What started out as one summer of adventure in 2009 has turned into a passion for Jared Stailing. After graduating from Lincoln Academy in 2006, Stailing got a two-year fire science degree from Southern Maine Community College. He worked as an attendant with the Central Lincoln County Ambulance Service until he got the opportunity to go out west in May 2009 and fight forest fires.
He took a year off, but the adventure, adrenaline rush, and camaraderie of working with his fellow firefighters called him back. He has been working with the Oregon Department of Forestry for the past five years. He comes home to Maine “as often as he can” in the offseason.
He works in the Astoria District, in the northwestern section of rural Oregon. His work is not limited to Astoria, as he is often called out to big forest fires in other districts in Oregon, and sometimes in surrounding states.
Stailing estimates there are over 1,000 forest fires in Oregon a year, some as small as a tenth of an acre and some as large as 30,000 to 50,000 acres. “Some districts will see 300 a year,” Stailing said.
The big fires can take months to contain. “You work in 14- to 21-day rotations,” Stailing said. “It is not unheard of to take three or four months to get (a fire) under control.” Even after several months, some fires are not considered under control yet. “You need the snow and late-season rains to get everything under control,” he said.
“The fire can travel for miles under the ground in the root systems. That is the pain of it. You spend months digging stump holes, digging 4 or 5 feet into the ground. It is painstaking. It is all part of it; it is not as glorious as fighting fires,” Stailing said.
Driving to a forest fire scene, the first thing firefighters see are “smoke columns you would not believe. You can see them from miles and miles away,” Stailing said. At a large forest fire, firefighters battle flames sometimes 100 feet high. They work to build retaining lines and put their attack plan into place.
One dangerous situation from this past summer was “sustained crowning” at 3 a.m.
“The fire runs up to the top of the trees and runs across the top of them. Guys working for 30 to 40 years have never seen this at 3 in the morning. This fire behavior we usually see in the middle of the afternoon and we are seeing it in the dead of night. That is because it is extremely dry. It sounds like a freight train. It builds enough heat from the ground level, finds climbing fuels and then pine needles at the top. The fire carries from treetop to treetop. It creates its own weather with hurricane-force winds as it sucks in the air with all its heat,” Stailing said.
The biggest fire he helped battle occurred this past summer in southern Oregon, when a “guy mowing his lawn hit a rock or something and that little spark” caused hundreds of homes and 30,000 acres to burn. “It was that dry,” Stailing said of the drought that has hit the Northwest. “It is pretty scary stuff.”
Stailing said the closest he has come to being trapped in a fire was when a fire “jumped the line” this year. “The wind picked up and the fire made a 2,300-foot run uphill around me. I went back into the black, which won’t re-burn. I’ve been lucky I haven’t been trapped.”
Stailing estimated about 100 firefighters die each year on average in the United States. His district has been lucky, as it has not seen any deaths in his five years with the department. “Almost every fire I’m on, they medevac people, sometimes up to a dozen. We’ve lost five, six, or seven a day,” Stailing said. The biggest cause is heat exhaustion, but bee stings, snake bites, scorpion stings, cuts from chainsaws, and falling trees are other common causes.
“The worst I’ve ever got is a spider bite. I’ve carried guys out with bee stings with their throats closed up and with chainsaw cuts. Healthy-looking trees fall down randomly. Pretty much everything is out to get you,” Stailing said.
One man he knew had severe heat exhaustion and has permanent brain damage because of it. Although he was not evacuated, Stailing has been pulled off the line for heat exhaustion. “You don’t realize how dehydrated you get. I was ready to go down (pass out), but you have the mindset to keep going.”
A small fire may see two firefighters respond, but a large one could see “2,000 people in camp,” Stailing said. Firefighters often have to hike miles into the backcountry to respond. They carry 45-pound packs and hand tools. They build roads with bulldozers, skidders, and chainsaws. They build fire lines and use helicopters and fire trucks. Small-town fire departments, prison work crews, and crews from logging companies help out.
“Timber is a huge business out there. Some of the trees are as big around as this room. You can darn near park a truck on them,” Stailing said. “There are trees out there over 100 years old. The big concern is the 20, 30, and 40-year timber that is worth millions of dollars.
“Beetle kills are one of the bigger threats. The beetles kill the trees and create dry, dead trees, just waiting for a lightning strike, a careless smoker, a railroad spark, or four-wheeler spark.”
The dry season in Oregon lasts from mid-July to September. “Dry lightning makes people nervous. There can be 100 to 200 lightning strikes in one storm. All days off are canceled and everyone is on mandatory overtime. If you have to rest, they try to accommodate that, but for the most part you are going every day,” Stailing said.
Although August is usually the worst month, the department did not release firefighters until November this year, about a month later than usual because of the extreme dry conditions. “Occasionally we get a call in the offseason. That is when it is the worst, because everyone is gone,” Stailing said.
“I never knew what tired was until I started doing this,” Stailing said.
“You see people crawl up in the bed of a truck or in the grass to get any kind of sleep that they can. You are dead on your feet. It is more work than I could ever have imagined.
“If you work a 16-hour shift they want you to sleep at least half of that (eight hours), but that usually does not happen. The longest shift I worked was 27 straight hours on a fire line.
“It was meant to be one summer of fun, but I went right back. I loved it. You go to some of the most remote areas that only firefighters and extreme hikers get to see. It is beautiful and terrifying out there.”
Stailing said he plans to keep working as long as his body holds up. “There are some guys out there that are 60 to 70 years old. I don’t know how they do it,” Stailing said.
He recommends the job to anyone who is willing to put themselves though the elements and wants to make a difference. “There is a lot of pride in it. It is a life-changing experience,” Stailing said.
