Ghosts of the Fireground

Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter

Peter M Leschak

• Publisher: Open Road Distribution
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781504055932
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Biografías de ciencias sociales

In October 1871, a massive forest fire incinerated the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin. It was the deadliest fire in North American history, an event so intense that its release of energy was not approximated until the advent of thermo-nuclear weapons. At least 1, 200 people perished—some in bizarre and disturbing ways—and the actual number of fatalities is unknown, perhaps as many as 1, 500 were lost. Since the Great Chicago Fire occurred at the same time, Peshtigo was overshadowed and almost forgotten. In 2000, veteran wild-land firefighter Peter Leschak was faced with a hot and challenging fire season, tasked with the leadership of a helitack crew—an airborne fire team expected to be the "tip of the spear" on wildfire initial attacks. During that long summer he studied Father Peter Pernon's eyewitness account of the Pehstigo holocaust, and using his knowledge and experience as a firefighter, Leschak placed himself in Pernin's shoes, as much as possible being transported to the firestorm of 1871. Ghosts of the Fireground tells both tales: the horrific saga of Peshtigo, and the modern battles of a wildfire helicopter crew, seamlessly intertwining the stories to enhance them both.

FOUR

DREAM FIRE

Before the Blowdown, the territory protected by the Grand Marais Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry was considered a wildland fire backwater—the “asbestos forest,” as some firefighters quipped. Chiefly because of a lack of fine fuels, like grass, and a low human population density, there simply weren’t many wildfires. Generally, more people equals more fires, especially in locales where one-hour fuels abound—one hour referring to the approximate time lag between the last rain and when a fuel is dry enough to burn. Officially, a one-hour fuel has a diameter up to one-quarter inch and is found in abundance in grasslands, savannas, and grass-shrub combinations. The Grand Marais region is mostly forest. At the opposite end of the scale are logs and heavy limbs, classified as 1000-hour fuels. When the 1000-hour fuels are dry, you may certainly expect action.

In Minnesota, roughly 95 percent of wildfires are human caused, either accidentally or otherwise. By contrast, in a sparsely populated state like Wyoming, most wildfires are ignited by lightning. Minnesota and the Upper Midwest in general have significantly more lightning strikes than the Rocky Mountain states, but the storms are usually accompanied by heavier rainfall, and many incipient fires are doused at birth. The Blowdown provided tons of one-hour fuels in the form of conifer needles and small branches. (At Peshtigo, the Blowdown was mimicked by vast tracts of logging slash and the cuttings of farmers and railroad laborers, who were also supplying ignitions.)

So the stakes were higher in Minnesota than they’d been since the deadly fires of 1918, the last big outbreak of the pioneering and logging era. Since I was a fire instructor as well as a crew leader, it was my job to emphasize the ratcheting up of jeopardy.

One of my classroom specialties is firefighter safety and survival—how to avoid trouble on the fireground but, failing that, how to get out of it. At root, it’s about managing stress. Since the Storm King Mountain tragedy in Colorado in July 1994, where fourteen colleagues died in a burnover, all wildland firefighters must take an annual refresher course in fireground safety. Thus I’m attuned to finding fresh material for these refreshers—interesting and important knowledge to spice the mandatory review of standard operating guidelines.

So when I discovered a book entitled The M.A.P.: Mental Aspects of Performance for Firefighters, I was intrigued. One of my classroom sermonettes emphasizes that we consume most of our precious training time focusing on techniques and technology, and we offer little guidance about how fallible humans should handle decision making under pressure; situational awareness in confusing, dangerous environments; and the acute stress of facing injury, loss, and death. We demonstrate the use of tools and tactics, but what about the psychology of “combat”? What about mind and emotions? Clever gadgets are useless if human hands and minds are paralyzed by fear or bullied by doubt.

The M.A.P. said, “Our goal is to help firefighters increase their chances for success while decreasing the effects of stress.” Stress can make you sick. Hell, stress can kill you. Fortunately, there are effective ways to manage it, but people must be convinced of their innate powers of mind. The key words in the book’s preface were confidence, control, and concentration. The manual outlined several mental drills, and among the “sensory enhancement exercises” was a “suggestibility test.” It was designed to show how potently mind affects body—highlighting their unity—and I adapted it for my classes.

