Smoke Eaters On The Front Lines

The new era of wildland firefighting is a war with no end in sight.

- By Lance Garland

Jonas Smith and his crew drive into the west face of the August Complex Fire in California’s Mendocino National Forest. They’re in Squad 40, a Ford F550 outfitted with a 300-gallon water tank and a cache of firefighting tools, including axes, Pulaskis, chainsaws, and portable fire pumps. It’s a specialized vehicle known to firefighters as a Type 6, or “brush truck”.

Smith is the engine boss of a three-man crew of wildland firefighters that are conducting roving operations in search of spot fires. These small flare-ups spread across the forest floor the way paper burns—sharp lines of flame and ember eat their way across virgin material and leave nothing but ash in their wake. Though they start small, spot fires can climb the trunks of trees and quickly engulf the forest canopy, turning into an inferno that moves faster than the firefighters’ truck.

The crew of Squad 40 has been out here for days, and it’s getting harder to differentiate time as their 24-hour shifts compound and their workload slowly wears them down. Their mission is to keep these spot fires from growing into something bigger, to hold the western front of the August Complex Fire and keep it from moving any closer to nearby towns. Their bodies are covered in a crusty coating of dust, ash, and sweat, and their lungs feel as if they’ve chain-smoked pack after pack of cigarettes. The air is thick with the cremated remains of plants and trees.