Wandering Aimlessly
Hayfork 2015
by Phil Burkhouse
When I was a snot nosed kid in high school full of urine and vinegar my eyes perked up when I learned about being able to participate in a high school forest fire crew. The state of Pennsylvania paid you an hourly wage to extinguish forest fires, and occasionally you would even be called out of school to head to the woods—a dream come true. You received sparse training, but you quickly learned on the job, and if you were lucky the state usually paid a pittance wage via a check in the mail many months later.
It was a great experience but was a lot of hard and miserable work. After coming home from a fire I was black, probably inside and out. Smoke, heat, and steep terrain are no fun, but there was always the glory and satisfaction of a job well done and the teamwork and friendships formed by working hard and learning with people who shared your likes and enthusiasm.