Charlie Denton
Retired career firefighter and district ranger for the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest

"Boise now is home to a 727 that we jet crews around in, and it'll handle five crews. It'll handle a hundred people plus miscellaneous overhead."

Bruce Koyiyumptewa
Silviculturalist, past helitac crew member

"[To be a member of the helitac team] you have to be in top physical shape, but weigh less than, I think it's 150 at that time…"

"I remember being in charge of my twenty-man crew, at the same time trying to communicate with the helicopter so that it could put water on the areas, the fires, that were below us."

H.B. "Doc" Smith
Program liaison for the NAU Ecological Restoration Institute

"The first jump I made was kind of interesting to me, and I remember it very vividly. It was not very scary. The second jump, I was terrified, because I found out how scary it is to jump the first."

George Sheppard
Past wildlife biologist, Kaibab National Forest

"We're flying over the fire and observing fire behavior from the air; assisting firefighters by advising them how the fire is moving in a certain direction or where it's moving to; and we direct lead planes that are leading the retardant tankers into the fire."

"What we prefer to do is construct direct fire line along the fire's edge…you can directly observe what the fire is doing, and you can move back to the area that you have just worked as your anchor point. "

Glen Bennett
Bus driver for firefighters during the summer of 1973

"There was no schedule, actually. You would get a phone call, jump down, get on the bus."

Melissa Bardsley
Timber marker and engine crew member, 1988 fire season

"It requires a lot of upper body strength, as far as throwing the hose up on the top of the truck. And at that point in my life, I really didn't have much upper body strength at all."

Packing for Fire
Mormon Lake Engine Crew

"let's do a little overview of what's on our engine…"