WELL-TRAINED AND READY TO FIGHT
Local crews prepared to tackle blazes near and far — and the grueling schedule that comes with the job
Vidalia Vigil was 8 when her dad taught her how to set fire to a field. She was born in the village of Pecos and raised hunting and gathering firewood in the surrounding forests. In addition to keeping horses, goats and chickens, the Vigil family tended to a 1-acre plot of land. Some years, they would farm crops like blue corn, squash, chile and beans. Other years, they would grow oats and alfalfa for the horses. In between, they would burn and till the field.
“I’ve always had that fire bug inside of me,” she said.
Vigil is well-trained on how to start safe fires — and how to put them out safely, too. Now 23, she’s entering her fifth season as a wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service, typically working from May to September. If called upon, she would help defend Northern New Mexico — and beyond. In the past four wildfire seasons, Vigil has fought alongside teams from all over the nation — Oregon, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and even Florida.
Experts worry that heat and drought conditions this year could spell a bad wildfire season in New Mexico and throughout the West. Men and women like Vigil are preparing. Vigil has been on the job for about two weeks, training with her “fire family,” she said, and helping with prescribed burns in the Pecos area.
Bruce Hill, a spokesman for the
Santa Fe National Forest, said there are about 100 firefighters ready to defend Northern New Mexico’s two national forests against a blaze this season, with around 17 fire engines. The Santa Fe National Forest also has a Type 3 helicopter for firefighting.
In addition, the Santa Fe and Carson national forests both have their own interagency Hotshot crew, an elite team of highly specialized firefighters called into the hottest part of a fire. According to the U.S. Forest Service website, the primary task of these hand crews is to create a “fire line” — a perimeter around a fire cleared of everything down to the mineral earth — in an effort to contain the blaze.
Interagency Hotshot crews are the most highly trained and skilled hand crews.
In the event of a large fire, Hill said, extra resources can be called in from all over the U.S., and this happens nearly every year.
Local fire crews often help battle wildfires outside their boundaries, too.
Santa Fe County wildland firefighters primarily help protect the county’s nearly 2,000 square miles, but they also respond to blazes elsewhere. Among their resources is a specialized wildland crew called the Black Canyon Hand Crew.
City of Santa Fe firefighters are trained to respond to wildfires, as well, said Chief Erik Litzenberg. He sends staff to fight fires all over the country. Last year, for instance, Santa Fe firefighters fought blazes as far as Florida and North Carolina.
“We are one of the more nationally engaged departments,” Litzenberg said. “We really do believe this is a team effort.”
During the fire season, wildland firefighters can have a brutal schedule.
Vigil, who was promoted last year from a “seasonal” crew member with the U.S. Forest Service to “career seasonal,” is guaranteed at least 26 weeks of work. Her base pay is around $30,000 for the season — plus the overtime and hazard pay she makes when she’s out on the front lines of a fire, where she works up to 16-hour days in 14- or 21-day shifts, followed by a two-day break.
Vigil joined the Forest Service when she was 18, hoping to make enough money to pay for her tuition at The University of New Mexico. She graduated in 2015, majoring in both Chicano studies and Spanish.
She’s been back every year since. And despite the grueling schedule of seasonal firefighting, the potential danger and the grit, she sees herself fighting fires for the foreseeable future. “My first fire, I was hooked,” Vigil said. She was nervous the first time, she said, but more than that, she was eager: to learn, to help, to feel the heat of the fire on her face. The difficult but purposeful work, the physical and mental challenges — they gave her an adrenaline rush.
During Vigil’s first two seasons with the Pecos/ Las Vegas Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest, she was on hand crews, using tools to “cut line,” or clear away flammable material to create a barrier around the fire to prevent it from spreading.
There were days, Vigil said, when she worked long hours nonstop, either right alongside a fire or farther away, clearing a fire line straight up the sides of mountains.
“Sometimes it’s brutal: My legs are burning, I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m about to collapse,” she said. “But mentally, you say, ‘I can do this.’ ”
At the end of the day, when she reaches the top of a difficult hill, or comes down from the fire and sees families waving and kids holding signs saying, “Thank you,” it’s all worth it, she said.
“No matter how much sweat you put in that day, it’s like — we did a good service, together and as a team,” she said. “You did something good for the greater good of the people.”
For the past three seasons, Vigil has worked on a wildland fire engine. This year, she’s serving as the lead firefighter on a pale-green, Type 6 fire engine that can hold 300 gallons of water. She’ll work alongside a captain, an engine operator and two seasonal firefighters, mostly helping to cut line or “mop up” areas that have been burned — wetting them down to make sure all of the smoldering embers have been extinguished.
During an interview in the ranger district’s office, she showed off some of the tools firefighters use to cut line. A Rhino tool looks something like a shovel with the rounded tip sheared off. It functions like a hoe, Vigil explained, and can scrape at grasses or cut away weeds down to the soil. Another, called a combi tool, has both a foldable, shovel-like blade and a pick for getting rid of tougher objects.
On Friday afternoon, the blades were covered in tape. They’d just been sharpened.
One of the primary rules of the job, she said: Always be “fire ready.”
Vigil keeps a red bag in her engine, just in case. It’s stuffed with 14 days’ worth of clothes, toiletries and whatever field supplies she might need for the front lines.
“We could get a call right now,” she said on a quiet Friday at the Pecos station, in the last hours of her 14-day shift, “and we’d be on the road in 20 minutes.”