The people have spoken and I'm a man of the people. Following the widespread critical acclaim of my last guide on taking on our nation's favourite enclave (thanks Mom), I now turn my attention towards the noble defenders of our forests. There are definitely more qualified people than I to write about this but none of them seem to do it. I'm also in a good mood. I recently found an Ontario-style milk holder (shoutout Dollarama) to store my Ontario-issue bagged milk. This means milk's back on the menu boys! Armed with a nice cold glass of Ontario's finest, I now feel empowered to embark on yet another literary crusade in the name of enlightenment.

Preface: While this is primarily geared towards BC Wildfire service Initial Attack (IA) crews as that is what I am most familiar with, the general concepts should hold across any provincial wildfire agency in Canada. We just have better uniforms and fight cooler fires.

Boot camp: During Covid, we had a 'Virtual' boot camp (brilliant idea). This basically meant that I had to do a bunch of useless online courses that I had already completed back in high school, along with the first aid training I was supposed to get paid to do the year prior, right in the middle of finals season during my first year of university (also online). As such, I don't know what the real boot camp is like, but I've heard it can be pretty fun.

Before you begin boot camp, there's some things you should grab. They're part of the 'unofficial' BCWS kit

Boot selection: Scarpa Fuegos or old Vibergs if you can find them (thanks Dad).

Merino Wool: Do you like the tender feeling of Nomex rubbing against your skin? Are you a fan of melted polyester? Do you fancy having your skin's metaphorical Yankee being de-brimmed by freezing, soaked cotton? No? Then get some premium sheep garments.

Stanfield (Stanny): The most iconic firefighter garment besides the uniform itself. Arguably more iconic because it is worn and loved by firefighters of many uniforms. It's basically just a heavy grey (you need to get the grey one, no other colour is acceptable) wool pullover. During a cold day, this is what you want. Nothing warms you up quite like wearing a sheep. It's also an iconic part of Northern BC Loggercore. You think real lumberjacks wear flannel? Nah bud they wear Stannies.

Don't worry, the Stanny makes your malnourished IA ass look jacked. Just in time for the fitness test too.

The fitness test: If you have any athletic background whatsoever and weigh upwards of 85lbs, passing this thing is a joke. However, there is still a right and a wrong way to do it. Fast times are good and the fastest time on base gets clout but the key here is that you can't run. If you run it means you were trying too hard and that's bad style. Basically, if you're doing it right, it should look like some weird-ass racewalking time-trial with a backpack and a ramp. Because that's what it is.

Once you are through the fitness test it's time for your early-season activities!

Training modules: If you can read/write, you pass. If you can't read/write, you still pass but it takes two tries. Once that's done, it's time to make a choice that will define who you are as a firefighter.

Chest Pack Vs Holster: When you go to pick up your gear, you are given a simple choice: do you choose a chest pack or a holster to carry your radio? While this choice may seem inconsequential, it isn't. You only get to make your first radio holder decision once and the top brass uses this process to identify candidates for future leadership positions. The Jerry move here is to pick the chest pack; it makes you look important, and you can carry snacks in it. The problem with the chest pack only becomes evident when the real work begins. You see, the most sensitive parts of a wildland firefighter during a busy season are the nipples. The chest pack exploits this vulnerability in order to punish its host for their poor life decisions. Common symptoms of the affected include chafing, cursing, nipple bleeding, and taking off the chest pack to unbutton the red (as you can imagine, these guys have a lot of unbuttoning to do because they're the type of guys to have every single button done up to begin with) and let the boys breathe. Meanwhile, the nipples of those who choose the holster are free and strong. They made their choice wisely, without ego, and as such are free to reap the rewards. Once this choice has been made, it's time to learn how to use these radios.

