Bruce J. Koyiyumptewa Interview
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Today is July 25, 2001. My name is Robert Marvin Garcia Hunt. I'm happy to be here in the Cline Library with Bruce Koyiyumptewa, who has spent many years working with the Forestry Department, and has worked with wildland fire on a fire crew. This interview will be part of an ongoing project entitled Fire on the Plateau for the Cline Library. Jennifer Kern, my colleague, is also present in the room.
Garcia Hunt: We'd like to say hello to Bruce, and enjoy you coming in today to give us this little interview.
Koyiyumptewa: Thank you.
Garcia Hunt: Bruce, would you please tell us a little bit about yourself, and where you're from, and where you grew up?
Koyiyumptewa: My name is Bruce Koyiyumptewa. I was born and raised on the Hopi Reservation, on Third Mesa, the village of Hotevilla, Arizona.
Garcia Hunt: Can you tell us about your education, and how you got to where you're at today, with your education?
Koyiyumptewa: As far as my education, I grew up there in the reservation, went to school at the elementary school. Because there were no high schools out there on the reservation, I went to a BIA boarding school in Phoenix, Arizona, where I went through high school. Soon after high school, then I enrolled at Phoenix College, a community college down there in Phoenix. From there I transferred over to Northern Arizona University, and majored in forestry. In 1974, I received a bachelor of science degree in forest management from NAU.
Garcia Hunt: So education was what brought you to Flagstaff itself? Or did anything else bring you to Flagstaff?
Koyiyumptewa: Mainly it was education that brought me to Flagstaff. I also would probably attribute coming to NAU, because it has the forestry school, but my dad, Homer Koyiyumptewa, during the 1950s and '60s, to early '70s, he was employed by the Coconino National Forest as a timber marking foreman. And so I thought I would follow my dad's footsteps as far as working in the field of forestry or forest management.
Garcia Hunt: Can you tell us how you began your career in firefighting?
Koyiyumptewa: When I was going to school here at NAU, I was also a member of the Forestry Club. The Forestry Club often did a lot of field type of thing. One of the field type of work that the Forestry Club would do is sometimes go on these wildfires as a crew. And so that's how I got interested in the wildland forest firefighting crew.
Garcia Hunt: Could you tell us some of the different positions you've held throughout your career as a firefighter?
Koyiyumptewa: As a firefighter I was a member of a fire crew—also as a member of the initial attack, helitack [phonetic] crew. From there on, I went through to attend the various fire training, enrolled in various fire training. I have made it as far as the fire organization for the Forest Service, I have made it as far as a division boss in any major wildfire. I've been a crew representative, I've been a crew boss. The next step was sort of a division boss.
Garcia Hunt: Can you tell us, or explain components of a helitack team?
Koyiyumptewa: The helitack team consists of a twenty-member crew. We're considered to be the initial attack. Go through a rigorous, at least the physical type of training. We run so many miles a day to be in top shape. Plus you cannot weigh more than 150 pounds, because of the payload of the helicopter can only take so much of a payload that you cannot, for a twenty-person crew, they can only take like four or five crew members at a time, and so the payload cannot exceed so many tons in order for the helicopter to do that. So therefore you have to be in top physical shape, but weigh less than, I think it's 150 at that time.
Garcia Hunt: Would you explain some of the responsibilities of the positions that you've held: when you first started off as a fire team member, and then go on up, when you went to crew boss, or below that, regional boss and that?
Koyiyumptewa: As a crew member, our responsibility was to build the fire line. And then for the crew representative, you act as a liaison between the Forest Service and some of these organized Indian firefighting crews. You pretty much make sure that they get meals, three meals a day. You are responsible for their safety as well. Make sure at the end, when the fire's out, make sure that they get paid and sent home. Those are some of my responsibilities as far as a crew rep.
As a crew boss, it's basically the same kind of thing that you're in charge of a twenty-person, organized firefighting crew. Mainly these would be the Indian firefighting crews. Pretty much make sure that you are on the lookout for their safety, as well as that they get fed three meals a day, that they get plenty of rest, and that they get paid when the fire's out. And then you get proper transportation back home to their home unit.
