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Wildland firefighters are hot

by Julia Bennett Hagadone News Network
| June 7, 2019 1:00 AM

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Nick Saporito, a wildland firefighter in training, uses a saw to cut large branches away from a control burn during a wildland fire training exercise Thursday afternoon south of Coeur d'Alene up Cougar Gulch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)

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Wildland firefighters in training use different had tools to dig a fireline up a hill during an exercise Thursday afternoon south of Coeur d'Alene up Cougar Gulch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)

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Brenna Gradus, a wildland firefighter in training, lights a flare for a control burn exercise Thursday afternoon south of Coeur d'Alene up Cougar Gulch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)

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James Corbett, a wildland firefighter in training, throws a flare during a control burn exercise Thursday south of Coeur d'Alene up Cougar Gulch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)

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Patton Lenard, a wildland firefighter in training, digs a line around a fire to control the spread of fire during a training exercise Thursday south of Coeur d'Alene up Cougar Gulch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)

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A wildland firefighter sprays water on a control burn fire during a training exercise Thursday south of Coeur d'Alene up Cougar Gulch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)

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Wildland firefighters carrying 45 pound backpacks and various equipment walk to a control burn exercise Thursday south of Coeur d'Alene up Cougar Gulch. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)

Future wildland firefighters took to Cougar Gulch on Thursday for an annual certification course hosted by North Idaho Wildland Training Zone.

New firefighters are required to attend the training to learn the basics of fire behavior and suppression techniques, Forest Service Public Affairs Officer Shoshana Cooper said.

This year, 105 first-year students underwent basic wildfire training; 90 more experienced firefighters attended an advanced course. The first-year students never encountered a wildland fire. After completing this course, they’ll be able to serve on a hand, fire engine or helicopter crew to put fires out and manage fuel.

Fighting wildland fires and fighting house fires are two very different procedures because of fire behavior, Forest Service spokesperson Kary Maddox said.

“When firefighters are fighting a house fire, it is usually a single structure,” Maddox said. “When wildland firefighters go out to an incident, it could be anything from a single tree to half a million acres.”

Students were dressed in fire-resistant clothing made of a special fiber called Nomex. They used firefighting tools such as the Pulaski, a spiked ax named for Ed Pulaski, who saved a crew of 45 firefighters during Idaho’s 1910 fire; and the McLeod, a piece of equipment, part hoe and part rake, created by Malcolm McLeod in 1905.

Maddox said the three things that influence fire behavior are the fuel it consumes, weather conditions and the area’s topography. Wildland firefighters in North Idaho face challenges in all three of those areas. She said North Idaho had experienced more than 100 years of fire suppression, which means wild areas are loaded with fuel. Winter is extreme; summer is dry. Steep topography means fires move faster.

Students Parker Wilson, Jarret Nuxoll and Naomi Bradley said they’d taken in a lot of information but were feeling well-prepared by the training.

“I think they are doing a really good job here of just getting us pointed in the right direction, especially with the first years. This is our first field day, and I think we were all doing pretty good,” Nuxoll said.

Bradley said the mind is the best tool on the fireline. The most important thing she learned at guard school was how to communicate and work with others.

“Teamwork is everything, and when everyone works together, that’s when we get the fire put out,” Bradley said.

The students camped out all week at Camp Lutherhaven on Lake Coeur d’Alene. Students attended classes Monday through Wednesday, attended hands-on training during their field day Thursday, and will take their exams today.

The training is a combined effort of the Idaho Department of Lands, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the Coeur d’Alene and Nez Perce Tribes.