Radio communication: Radio skills are a huge part of firefighting. Mainly because communication is important, and the job is loud as shit. There are a few key things to keep in mind when using the radio. They will now be covered:

1. The most important thing to master here is the “Roger”. There are three key variants: “Roger”, “Roger Wilco” and “Rog (rodge)”. Roger stands for “Received Orders Given Expect Results”. Roger Wilco stands for the same thing plus “Will Comply”, which when you think about it, makes it totally redundant in the face of Roger. As you would expect, chest pack enthusiasts fucking LOVE to say Roger Wilco. Then there's “Rog” (Generally given as “Yea Rodge”). There's an argument within the firefighting community that rodge is too informal and the missing “er” at the end implies a lack of commitment on behalf of the Rodge-er towards the Rodge-ee. I disagree. I argue that the absence of an “er” following “Rog” does not imply a lack of commitment, but rather the assumption of it. The Rodge-er does does need to tell the Rodge-ee to expect results because the results should already be expected. As such, you should only use Rodge if your work can speak for itself.

2. Never end a transmission with “over”, it's corny and nobody does it. If you say “over and out”, you lose your radio privileges permanently, no more walkie talkie for you.

3. The phonetic alphabet is used when something needs to get spelled out over radio. Make sure you know it well so you don't have to use “Ligma” as a substitute for when you forget the phonetic for “L”.

4. Begin a transmission by stating the target callsign followed by your own e.g “4-PAPA-94, 94-Delta” (there is no PAPA-69 callsign currently but if it ever does exist, I don't care if I'm a fucking VC by then I'm abandoning my career to pursue my calling). If you are feeling particularly mischievous, you can try and convince unsuspecting rookies that “Howdy” is an appropriate way to begin a transmission.

Gear hikes: Gear hikes build both camaraderie and character. A gear hike is just a nice relaxing walk through the bush with your gear and your friends. Sounds fun, right? Wrong! The thing with gear hikes is, as a rookie, your status within the group is directly proportional to how much gear you carry. What's more, the type of gear you carry also has prestige associated with it. As such, you should choose your gear wisely. I've outlined a few choice builds below:

1. Mark 3 Complete: The classic gear hike power move. Consists of a Wajax (now Waterax) Mark 3 pump, suction (donkey dick) hose, toolbox, and jerry can. Use the lined hose to turn your 80-pound pump into a trendy backpack and wear that donkey dick around your neck with pride! Pair with a chest-mounted line pack for brownie points. The thing that makes this build hard isn't the weight. Overall, it's only like 190lbs. The issue is where the weight is. The pump on your back is fine but you also have about 50lbs in each hand, which means that it turns into a game of forearm strength. While this battle is underway, the 10lb donkey dick wrapped like a wreathe around your neck seeks to pull your head down and break your posture in the most degrading manner possible. While this isn't objectively the most physically taxing build, it is definitely the most technical. The benefit to mastering this build is extremely evident on the fireline, however. A rookie who can successfully run a MK 3 complete by themselves from insertion to pump site is extremely valuable and rare. A rookie who can successfully run this build on the first gear hike is liable to retain the title of “Alpha-Chad” for the season.

2. Melon Daddy: Consists of linking the ends of two melon (hose) rolls together. Then doing that like 20 more times and then figuring out how to carry them all at once. The beauty of this build is that it is highly ergonomic and scalable. Melon rolls can be joined and wound together in a way that complements each firefighter's dainty and unique figure perfectly, allowing carry weights of over 200lbs. Depending on the situation, you can also drag additional hose behind you to show your co-workers just how much of a human tractor you really are. This one's a personal favourite of mine.

3. The Warlord: This one gets a lot of shit because it looks dope and it's easier than the other two. As you would expect, it is therefore the carry style of choice for chest pack enthusiasts. It is as follows: Chainsaw over shoulder. Pulaski in other hand. Linepack on chest, linepack on back. Two melons over the shoulder to remind everyone else that you are still, in fact, doing work. Tight bases will generally only let crew leaders run this build as the consensus is that you must first earn your right before you get to look like Ghenghis Khan of the Trees.

Fitness: “Bro do firefighting, you'll get in such good shape!” Nah, that's bullshit, at least if you were in good shape before and the season is busy. There is sport fit and there is work fit and they are not the same.

Base Tomfoolery (live-on bases only): The fun thing about partying with firefighters is that it's generally pretty safe to blow shit up (for the record, I am NOT saying that anything in particular happened. It's just a hypothetical).