From The M.A.P. I learned the bucket exercise, and I employed it with relish.

I told my students, “Let’s see how powerful you are.” Some fidgeting and worried glances.

“Take a deep breath and slowly exhale. … Okay, another one.” Some smiles.

“Now close your eyes.” And I’d sweep the room until they all did.

“Stretch your arms out in front, level with your shoulders.” I’d catch a few more grins, occasionally an impatient frown.

“Okay. You are holding a bucket in each hand. The one in your right hand is made of birch bark. It’s empty and very light; you can barely feel it. The bucket in your left hand is cast iron. It’s heavy—extremely heavy—and I’m placing rocks in it, round chunks of granite, and now it’s full, heaped with dense, heavy rocks.”

More smiles appeared around the classroom, people struggling to hold their arms level. As I forcefully repeated the suggestions, I watched left arms twitch and dip, fighting to support the imaginary bucket.

After a minute or two I’d clap my hands and say, “All right! We’re done.” I was amused to see that in every class there were many who required a second clap to return.

“That is mind over body, people; mental driving physical. You have far more control over how you react and perform than you probably think.” It was a path to approach Standard Fire Order #10: Stay alert, keep calm, think clearly, act decisively.

A month later I had a frightening opportunity to practice what I preached. During a helicopter manager refresher session, we learned about water ditching, what to do if our ship crashed into a lake or river. We were offered a hands-on exercise. Most helicopters are top-heavy and will roll over and sink before the crew has a chance to exit. Surviving the ordeal—assuming the impact doesn’t kill you—demands presence of mind. If you panic, you’ll probably die—horribly.

The exercise is simple and, for most folks, terrifying. Students squeeze into a mock-up of a two-place helicopter cockpit, complete with seats, restraint harnesses, and an avionics plug. Once they’re strapped in, the “fuselage” is dumped into a swimming pool. It sinks instantly, settling on the bottom upside down.

I long harbored a fear of water. At age eleven a lifeguard pulled me off the bottom of a lake. I was unconscious. He saved my life. Technically, I’d drowned, and for several years I so lucidly recalled the panic of slipping beneath the waves—the pattern of the cumulus clouds overhead etched into memory—that my life was shadowed by dread. Since I grew up in Minnesota, “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” water was often difficult to avoid. “Chicken!” burned my ears. By refusing to divorce myself from water, and by vigorously improving my swimming skills, I caused the fear to gradually abate. But the prospect of being shoved into a pool while restrained and enclosed in a “cockpit” hotly rekindled a familiar terror. Was it more than I could handle?

We began the exercise in a classroom. Our instructor was a Coast Guard veteran with rescue experience, and I was soothed a little when his first move was a mental drill. He had each of us announce our name and say, with conviction, “I am a survivor!”

Sounds hokey, doesn’t it? Too pat, too easy; almost Polly-annaish. But I knew better. I sensed some skepticism in the room and credited it to ignorance. Under stress, attitude is paramount, and attitudes aren’t accidental; they’re generated by the individual. We program our responses. Fear is a natural reaction, but we can easily nurture it into a demon.

Student by student, the simple mantra rippled around the room. “I am a survivor! … I am a survivor! … I am a survivor … !” (You have a heavy bucket in your left hand.) Until Harvey, a U.S. Forest Service firefighter, startled us with, “Well, I don’t know … this scares me. I don’t know if I can do it.”

I was stunned by his candor. Would it work for him or against him?

“We’ll help you get through it,” replied the instructor.

We resumed the roll call, and the final trainee, a woman from Missouri, mumbled. Her “I am a survivor” was barely audible, her eyes downcast. It sounded like an embarrassed confession, as if she’d just been confronted with some petty misdemeanor. Would it make a difference in her performance?

An hour later we were poolside. The “cockpit” was poised on the edge. It was a tight framework of PVC pipe that the instructor unfelicitously dubbed “the cage.” We all entered the pool and proved we could hold our breath underwater for at least fifteen seconds. Then the instructor called for two volunteers to go first.

Since 1981 the fire service has generously provided me several educational opportunities to joust with fright—penetrating the depths of a burning house, crawling through a small pipe with a limited supply of breathing air, breaking through lake ice in a rescue suit—and if nothing else, I’ve learned this: go first. Always go first. Especially if you’re frightened. Because (1) the longer you wait, the shakier your knees become, and (2) if you watch someone else screw up or freak out, you’ll gain nothing but magnified dread. Trust me. Go first.

