"What was your favorite part of the job?" "I think partly knowing that you went to places where no man has gone before, and no man will be back to."
Underhill: What was your favorite part of the job?
Mazuros: You mean firefighting? I think partly knowing that you went to places where no man has gone before, and no man will be back to. You know what I mean? There was times when you would just be eating dinner up on some ridge, [after a] long, tired day. There's something about working hard that makes you feel like you've accomplished something. And then having dinner up there, and just looking at this view and just thinking, "Gosh, this is a view that only twenty of us get to see, in the world. And we're the only ones that will ever see this view." And so that was kind of neat.
And I think just also seeing the awesome power of Mother Nature. It's like I've done control burns in the fall where we come in and try to reduce fuel loads. We have to accept fire's part of the process. And so it can be awesomely destructive, but it can also be awesomely constructive. I think that was the thing to see. And like I said, I got to see things that nobody ever got to see, or nobody will ever get to see. So that was always a neat thing.