Garcia Hunt: That was part of my next question. Are you only in charge of native crews when you go out to a fire?
Koyiyumptewa: No. One incident that I had when I was on the 1980....oh, let's see…it was, I think, '78, I was in charge of an organized crew that came off from the Mt. Hood National Forest. They were mainly Anglo crews.
Garcia Hunt: I've noticed in logistics when we went to the Leroux Fire, there was a lot of Native Americans that work with logistics.
Koyiyumptewa: Uh-huh.
Garcia Hunt: Can you give us a little information about that? Is there an organization of Native Americans that only work with logistics?
Koyiyumptewa: I haven't been really up on the fire, as far as logistics and stuff, so I'm really—you know, my last firefighting career ended during the Montana fires back in 1987, I think it was. So I'm not sure what the—we've now gone into the incident command system at that time. So I have not kept up as far as the organization, so I wouldn't be able to give you a good answer on this.
Garcia Hunt: Can you tell us a little bit about your most memorable fire as a fire team crew member or a crew boss?
Koyiyumptewa: As a crew boss, the fire that I can recall, because I know it was on the Fourth of July in, I think it was in 19—maybe '82. I think it could be '82. It was a fire in Southern Utah, just north of St. George, Utah. I'm not sure what the mountain range [was], but I was crew boss in charge of a twenty-man crew. Our responsibility was to go up the mountain and build line on, I guess that would be the left flank of the fire. I remember it being very windy, where the fire had started at the bottom, and by the time that we got almost midway up the slope, up the mountain, the fire had already blown over and gone clear up to the top and went on the northeast facing aspect of the mountain.
I remember also being in communication with the air division, where the helicopters were putting buckets of water on the crew. And 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.
Also, at the same time, I was also in communication with the slurry plane, too, making sure that he doesn't get caught in this little wind sheer that [was] coming up the canyon, because it was kind of dangerous. And I remember the incident commander telling or asking me if I could be able to tell him [about] the wind, and I said, "I think it's going up to eighty miles per hour [80 mph]." I didn't have any kind of wind instrument, I just kind of estimated that. The incident commander was real surprised how I projected or predicted the wind speed almost pinpoint accurately.
Garcia Hunt: Can you describe any other memorable fires that you were in also?
Koyiyumptewa: The one that I was on in Oregon, when I was also in charge of a twenty-man crew, was we were on the night shift, just to make sure that there was no fires across the fire line. And I remember a gust of wind that started about midnight. Dust and ash and everything is blowing so hard that it was impossible to see. It was almost like, I guess I would say a high-intensity rainstorm. We had to take cover, because we couldn't be able to see. Sparks from the fire was also blowing, too. It was hard to see. We had to take shelter behind some of these huge logs. We didn't really try to go out there to patrol the fire lines, because it was just an impossibility to see anything. We waited until in the morning time when the storm blew over and then finally went out. We were supposed to be at the place, fifty feet apart, but each one of those were twenty-men crew. We pretty much took shelter where you could find. I was really afraid that I might not be able to see all my crew the next morning.
Garcia Hunt: How you were…
Koyiyumptewa: That was kind of a memorable experience too.
Garcia Hunt: How old were you when that happened?
Koyiyumptewa: Oh, gee, I was probably thirty, thirty-four, or something like that.
Garcia Hunt: And the fire prior to that, where they were dropping water?
Koyiyumptewa: Must have been forty-something.
Garcia Hunt: That was when you were crew chief, or boss?
Koyiyumptewa: forty-five.
Garcia Hunt: How about your most memorable experience when you were a division boss?
Koyiyumptewa: I started to do that, I was going to go on as a trainee, but I didn't go, so I never really experienced that as a division boss.
Garcia Hunt: Have you ever served on an engine crew?
Koyiyumptewa: No.
Garcia Hunt: Can you explain what is the function of the hand crews that go out?