Pumper trucks: It's customary for pumper trucks to be given a memorable name. Some of my favourites are as follows:

1. The Falcon

2. Truck Lidell

3. Bertram/McGrubbin (name changed depending on crew)

4. LaF'Honda (the Ford badge was lost in battle and a Honda badge was hastily fastened in its place)

5. Traci? (Idk it was named after some dude's mom or something lol, poor lad)

Whether a pumper is kept to one crew or passed around depends on the base (Traci was of the latter). If it they are passed around, when given a choice between a diesel and a gasser, always take the diesel. Trust me on this, you want the diesel.

Zone Fam: The wildfire equivalent of working from home is a practice commonly known as zone-familiarization or zone-faming. Basically, you drive around in the bush with your boys and blast music. It's not all fun and games though, the music must be serious for you are on patrol, no wheels on the bus here. Sometimes you make stops to throw rocks in bodies of water. Other times you take a detour to see if the truck can climb that particularly cantankerous-looking hill. The best detours are when you get to explore the random meth shacks you find like 80 miles up a decommissioned logging road. These aren't your average run-of-the-mill drug zombie homeless. These guys are dialed, and probably armed, so make sure the place is abandoned first before you explore. This is a classic for truck crews during early or slow seasons.

Dispatch song: It's customary for truck crews to vote on a chosen 'dispatch song'. The objective of a communal vote is to settle on a song that can be considered maximally hype for all members of the crew, generally equating to what could be considered the normalized vector sum of what everyone's bush-league minor hockey anthem of choice was growing up (contrary to popular belief, it's not always Thunderstruck). This song is ceremonially started when the truck begins to accelerate onto the first major road leading towards the incident following its departure from base. It's a classic rookie mistake to start the dispatch song right when the truck is leaving the base parking lot. This is wrong. The truck must be going fast (and ideally accelerating so that you can hear the engine) when the dispatch song is turned on. While heli crews don't get a dispatch song, they do have a small chance at something much grander. One of the most popular helicopters used by the BC wildfire service is the Bell 204/205/210/212 family of helicopters, also known as the Huey family. Some of these Huey's were flown in 'Nam (these ones are technically old UH-1's and those are the real Huey's but let's ignore that), and a couple even have speakers mounted on them. This means that if you are very, very lucky and the pilot likes your crew, you too may have the opportunity to fly in a Huey while blasting Fortunate Son.

Helicopter Pilots: Heli pilots are the coolest people you will ever meet. If you don't believe me, you obviously haven't asked any for their origin story.

Student tip: If you're on a fire and need to register for courses, try to get in a heli. Lots of the time you can get service once you're above a certain height (this trick basically saved my second year).

Chainsaws: The chainsaw is the most powerful and respected tool on the Fireline. Those who can wield it are the firefighting equivalents of Jedi. There is no sure-fire way to know when you will receive saw training. At high-demand bases with large numbers of experienced firefighters, it can sometimes take years before 'new' hires are able to get their saw license (the unofficial rule is chest pack enthusiasts get picked last), also known as Book 2. Once you have completed your Book 2 training, you may take on the mantle of 'Sawyer' (knight), under which you will receive one to two 'Swampers' (squires) in order to assist you with your bucking duties. On crews where multiple members have their saw license, the crew leader will dictate who gets to cut. If you are given your own saw for the season (if you get to choose, I recommend the Husqvarna 372), it's customary to give it a memorable name. Make sure you choose a unique name though as it's very awkward when you're on a fire with some dude from Alberta who also named his saw “Excalibur”.

Saw sharpening: The version control/scripting of the firefighting world. It's not fun/sexy but it's important and getting good at it lets you do more of the fun stuff sooner.

Fire food: When you are on a fire they pay for your food. Normally what happens is each crew will raid a Save-On for about 30 minutes where each crew member will seek out his or her favourite cuisine. Because heavy machinery is generally used to transport the food bag and cost is the limiting factor (unless you wanna use your own money to pay for fire food but that's bad style), the standard rules of backcountry meal prep go out the window. For example, no $35 freeze-dried Pad Thai (that shit do slap doe). When buying fire food, I like to judge by two main heuristics:

1. What's the calories/dollar value?

2. Will this *not* kill me in 40 years?

Now that I think about it, this is a pretty good heuristic for buying food in general. The top prospects based on this system are as listed below:

1. Peanut butter: Literally intended as a meal substitute and dirt cheap. Just make sure you get the crunchy stuff and bring a spoon. You don't wanna be the guy eating smooth peanut butter out of the jar with his hands. Also, this shit is like crack for bears (why do you think the Kraft logo is a bear?) so be careful.

