a fire on your ass, you’re not going to leave somebody, so everybody better be in shape to get out of there. “You’d just hike until you dropped, and because you’re a crew, if somebody’s lagging or gapping, you have to deal with that and circle back and pick people up again.

#HOT SHOTS FIREFIGHTERS CALIFORNIA FULL#

He said crew members are expected to be in top physical condition and train every day, doing long runs with push ups and sit ups or hiking in full gear. Those who have potential but didn’t perform as well during training are selected as alternates. Ward described the North Stars as a giant competition, hiring anywhere from 25 to 30 people for 16 spots on the crew that’s selected after a two-week training period. He added that typically it takes three to five years of wildland firefighting experience to make it onto a Hotshot crew, but he got fast-tracked after spending about six weeks on the North Stars. “Hotshot crews will basically do whatever they’re asked, but because of their higher level, usually they’ll be used to take on the toughest part of the fire,” Ward said. Hotshots must meet rigorous physical requirements and often work in remote and rough terrain, taking the most dangerous and technical assignments. “Being a Hotshot, in some ways, is being an industrial athlete.” “Being outdoorsy in general and a really big athlete in high school, and now being out of high school and not in college anymore, I sort of had this void,” Ward said. He joined the state crew last year after hearing a news story about wildland firefighting and decided to move on to a more difficult line of work this summer.

As a child, he remembers seeing large wildfires in California on the news and admiring the firefighters battling the blazes. Ward, 23, grew up in Montague and has been interested in firefighting since he was young. Over the summer, Ward’s crew was sent to nine fires across the West. This year, Ezra Ward of Leverett joined the North Star Fire Crew in Alaska and was quickly picked up by an Alaska Fire Service Hotshot crew - a group of highly trained wildland firefighters often likened to Special Forces in the military that may be sent anywhere in the United States to fight wildfires. LEVERETT - After fighting wildland fires in Oregon last summer on a Massachusetts wildfire crew, a local man has advanced to a more intense line of firefighting.

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