Koyiyumptewa: Hand crews usually, as far as I know, the initial attack is to just build kind of a rough line to get all the flammable stuff away from the other…if the fire isn't moving very fast, to get all the flammable materials, and dig down to the bare soil. But if you wanted to just go in and put in a scratch line—they call it a scratch line—you do it where [you] can, and not have to worry about going down to bare minimum soil.
Garcia Hunt: Can you explain now what you do for the Coconino National Forest?
Koyiyumptewa: My job is to—the last three years I've been writing environmental assessment, environmental documents, and doing environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement for various resource project[s].
Garcia Hunt: As a silviculturalist, can you tell us the natural [law?] in ecosystems and why do we need to be concerned about this?
Koyiyumptewa: As a silviculturalist, my role as a silviculturalist is to manage the forest. At one point it was on kind of a specific, site-specific, but now, because of this new word called the ecosystem, we do it on a very wider scale than a very site-specific, small area. My job as a silviculturalist is to make sure that we have a—that it has to do with managing the vegetation. We try to do it so that we have a balance of a diverse vegetation represented on a given ecosystem or a given landscape. And one of the ways, as a tool, a silvicultural tool, is to cut down some of the trees that are maybe over-represented, and maybe have what you call a balanced age class, of, say, ponderosa pine, by saying that we will have an equal number of age and size classes of ponderosa pine represented in a given landscape.
Garcia Hunt: How will the increase in the use of fire benefit ecosystem health?
Koyiyumptewa: I think the increased fire will first of all go back to what it was before, back a hundred years ago when the Forest Service started the fire prevention. This area, I guess the whole Colorado Plateau, has overgrown with small-diameter, small trees, because fire as a tool is used to thin out the ponderosa pine. And so fire, I think, would be a good idea. Plus fire, using prescribed fire, also does the nutrient recycling—mainly the ashes, mainly the nitrogen derived from the ash goes back into the soil. As a forester, nitrogen and potassium are the two elements that's always missing from the soil. Nitrogen is a good thing for plants.
Garcia Hunt: Have you ever worked with a Native American crew on your own reservation? And have you ever done prescribed burns [with them?]?
Koyiyumptewa: I never had the experience of working with a Native American crew. But what I have done is I wrote a management prescription—being a silviculturalist, I got detailed to the Hopi Reservation for six months, and that was to help them manage, or write a management plan for their pinyon and juniper woodland, as well as their riparian area. What we did is, we went ahead and I did an environmental assessment where we assessed the—especially on the riparian—we were going to try to get rid of the exotic species that were introduced back in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, in the name of soil conservation. These introduced species have pretty much taken over some of these riparian areas. Mainly salt cedar and Russian olive were the two exotic species. The management prescription that I wrote was to get rid of that so that it would go back into kind of a native riparian vegetation, with cottonwoods and willows would be the primary native species. These native species are very crucial habitat for tropical or neo-tropical migratory birds that come all the way from Mexico and South America to go up to the reservation. Really, these migratory birds are not year-round residents. The ecological or cultural connection about this uniqueness is the Hopis, in their ceremonial use, the feathers of these tropical/neo-tropical migratory birds in their feathers, as far as in their ceremonials, as well as their prayer feathers, too. So it's that spiritual, ceremonial, spiritual connection. When these exotic species of Russian olive and salt cedar were introduced—those were the thirties, forties, and fifties—they've taken over pretty much the riparian areas, and so there was a decline in these bird populations, and there was less and less of these birds.
And also, during that era in the fifties, livestock were introduced on the reservation, and a lot of the pinyon-juniper woodlands were cut to make room for more forbs and grass species to grow so that livestock can have something—feed for the livestock. When livestock were introduced, there came along with the livestock is what is called a cowbird. It's a blackbird that feeds on the parasites of the livestock. It's also an aggressive bird that takes over the nests of these tropical and neo-tropical migratory birds. And maybe because we have devastated the habitat for these tropical birds, and because of the introduction of the livestock and these cowbirds or blackbirds, we have lost the population of these tropical and neo-tropical migratory birds, which are so important to the Hopi ceremonial cycle.
But that's the only one that I have done. I haven't done any kind of management of the pinyon-juniper using fire as a tool.