2. Stagg Chilli: The wildfire classic. I'm being somewhat heretical putting peanut butter above it but the extra saturated fat here does it in. However, this is still what you want for dinner on the line. The tin lid also works well as a spoon in a pinch.

3. Rotisserie chicken: The Paraattack classic (David Goggins is one of these guys now). My first time overnighting with a Para crew, I watched as they all pulled out their rotisserie chickens in perfect unison. I could only look on in awe. Tastes just like chicken and it's realistically the closest you'll ever come to hunting a T-Rex.

4. (Deez) Nuts: Need I say more.

5. Dates: The only dates you'll have time for during the season. Pair with (deez) nuts.

6. Tortillas: For if you can't handle eating peanut butter the way god intended.

7. Canned Tuna: Can be eaten by itself or paired with tortilla to create delicious wrap.

8. Cliff bars: At this point in my life, I've eaten too many but back in the day they were good.

9. Smokies: If you're overnighting, these bad boys are deadly.

10. Pierogis: Non-obvious choice but also work extremely well when cooking over a fire.

11. Smores: Not healthy but extremely wholesome. Helps to turn a dirty, exhausting job into what feels like adult summer camp for a couple minutes every night.

Deployments: When rookies get told they're going on deployment, they seem to instinctively think that they're going to Disney Land. The reality is that it's generally closer to a gulag. The nature of the deployment accommodations and activities may vary wildly between deployments. They may also change very quickly during the deployments themselves. However, I've compiled a list of hypothetical living situations below which one may expect when deployed:

1. Fire camp: The worst possible option. Think sharing a tent with 10 other dudes on some random high school's football field coupled with foot fungus outbreaks in the showers. The food also sucks.

2. Hotel/motel: Fairly consistent option. Relatively solid. If you're in a small town get ready to only eat food from Timmies/The Dub Shack (A&W) for breakfast and whichever beloved local restaurant is open at the end of the day for dinner. I had a two-week period in Chetwynd where I almost exclusively lived off of farmers wraps and sushi.

3. Oil/Gas camp: The absolute apex of firefighter accommodations. If you have the privilege to stay in one of these, consider yourself lucky. You get to have your own room/bathroom, Internet, delicious food cooked to order, and the places always come with dope-ass gyms which, given the circumstances, means you get a dope-ass gym basically to yourself. The beds even come with mints! The only issues are 1. the staff tends to have this weird thing with not allowing hats on in the cafeterias and 2. you may become clinically dependant on chocolate almond milk (writing this made me realize I need to find some bags asap).

Fireline roles: The common fireline roles are as follows. Note that this is not an exhaustive list and it is more reflective of how initial attack (IA) crews are structured. Unit crews operate a little differently but the general tasks remain the same:

1. Pump Duty: As a rookie, you will commonly take on the endearing mantle of 'Pump Bitch'. It is your job to wear this title with pride until another may take your place. While supervising the pumps, make sure you bring a hand saw and an axe with you so that you can occupy yourself by building nifty little shelters or meaningless sculptures depending on your artistic proclivities and perception of usefulness.

2. Gear Donkey: The gear donkey carries shit from the insertion zone to the line. The best way to do this job is just to treat it as a workout.

3. Sawyer: As alluded to earlier, this is the highest-testosterone, most Alpha-Chad role on the line. It's also the most dangerous. With great power and machismo comes great responsibility, the responsibility to keep yourself and your co-workers safe. If another crew is around, you also have the responsibility to do so with impeccable style (chainsaw work is surprisingly technical).

4. Swamper: The swamper moves the shit the sawyer cuts out of the way as appropriate. Don't throw the logs into the fire, don't walk into a chainsaw, don't throw your back out, and make extra sure you don't get any scratchy twigs caught on your chest pack. If you can do that, it's not too hard.

5. Nozzle Duty (hoser): What everyone signed up for. Little did they know that only 5% of their nozzle time would be spent hosing burning material while the other 95% would be spent blasting the ground into sludge so that it doesn't turn into said burning material.

