Fire Headquarters Runs At High Pitch During Idaho Blazes
Lightning has set the West ablaze this summer, and electricity is again surging through the nation's wildfire command post. ``The whole place is running at the max, full out,'' Reed Jarvis of the Boise Interagency Fire Center said last week. But this year is different because the center's strategists and quartermasters who direct the nation's wildfire battles can see some of the worst blazes from their windows. As nearly half the acreage afire burns within 150 miles, specialists in the logistics center marshal resources from around the nation. On Saturday, there were about 220,000 acres ablaze in four states, with 102,000 of them in Idaho and the rest in Oregon, California and Utah. ``Tell me when the airplane's got to leave and I'll have the team on it,'' coordinator Lynn Findley says into the phone cradled on his shoulder. He hangs up, makes another call and arranges for a procurement expert to fly from Atlanta to LaGrande, Ore. Another staff member fields a caller searching for a fire officer called ``Joe Blow.'' ``Can you believe it?'' she says over her shoulder. ``He spells his name B-L-O-U-G-H.'' Others juggle as many as three of the constantly ringing phones, scanning computer terminals for personnel, airplanes, red chemical retardant and gear. ``We drop slimy red mud on burning trees from antique airplanes,'' declares the slogan on one T-shirt. In one leg of the L-shaped logistics room, the intelligence division keeps track of fires around the country. The other finds the crews and equipment to attack the flames. A big chalkboard plots the fires as they eat up mile after mile of fuel. Magnets resembling aircraft dot a map of the country, giving the location and type of equipment available. ``Obviously, firefighting on the line is stressful,'' said Fire Center spokesman Arnold Hartigan. ``But the support people are dealing with human life facing fire, which is inherently dangerous.'' Hundreds of fires burned fitfully in the Idaho backcountry for days after the last ``lightning bust.'' One storm laid down 2,000 strikes an hour with little rain. Then winds reaching 80 mph and temperatures pushing triple digits whipped those spots into major conflagrations. Three-inch-thick burning branches blew up to two miles ahead of the main fires. Flames swept over thousands of acres in several hours' time, creating a smoky miasma around Idaho's capital city. The buzz at the wildfire nerve center intensified dramatically. ``Fortunately we don't work at this level all year,'' Hartigan said. ``It would be unbearable if we had to do this 365 days a year.'' The complex has taken on a military look. National Guard troops in camouflage fatigues march toward trucks for transportation to the fire lines. Smoke jumpers sit in the shade of a building waiting for their next leap into 100-foot-tall ponderosa pines, laden with chainsaws or water pumps. ``We are definitely an assault organization,'' Hartigan said. ``It's patterned after military operations because they work. We're the supply lines for the troops.'' In the logistics center, specialists spin Lazy Susans with pink and blue requisition forms as each plea from the fire line is answered. The requests are for airplanes, helicopters, axes and shovels, portable marine pumps, hoses, fresh fruit, disposable sleeping bags, soft drinks and, most important, manpower. World War II Navy bombers _ PB-4Y2s and Neptunes _ are lined up on the flight deck, spattered with red retardant. They fill up again and again with thousands of gallons of ``slurry,'' a fertilizer-based substance that stops fires cold. Then the craft roar aloft toward the smoky mountains to the north. After five dry summers, backcountry timber has a moisture content only slightly higher than kiln-dried lumber, and strategists have settled in for a long campaign. It will take fall rains and winter snow to douse many of the nation's fires. Until then, the lights will be on at the Fire Center, and the pace will be frenetic. ``It's like Wall Street, it's like an operating room,'' Jarvis says. ``Everybody knows it's stressful, but they're not snapping at each other. The key is cooperation.''
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