Every year, beginning in early spring wildfire sweeps across the United States. These powerful fires destroy millions of acres of our nations forests, burn homes to the ground, and take the lives of both the innocent people caught in the middle of them as well as the brave souls that risk their lives to fight and control them. Some of the major wildland firefighting organizations in western United States are those of the U. S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Services, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Every year crews are mobilized and sent all around this county. On any given fire one could find crews such as the  hotshot crew the Midnight Suns from Alaska, or the Arrowhead Hotshots, a Park Service crew from Southern California, or the Forest Service crew Plumas Hotshots from a small town in Northern California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. The brotherhood of wildland firefighters is made up of engine crews, hand crews, hotshot crews, helitack crews, smokejumpers, helicopters, air tankers and all those that aid in the fight by providing these brave men and women with the aid and support they need to do their grueling jobs.

    The job of a wildland firefighter is not getting any easier, even though technology may be helping it is powerless against the fury of nature. As time goes on and fire remains absent from much of the countries forest the materials that fuel the growth of fire continue to grow making fighting these infernos more difficult to control. Fire has been present in the earth’s ecosystem since the beginning of time, its part in nature is a must. In early America, during the expansion to the west these fires that continually brought cleansing to the ecosystem were no longer seen for their benefit but instead as a threat to life. War was declared on wildfire and a principle of total fire suppression was adopted. This principle stated that all fires were to be fought and extinguished. For some time the adverse effect of these actions were not notably visible. In later years fires broke out that became national crisis’, the burned on a grand unseen scale. The mistake was soon obvious, a key part of natures working was removed. Forest became huge fuel beds,  They were a volatile explosion waiting to happen. In the mid twentieth century wildland firefighting became similar to a mobilization of an army. We saw the introduction to air tankers, world war two bombers modified to drop water or retardant on fires, the helicopter used to fight fires, and the smokejumper, highly trained firefighters that parachute into hard to reach locations to fight isolated fires. Today the tactics of fighting wildfires is highly refined. Despite the increase of training, better equipment, and better communications accidents still happen. The job of fighting wildfires is still as dangerous as ever.

    A new danger has emerged in recent years, this new danger is that of people moving ever farther into the wildland. As people move their homes deeper into forests and the wildland settings it puts them at high risk for fires. The fires that involve homes in the wildland have been given the name of urban interface. It is a quick changing fire environment, putting firefighters in grave danger. Southern California is infamous for the fires that have ripped through the interface destroying thousands of homes and costing billions of dollars. This is simply another example of the ever evolving face of wildland firefighting. No matter were the fires of the future lead their will always been men and women following and fighting them with.