I snapped my hand into the air and was instantly joined by Pat, a U.S. Forest Service seaplane pilot. We donned flight helmets, scrunched into the narrow seats, and fastened our harnesses at the waist. Once secured, we plugged our helmet jacks into the “console.”

I was acutely afraid, but as soon as we’d left the classroom, I’d begun my concentration drill. Over and over I’d recited the seven steps we’d been taught:

First, remove any loose items such as eyeglasses. Second, unplug your flight helmet to avoid snagging the cord and being hung up. Third, unlatch the helicopter door. Fourth, establish a reference point by fixing a death grip on something inside the ship—the door handle is a good one—and don’t let go no matter what. Fifth, as the aircraft sinks, count slowly to five; this allows all movement to cease (spinning rotor blades, for example), reducing the risk of exiting into greater danger, and allowing the storm of bubbles to clear. It also has a calming effect—if you’re counting, you’re in control. (I’d been taught the same technique many years before when making a parachute jump.) Sixth, use your free hand—not your reference point grip—to undo the harness. Seventh, transfer your reference point, moving deliberately hand over hand, to exit the cabin.

Once out, follow bubbles to the surface. We were told that during the rolling and sinking of a helicopter, disorientation is a given, and some survivors of crashes had tried to swim downward and died after safely escaping the ship. The instructor told us that after the class we’d never look at an aircraft the same way again—even an airliner.

“Ready?” he asked.

Pat and I said yes in unison.

The instructor looked me in the eye. “Okay, give me the seven steps!”

I chanted them, miming the actions. Pat did the same.

“Good. Establish your reference point, and prepare to count.”

I grasped the door frame with my right hand, placed my left hand over the harness buckle, and drew in a deep breath. We’d already unplugged our helmets, ready for the “crash.”

The instructor flashed a thumbs-up to three of our colleagues standing behind the cage, and they tipped us into the pool.

The water slapped our faces and I closed my eyes. There was a rolling sensation, then I felt the cage bump the bottom. The harness clutched my shoulders. I started counting, “One thousand one, one thousand two … ,” and opened my eyes. A froth of bubbles was rushing toward my knees and feet. I immediately understood that unless I’d grabbed a reference point, I’d be shockingly confused. I could imagine the panic. There was a jolt of anxiety with that realization, but the counting short-circuited the fear. “… One-thousand-three, one-thousand-four …”

By the time I reached five, I was relatively calm. I unbuckled the belt with my left hand, fumbling a little. I was dimly aware of Pat squirming beside me. I grabbed the lower edge of the door frame and wiggled out of the cage. Pat and I broke the surface at the same moment.

The class applauded, probably out of nervous relief that we first two weren’t dead or vomiting. As we clambered back onto the deck, the pool crew hoisted the cage out of the water, and we reentered, strapped in, plugged in, and did it over—plunging in backward. By the third “crash,” in sideways, it was almost fun.

It was a literal baptism, a burial and resurrection, and I was joy-ful at having mastered this latest terror. I remembered the time a fundamentalist Christian minister had ducked me into a cattle trough in his basement, held my head under for a moment, then intoned, “You have risen to new life in Jesus Christ!” Born again. And I felt new—then, and certainly after the cage. I understood that this relatively benign submersion into a heated pool did not guarantee my survival in a real water-ditching, any more than the cattle trough dip had assured a Christlike demeanor. But it reinforced the efficacy of mind work, of symbolic practice, of emotional confidence. Jung wrote, “We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling.” Relaxed, I could study the rest of the trainees. Just before Harvey’s turn I assured him that as long as he held a reference point and remembered to count, it was a piece of cake. Others encouraged him as well. He still seemed doubtful, and a few minutes later as the cage tilted over, his eyes were wide, his face pinched and pale.

He did fine. Had the brazen honesty helped? Or rather had the extra assurances and support he’d garnered through the open admission of fear carried him through? I believe the latter. Simply admitting fear doesn’t banish its effects. You need a tool to mold and manipulate it. For him it was the support of the “community.”

