"…instead of fighting the fire, they just stood around and watched me…I felt under a lot of pressure to do good."
…when I first got out of NAU, I guess that was my first job, working for Peaks Ranger Station. I forgot that. I did that two years, I think. And so that's probably where I ended up working on the fire, was at that time. And it was just a dinky little fire out in the cinder hills.
I ended up going out there and working, and it was—I can remember at the time thinking that I really had to prove myself, because instead of fighting the fire, they just stood around and watched me. It was ridiculous, so I felt under a lot of pressure to do good. So I wore myself out working. I thought, "Well, this is a ridiculous amount of work for working fire." I never particularly thought I'd like to go into that full-time. But really, I only worked on one fire. I worked mostly with the experimental station, and we certainly didn't go on fires.