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Well, when you go and spend 40 days of your summer totally consumed with everything that is forest fire related...you are somewhat likely to come home and write a song about such experiences. Well, at least that's my inclination as I am a songwriter of sorts. So this is in a sense, some of my story of front line forest fire fighting.

I got to be on five fires this summer! Four of those fires I was there to see officially defeated. I started in Keremeos then hopped over to Beaverdell for 4 days to stomp out a 7 hectare fire on a mountains top. Beaverdell was tough because we really were out there and we really had to rough it without the benefit of a camp and cook. But then we went to the Lynch Creek fire in Grand Forks and the Santa Rosa fire which straddled the US border down in Christina Lake. Mercifully those two fires were so close together that we were able to have the same hotel bed for nearly 10 days. My next deployment was up to Babine Lake in northern BC where we stayed in tents at the Telkwa Fire Attack Base through rainy and snowy nights which ripped our bodies and lungs apart.

All in all...I'd say if there was a job I can do...that would lead me away from my life as a songwriter...it would be forest fire fighting...I loved every part of it. The culture is very positive out on the line. Everyone is trying to outwork each other and everyone is trying to make sure each other are safe. I may be pushing 40 years old, but I still got the mind and body for this. I am gonna be this for as many summers as they will let me. It felt great to stomp a fire out so that people could have their evacuation alerts lifted. Our crew helped protects the properties of hundreds of people this summer. I am so proud of us all. It is the life for me.