Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 14, 1994 TAG: 9409140051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The chartered bus rolled into the parking lot and the occupants, many wearing souvenir T-shirts, hopped off, opened the baggage compartment and started pulling out their duffels.
Strapped to their duffels were emergency backpacks. Emblazoned across their T-shirts was their point of departure: ``Montana Fires, '94.''
The Virginia crews were back home, safe and sound, after an adventure fighting fires in what some believe was the deadliest year of all for firefighters in the drought-ridden West. At least 22 firefighters have lost their lives this year, Jefferson National Forest spokesman David Olson said.
Many of the 37 who returned Saturday to the Blacksburg Work Area of the Jefferson National Forest were employees of the Virginia Department of Forestry.
"We were there to contain fires," said Alan Craft of Selma in Alleghany County. "The fires will not be out till the first snow out there."
Most crew members dug fire lines, clearing a path free of flammable debris. They stayed at a camp with 1,400 other firefighters from around the country who came to battle blazes usually ignited by lightning strikes or careless people.
"We went out to northwest Montana to a place called the Yaak Red Dragon complex. At first, I wasn't sure what a complex was, but it's where there are several fires," said Bob Boeren, the Roanoke forester for the Forestry Department.
Fire leapt from tree to tree, often in the tops of boughs, called the crowns. That was new for the Virginia firefighters, who are used to fighting blazes that spread on the ground.
"When we get fires here, it's usually in the spring," Boeren said.
All of the returning firefighters had volunteered to go west through a national network of forestry and wildlife agencies that coordinates crews for the long Western fire season.
"It's been a tough year, and to some extent, illustrates the field conditions out there," Olson said.
More than 4,000 fires have burned since spring, charring 3.4 million acres. That's 1.2 million acres more than the typical five-year average, evidence of the string of dry years.
Here in Virginia, it's hard to predict a fire season, Olson said.
"It really just depends on given days," he said.
But those returned from the West mentioned the piles of dry limbs lying in forests throughout Southwest Virginia, lingering reminders of winter's severe ice storms. That's timber just ready to flare, they said. However, the weather in Virginia is wetter, and, because conditions differ from those in the West, firefighters usually put out fires before they get bigger than 2 or 3 acres.
The returning firefighters also said they never were scared.
"I know it's a dangerous job, but it's a chance we all take," said Dwight Cheek, a federal forestry technician.
by CNB