The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lush forests reduced to ash
MIDDLETOWN — Nothing could have prepared Westfield Fire District volunteer Lt. John Kloc for the starkness and utter wreckage he witnessed once his 20-man team arrived to tackle massive fires in the wilds of Colorado.
Kloc, 31, was deployed to remote, federally protected land July 27 for 19 days as part of a crew specially trained and certified by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to assist the U.S. Forest Service in fighting wildfires in western states.
“You can see this in the magazines, and you can watch the news, but until you’re out there, all your senses are picking all this up, it’s really mind-blowing,” he said.
Kloc compared it to what it would be like walking on the moon.
“Everything that was once trees was ash — and we’re walking through there to our next assignment. Everything that was once lush forest is nothing but ash,” said Kloc, who began volunteering at
the Westfield hose company in 2013.
Often, crews trudged through a foot of ash, he said. “Your feet are sinking into it, kicking up the dust.”
Kloc began his career with the Long Hill Fire Department in Trumbull in 2013. In 2015, he transferred to Westfield fire, and, in January, he was named lieutenant and given charge of 50 volunteer firefighters.
He’s not unfamiliar with working 12-hour shifts in Middletown — from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. That’s after he’s worked at his full-time day job as the shipping and maintenance coordinator for Michaels Jewelers in Waterbury.
His employer generously allowed him to take personal time.
“John strongly influenced us to extend our 10 percent discount offered to all military personnel to include first responders as a thank you for their generous services to our community,” Lindsay Michaels Gorski, Michaels’ marketing director, said in a prepared statement.
Kloc is not unfamiliar with tough working conditions.
“All these guys, sometimes we’ll be out all night: two fire alarms and a medical call that’ll take three, four hours a night,” he said.
If all is quiet, Westfield firefighters can lie down for a nap around 10 p.m., but the calls are relentless and can come every two hours.
“You’re not sleeping much, but that’s the life we have chosen. All of us enjoy doing it, or we wouldn’t be doing it anymore,” he said. “I’ve always been intrigued and fascinated by the technical rescue aspect of things, firefighting, emergency medical care. This is just one thing I can do to help.”
The Connecticut interagency crew was originally deployed to the first 748acre fire, Buttermilk, for a week. After it was contained, Kloc and his men traveled an hour to a fire that originated from a lightning strike and spread across 75 acres, he said.
Such strikes touch off the majority of forest fires, Kloc said. The land is so mountainous that a smoldering tree could go undetected for days.
“By that time, it’s massive,” Kloc said. “It started to grow significantly in size,” so firefighters switched tactics to a more aggressive method.
Within nine or 10 days, they had the fire under control, so they were sent an hour north to Gunnison, Colo., for five days to help knock down the Green Mountain fire.
They were the first team on scene.
“That was big for us, especially for an eastern crew to come out there and get the assignment. It’s showing a lot that Connecticut has made a name for itself. They work hard, and we do what we’ve got to do to get the job done,” Kloc said.
Over 17,000 trained wildland firefighters from across the nation have responded to over 3.9 million acres of wildland fires so far this year — an area larger than the state of Connecticut, according to DEEP.
Getting trained in a classroom to fight wildfires can only prepare a firefighter so much. Even Kloc was surprised to see conditions once he arrived on site.
“There’s nothing like seeing it firsthand.
“I knew we’d be working long hours, and it would be hot, and we’d be hiking a lot, but when you get out there, and you see the sheer devastation and everything the fire had caused, just how much manpower people are putting into it, and the effort that is created to try to stop these wildfires, it blows your mind,” Kloc said.
He was also impressed by the amount of air support used out west.
“We had helicopters and air tankers that were assisting us. I’m used to structural firefighting, where multiple departments come together with truck companies and rescue companies, but just the sheer amount of acreage that was on fire out there meant massive coordination between many many many bureaus: the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, local fire departments and interagency crews.”
It was tough going, Kloc said. Being born and raised in Connecticut means a firefighter hasn’t always experienced the demands placed on those out west, he said.
“Connecticut is a couple hundred feet above sea level. In Colorado, the mountains are as high as 10,000 feet. Everything was very dry; the humidity in the single digits. There’s fire around, so everything is burnt.”
Wildfire fighting does not use breathing apparatus, Kloc said, so the crews were outfitted in fire-resistant long cotton pants and longsleeved collared shirts. In structural fires, the blaze is contained within the home or facility, making the chances of suffering from smoke inhalation great.
“The whole time, (the flames and smoke) are going straight up and away,” in Colorado, said Kloc, who, with his men, easily hiked 10 miles a day with 50pound packs on their backs up significant elevations.
“It’s so remote you can’t take a truck there or even ATVs, because where we were going, only people could get to.”