The woman from Missouri waited until the end. Her face was also ashen. No one had experienced major difficulty—a tribute, I think, to our instructor—but she was so palpably afraid it was distressing to watch. My pulse rate climbed. Anxiety is contagious. It’s why I preach to rookies that firefighters must cultivate as much cool as they can—not only for themselves but also for the sake of their comrades.

As the cage was tipping toward the water, she ripped open the harness and literally dove out the doorway before the cage was even fully submerged. In a real crash such action could well be fatal. She refused a second try. At least on that day, she was not a survivor. She did not have a reference point. Perhaps, I thought, she hadn’t been scared enough. I knew what it felt like to drown. My own dread of the exercise had swelled two weeks before, and that’s when my preparation began.

From colleagues who’d been through it a few years before, I learned the basics of the water-ditching drill and twice a day mentally practiced it. Withdrawing to a quiet place, I drew a few centering breaths, then imagined myself calmly and successfully exiting a submerged aircraft. Over and over I was a survivor, establishing a pattern of victory in my head—victory over terror and panic. It was a kind of prayer. Later, in the classroom, when it was my turn to state, “I am a survivor!,” I knew that at least then and there, it was true.

The manual we were issued summed it up: “Your mind is your best survival tool. … Positive control over your mental and emotional state are key factors to survival.” And also to leadership.

It’s not all in your head, but most of it is.

That’s why it was critical to keep our crew exercising, mentally as well as physically. I was thinking about that at dawn on July 1 as I drove to Grand Marais after two days off at home. I was apprehensive because a new pilot was on duty. Derek had twelve days off and was back in British Columbia. He’d assured me that his replacement, Mike McKenzie, was an excellent flyer and a good guy. I hoped so, because Derek and Mike would tag-team for the rest of the summer—twelve days on and twelve off.

I was at the helibase when Mike arrived on shift, and we shook hands and made small talk, metaphorically circling and sniffing like wary rottweilers. I figured the best way for us to get acquainted, and to furnish Mike some familiarity with the turf and our operation, was to conduct a “wet run” initial attack drill. We’d load up as if dispatched, fly ten or fifteen miles, and find a helispot near a lake. Then, timing the evolution, we’d land, hook up the bucket, and Mike could do proficiency water drops while the crew deployed as if on a fire. It was not only useful but also a congenial way to pass the morning.

When AHR was warmed up, we waited briefly for a small private plane to clear the airport on takeoff, then lifted at about 10:30 A.M., bound northeast for Greenwood Lake. We were airborne no more than two or three minutes when we heard a radio transmission that changed everything. A male voice said, “There’s a fire north of Tofte, and the smoke is building.”

Mike shot me a glance. “Did you hear that?”

“Yes, I did.”

Understand that Mike and I were monitoring four radios in the front seat—two FM and two AM. The latter were primarily for air-to-air communication with other aircraft or airport control towers. The two FMs were mostly an air-to-ground link with the Department of Natural Resources or the U.S. Forest Service, whether on a fire or doing project work, and for contact with our dispatchers. As a rule, the FM radios were “mine,” and the AM or “victor” radios were used chiefly by the pilots. Each of us had a console beside us that allowed quick switching among the four units, and either or both of us could transmit on any of the radios at any time if need be.

I assumed that the smoke report had issued from FM-2, the radio currently dialed into Superior National Forest Dispatch, since all the ground north of Tofte—a small town on the Lake Superior shore—was under Forest Service fire protection. Unless you happened to be looking directly at the radios when a transmission came through, there was no way to tell which had “spoken” except from the context of the message.

I punched a button that switched my helmet microphone to Superior Dispatch.

“Dispatch, this is helicopter Alpha-Hotel-Romeo. We have a report of a fire north of Tofte. Do you wish us to respond?”

There was a longer silence than I expected, then, “Affirmative.”

I suggested Mike turn 180 degrees and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction: Gleaming Everywhere
• One: A Fierce, Satisfied Light
• Two: The Acceleration of Joy
• Three: Alpha-Hotel-Romeo
• Four: Dream Fire
• Five: “Madam, Seek the River”
• Six: Trembling in Every Limb
• Seven: A Glimpse of Medusa
• Eight: The Fever of Command
• Nine: A Great Miracle
• Ten: A Single Lovely Action
• Epilogue
• Sources
• Acknowledgments
• Copyright