Summer has officially arrived, and inevitably fire season is already in full swing. Not that I needed confirmation, but for the second year in a row now I’ve encountered a team of firefighters while traveling through Arizona. Last July in Kingman it was the Fort Apache Hotshots that I spotted, staying in the same hotel as we were along Route 66. This year I was lucky enough to spot another team — this time it was the Alpine Hotshots in Williams, AZ — two hours south of the Grand Canyon and more or less surrounded by the Kaibab National Forest. I was wandering around the Best Western Plus and happened to look out the second floor window to see them gathered in a semicircle below. Later on, the Big Guy saw them walking through the woods just adjacent to the hotel property.

I didn’t know much about the Hotshots (officially known as Interagency Hotshot Crews or IHC) aside from what I’ve seen in Hollywood movies like Only The Brave (2017). I do know they are NOT smoke jumpers, but they work tirelessly on the front lines of wildland fires, traveling around the nation when needed in trouble spots. Some IHC teams are currently in Canada helping to battle the ongoing wildfire emergency there. But I think it’s best to let the Hotshots themselves explain what they are all about:

Hotshotting is Wildland Fire Management work—Suppression and Prescription—at a high level, for an extended fire season, as part of a team of 20 individuals that becomes, through advanced training and deep experience, a tight-knit and elite module with broad and diverse applicability on both Initial Attack and Campaign Fires.

But Hotshotting itself is much more than that. Hotshotting is work that becomes a way of life. Hotshotting is spending a hundred plus days on assignment over a six month fire season. Hotshotting is working 1000 hours of overtime on top of 40 hours/wk of base pay. Hotshotting is sleeping in the dirt, travelling the country, working hard in the forests, fields, mountains and deserts of the United States; Hotshotting is finding breathtaking places—by foot, tire, fixed wing, helicopter, and other vehicles—that you would never have had any other reason in the world to set foot on, while protecting values and resources at risk. Hotshotting is Fire Suppression in the most rugged country, on the most complex Division, with the most extreme fire behavior. Being a Hotshot is about trusting the 19 men and women in line with you, knowing your skill-set and your training, about being confident in your safety and situational awareness no matter what the environment or context. Being a Hotshot is about believing in your Superintendent’s judgement and having faith in your Captains’ decision-making. Hotshotting is getting a nickname (or three): it’s about personal growth, about knowing yourself and your crew-mates through hard, rewarding work. Hotshotting is about Family: about a Family with history, tradition, and standards, that you’ll be part of forever — U.S. Hotshots Association