Garcia Hunt: What other wildland fire resources are being utilized in the ecosystem?
Koyiyumptewa: What other....
Garcia Hunt: Besides wildland prescribed fire, is there any other type of resources being utilized, meaning how we see them going out and doing cuts within the forest?
Koyiyumptewa: We have been—lately I think there was started about two years ago—lately we have been doing a lot of what you call understory thinning, that's thinning the younger stands of ponderosa pine. They're so thick that the idea is to reduce the ladder effect of fuels. Once a fire starts to get going because it generates itself by the wind currents, that if the branches are so close to the ground that they can start a fire to what you call "crown out," meaning that it goes to the top of the trees. So we've been doing a lot of the thinning, to get rid of the ladder fuels.
Garcia Hunt: How will the most critical areas for fire application be identified? Do you drive around, or....
Koyiyumptewa: Mainly what we try to do is, because in some of these rural areas, that's where we kind of concentrate on this, and inventory the areas that are closer to some of these rural communities. It's kind of a protection for the communities from this wildfire, so that's how we kind of prioritize where we're going to be doing the thinning or using prescribed burning.
Garcia Hunt: Has the creation of the National Fire Plan last year affected the national forest?
Koyiyumptewa: I think it did when they created the National Fire Plan. I think it would be a beneficial effect, especially if we start to implement some of the plan that's in the national fire. I think this forest, the Coconino, we did make an attempt to write a forest fire plan. It seems that the monies to [do] the planning wasn't there. But this year I think we've got monies to continue.
Garcia Hunt: You went into a little bit about rural communities. Could you tell us a little bit about urban interface?
Koyiyumptewa: That was the intent, some of these rural communities. It's, like I say, the reasoning behind it is to protect those communities, the houses and human lives from the threat of wildland fires. And so this year the whole region, this region, Arizona and New Mexico, the Southwest Region, has put emphasis on that, and so that's pretty much our priority. Those will be the top priority, as far as wildland-urban interface types of projects.
Garcia Hunt: How has fire control changed since you began your career?
Koyiyumptewa: When I first began my Forest Service career, I think that prevention was probably—wildfire prevention was the key, and that fire was not really considered—or the use of fire was not considered a tool to manage a forest ecosystem or any other ecosystem. But now, through research and technology....
Garcia Hunt: ... you have to reduce fuel hazards?
Koyiyumptewa: I don't know of any other, other than prescribed burning to reduce ground fuel.
Garcia Hunt: What is the relationship between fire and air quality?
Koyiyumptewa: As far as the smoke emissions, it's usually prescribed burning, if we didn't know, or not known, wider scale. Usually the air quality is not affected, because sometimes it only lasts a couple of days. So if we were going to burn 400 acres in a given time, the smoke emission, the air particulates from the smoke really doesn't last, I think, more than two days' duration. Maybe for some folks that have respiratory problems, it could be a problem, but I haven't seen anything or anybody complain too much about that. We are now, as far as new technology, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is now starting to make sure that we measure the amount of air particulates from the smoke that's going into the air. And so we're now trying to use that tool, whereas in the past we have pretty much used a narrative description as far as the impacts from smoke on mankind.
Garcia Hunt: In the past, you as a firefighter, do you think the smoke had any health damages to you?
Koyiyumptewa: I couldn't recall if it did or not, no.
Garcia Hunt: Also, going into that, could you tell us a little bit about the Smokey Bear program?
Koyiyumptewa: Smokey Bear program?
Garcia Hunt: Uh-huh.
Koyiyumptewa: Smokey Bear program, as it was introduced back in, I think it's 1950, when Smokey was discovered. Anyway, it was mainly as a prevention type of wildfire prevention type of a program. But now, because of the urban interface program, I think Smokey is now changing its message.
Garcia Hunt: I just noticed the commercial last night on TV about a rapping Smokey the Bear.
Koyiyumptewa: Uh-huh.
Garcia Hunt: Like a rap star.
Koyiyumptewa: Uh-huh.
