The Life
When not on fire assignments, the crew performs project work such as prescribed burning and fuels reduction.
Living conditions while on assignments can be primitive. Fresh meals, soft beds, and regular showers are not to be expected. Field assignments away from home can last several weeks with daily work shifts averaging 16 hours, but can extend up to 48–64 hours. Sleep deprivation is common, as is routine exposure to dust, smoke, poison oak, extreme weather (both heat and cold) and other environmental hazards.
Hotshot vehicles become a home away from home during the peak of the season when Hotshots may rarely spend more than two consecutive days at their own station. These vehicles, also known as Crew Hauls, Buggies, Crummies, or simply the Box, carry Hotshots along with personal gear, tools, and everything else necessary to make the crew self-sufficient for several days.
Read more about this topic: Interagency Hotshot Crew
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“One of the fundamental reasons why so many doctors become cynical and disillusioned is precisely because, when the abstract idealism has worn thin, they are uncertain about the value of the actual lives of the patients they are treating. This is not because they are callous or personally inhuman: it is because they live in and accept a society which is incapable of knowing what a human life is worth.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“Eroticism is assenting to life even in death.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)