And just like that, the Type II team moves to the next fire

By Jennifer McBride

Leader Staff

More than 300 people from across the country came to fight the Garceau fire, and each one has a story to tell.

Many of them belonged to the Type II North Idaho Incident Management Team which packed up and left last week, following the largely successful containment of the fire, as local crews took over mop-up work this week. Though the people might not snare as many headlines as the fires they fight, their stories are just as interesting.

There are five Type II teams and two Type I teams in the Northern Rockies area. Type II teams are sometimes called out to help with other disasters like floods, but mostly, their job is to stop forest fires.

Incident Commander Roger Kechter, who headed the Type II team, said that Garceau was "a bit of a tough fire" because it's in thick woods.

"It's always a harder fire when it's in heavy timber," he said. "The fire burns hotter and there's an increased chance of spot fires."

Despite Garceau's complexity, no firefighters were seriously injured.

"It's been a good, safe fire," Kechter said.

Members of the North Idaho Zone Type II Incident Management Team come from all over the United States. On the Garceau fire, firefighters came from Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Idaho and Montana. All of them have other jobs, many with the forest service or fish and wildlife management bureaus. Most of the members need flexible work hours — firefighters sometimes have to be out on a site up to 21 days at a time. This puts a lot of stress on both work and family.

"It's hard on family life. My wife doesn't exactly say, 'Oh good, you're going!'" Kechter said.

During fire season, Kechter and his team sometimes travel all over the nation. That works in reverse, too — Ketcher's team has bumped shoulders with firefighters from other states. He said people from Florida and Mississippi often got a "rude awakening" when they faced the challenges inherent in fighting fires in the timber-dense Rockies.

Sometimes, firefighters come from even farther away than Rhode Island to assist Kechter. Finance Section Chief Ginger Christiansen has worked with crews from Russia, Puerto Rico and Australia, all of whom came to the United States to learn new techniques.

When people on the team arrive, they are usually treated to a briefing as soon as possible. Firefighters are expected to begin their job as soon as their boots touch the ground—no time to recover from jet lag.

"Everyone has a job they have to start on right away," Kechter said. "The day we come in, people start firefighting."

Team members have to be ready to work even if they don't have the resources they want. Their first night on the Garceau fire, a lot of the firefighters slept in the Polson City Fairgrounds under a large tarp because of a lack of tents.

"It was a case of making do with what you have, when you have it," Public Information Officer Terina Mullen said.

For the Garceau fire, Kechter met with Confederated Salish and Kootenai Division of Fire officials to discuss the situation and coordinate resources. Two local CSKT crews worked directly with the Type II team on the fire.

"They don't tell us how to fight the fire," Kechter said, "but they do give us broad objectives to reach."

In the Garceau fire, the number one objective was to maintain safety and communication. Other priorities were to suppress the fire, identify and protect cultural resources in the fire area by avoiding heavy-equipment use on important sites, and protect timber values.

After the briefing, the crew starts strategizing about how to contain the fire. Staff use computer models to predict the fire behavior, set up a communications net and hand out safety advisories. When Kechter arrived in Ronan at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, July 25, they had their planning session started by 5:00 p.m.

In the heart of fire season, resources are tight. Access to aircraft is scarce. Two days into the fire, the team had part-time use of only one helicopter. That made it difficult for ground forces working on steep slopes to do more than contain the fire.

"It's always difficult to get our aircraft needs filled," Kechter said.

The sheer manpower required for fighting type-two fires creates a hefty price tag. According to Christiansen, the average 20-person crew costs $3,600 a day. With the air support, average costs can run to $300,000 daily. The most expensive fire Finance Section Chief Ginger Christensen worked on cost $5 million after two weeks of work.

At the team's largest in late July, there were nine 20-person crews working onsite beside 19 fire engines, 6 bulldozers and 9 water tenders.

As the fire area died down last week to somewhere to less than 10 percent of the total 3,000 acres, the Type II team left it to the local crews. They fly home and wait for the next fire. Sometimes, Kechter said, the next phone call is only two days away.

Many of the Type 2 will never come within 50 feet of a forest fire. Firefighting involves computer analysts, timekeepers, medical staff, communications personal and financiers. Without them, the people on the ground would have a hard time putting out the fire as successfully or as safely.

Pat Seymour, one of the newest member of the incident management team, is only in his second year as part of the group. "It's a lot of fun," he said, "and I'm always learning." Seymour is a trainee planning section chief and was partially responsible for planning the team's strategy. Seymour worked with the Idaho Department of Lands and had some firsthand firefighting experience when he worked on a water line. He blew out his back in 1995, leaving him stuck in a desk job. When he's not overseeing firefighters, Seymour works as his area's Endangered Species Manager.

The most difficult part of being responsible for managing firefighting are the thousands of details Seymour has to hammer down. "It always takes more time than you think it will," Seymour said, "and there are always details you think you have covered when you don't."

Like all type two firefighters, Seymour misses his wife and child when he's off fighting fires. Seymour missed his son's swim meet to fight the Garceau fire.

"It's the hardest thing, being away," Seymour said. "You're busier the two days back than when you're home on a normal weekend."

Seymour tries to make up the lost time with by going hiking and camping, though sometimes the sudden burst of parental attention can be a little much for his 11-year-old son.

"He was probably glad to see me leave," Seymour said with a laugh.

Christiansen remembers having similar difficulties with her own four children, now grown. They still associate Christiansen's fire trips with new shoes.

"When I came home after so long, I couldn't help but spoil them," Christiansen said. "They got especially nice new school clothes, sometimes the designer jeans they had their eye on."