Garcia Hunt: That's interesting. What can homeowners do to protect their homes from wildland fires, ensure that their homes can be protected in the event of a fire often going into urban areas?
Koyiyumptewa: Mainly, I guess, is to clean your bushes and trees away from the homes. I'm not sure what the specified distance is. Also, make sure that you don't have any overhanging branches that are close to the tree, overhanging branches from your trees. And make sure that you clean out the leaves and the pine needles—sometimes in these rain gutters and things.
Garcia Hunt: Can you tell us about wildlife being in danger also?
Koyiyumptewa: As far as the wildlife....
Garcia Hunt: With the fires or with the ecology system right now in the Colorado Plateau area.
Koyiyumptewa: As far as the thing that I know of in working with my team, who consists of various resource specialists, including the wildlife biologist, and several documents, EAs or EISes that I have written, I guess as far as the urban interface program, and its impact on the trend in our endangered species of wildlife, pretty much we are mandated by law to do that. Sometimes mitigation can address the issue of endangerment to the endangered species. A good example would be the Mexican spotted owl in their critical habitat. When we use prescribed fire, as part of the owl's habitat is downed woody material, and it has to have certain size and amount of woody material. When we light a fire, using fire as a tool, sometimes we have to rake leaves, pine needles, away from some of these downed logs or woody material so that we do not disturb this habitat that the owl needs. That's what's called mitigation.
As far as fire, sometimes we have to be careful as far as the intensity of the burn. If it burns too hot and closer to, say, a first [poke?] watershed, that sometimes the ashes settles into the stream, and then it carries down into the main stream. I think I'm talking about probably the [spine days?]—you know, the minnow, you know, the fish that's in the Colorado Plateau. These are some of the things that we need to be really careful about, where we can [light] a fire, and the intensity of the burn, too, you know. And there's mitigations in doing that kind of thing.
Garcia Hunt: How about around the Hopi area, since you did that research project? Is there any other type of....
Koyiyumptewa: We did the golden eagle that's out there, that the Hopis use also. We did, as far as this riparian, we're going to use two methods of trying to eradicate the Russian olives and the salt cedar. One was by cutting down the brush, and then applying an herbicide—can't think of the name—to the stump. It's not an aerial application, or a very wide-scale application, rather than just using one of these little squirt guns and just applying it on the stump, so that we don't have to deal with the Environmental Protection Agency as far as doing a wide aerial application of an herbicide. But the other one was to use prescribed fire, is to cut down these exotic species and then when the slash accrues in place, doing a light burn. I don't know if they have really done that, but I think they've already done the herbicide application. I'm not sure what kind of impact the herbicide has on, say, any of the endangered species, including wildlife that are not endangered.
Garcia Hunt: What are some of the elements of your work that you find most rewarding to you?
Koyiyumptewa: I think actually writing the environmental assessment, and then actually implementing—especially doing it for the tribe that I'm a member of, doing something for my tribe that's kind of worthwhile.
Garcia Hunt: Are there any changes you would like to see implemented in fire control?
Koyiyumptewa: I think we need to probably—not so much changes, but we, I think we need to be doing more of it, instead of doing it on a very small scale.
Garcia Hunt: Where do you see yourself in five years?
Koyiyumptewa: (laughs) I really hesitate. What I thought, I'm eligible for retirement about two and a half years from now. I thought about going into the consulting business and cater to the Indian tribes that need some sort of a NEPA environmental analysis done on their natural resource projects.
Garcia Hunt: Going into the other area of cattle grazing, conditions to the forest wildlands. Do you see that as good or bad, or is it the same?
Koyiyumptewa: I think it's—what I've seen is I think it's—to me, I think it's good. I know that our friends, some of these special interest groups or environmental groups don't think that is a very good thing. I guess I haven't seen enough research or enough evidence done to determine if it's good for the environment or wildlife or plant species.
Garcia Hunt: (to Kern) Do you have any other questions? (no response from Kern) Well, thank you, Bruce. We really enjoyed this interview with you, and hope to do further interviews with you in the future. Maybe your research can help us out.
Koyiyumptewa: Thank you.
Garcia Hunt: Thank you.