6. Wrangler: The wrangler makes sure the nozzle monkey always has enough hose to keep walking forward. Not nearly as sexy but literally 5x more technically and physically demanding. Sort of like battle ropes, but they're filled with water and you're constantly breathing in smoke.

7. Guard Digger: Did you ever like digging ditches as a kid? Well now you get to monetize your childhood passion in the service of your province, at times another province, and disproportionately in service of the state of California (firefighters do Cali or bust too).

The following are a couple miscellaneous details that didn't really fit in anywhere else.

Butt waters: The main hydration mechanism for firefighters is the bottled water (with sustainable, thin plastic). The blues (blue uniform pants) have butt pockets, side pockets, and lower side pockets (see cargo pants). Lower side pockets are for holding gloves and cliff bars, so they are out of the question. That means one has the option to hold their two water bottles in either the side or the butt pockets. As you would expect, chest pack enthusiasts choose the side pockets because it looks more dignified, and they think it will make their quads look bigger. Unfortunately, it only presses the fabric more tightly against their underdeveloped glutes and compromises their ability to bring their knees up high. This becomes an issue when walking over blowdown.

Shitting in the black: This is the cardinal sin of firefighting. If you do this, you are both excommunicated and dishonorably discharged at the same time. Your parents also get a letter from the base manager telling them they failed to raise their child properly. If there is one thing to take away from the entire article it is this, DO NOT SHIT IN THE BLACK. The reason being is that after everything is burnt (the black), it's common to patrol (feel around with hands) to make sure everything is put out. I wonder what could go wrong... Also, if it's still burning, it makes the whole situation that much worse.

Gauging seniority from a distance: Aside from checking for an absence of chest pack, the best way to identify an experienced firefighter on the line is to look at the colour of their red (top half of uniform). The more experience they have, the more sun-damaged and thus pale their red will become. Rookie reds will be crimson while highly experienced firefighters (or those who only wear one red to make it look more worn-out, common chest-pack enthusiast tactic) will look almost orange by comparison.

Gloves: BCWS provides two types of gloves. Leathers and Webbies. Webbies are exclusively for saw work, leathers are for everything else. Chest pack enthusiasts can substitute their leathers for pink Hestras (if they ski raced, they were 100% the type to wear these) if they desire.

Peltors: When they give you your hardhat, you get two options for peltors: green and black. Always pick green. They are identical but green looks more rugged. If you are really lucky you'll get “listeners” which are special peltors with speakers built in so that you can hear your radio through your earmuffs. Unfortunately, they tend to be black and realistically they only ever have a few and so they generally go to the top sawyers. This is the only valid excuse to wear a chest pack as it makes the wiring a little bit easier.

Hover exits: Not nearly as cool as it sounds. Basically just the helicopter equivalent of your mom dropping you off for school in the bus lane because she doesn't want to look for a parking spot.

Contractors: There are two types: Type 2 and Type 3 (any government crew is type 1). Type 2's are generally pretty solid and can be left alone to do their own thing. Type 3's can be… an interesting bunch. As such, a babysitter is usually assigned to keep watch of type 3's in the field and make sure they don't start killing themselves or each other (intentionally or otherwise). In order to help keep the babysitter enthusiastic about their new role, they are given the chadly title of “Strike Team Leader”, such as to distract them from the reality of what they are actually doing.

End of season: In late August, something big happens. The students go back to school. This tends to coincide perfectly with when the dope-ass deployments occur (i.e. taking a Chinook down to California to go save L.A.). If you are a student, you're free! You now have the obligation to tell all your classmates what you did this summer, take your BCWS Nalgene with you everywhere you go until you inevitably lose it, wear your Stanny in class, and, if you are particularly insufferable, write about it online to an audience that probably doesn't exist.

Writing all this made me realize just how much I miss this job sometimes. There's something special about spending four months stuck in the middle of nowhere sleep deprived, hungry, and sore along with thirteen other dudes suffering through it with you. The nature of the living situation, and the work that goes along with it, forces people to connect with each other at a level that seems to be very rare in this day and age. I could keep going on into the details of this ad nauseum or I could go to sleep, because I just finished my milk, it's past my bedtime, and the night-night rotisserie chicken in my fridge is looking extra tasty. I choose the latter. Night fuckers.