By Doug Robinson
Deseret Morning News
IRWIN PARK, Calif. — Ken Henson has just one request before we hang up the phone and he returns to the frontlines of the California wildfires.
"If I can ask just one last thing," he says, "don't paint us as heroes. We don't wear that badge very well. We're just doing our jobs."
It's a deal, but judging from the signs, banners, cakes and cookies that show up at his campsite in Irwin Park — gifts from grateful Californians — it's clear that not everyone agrees with him.
Notwithstanding, Henson sounded like a battlefield general as he said goodbye and dashed off to another firefight.
"We're going to go around the flank and try to pinch off the head," he said.
Henson is superintendent of the Cedar City Hotshots, which is not only a great name for a rock band but also the name of an elite firefighting crew that is based in southern Utah. A week ago Henson and his 21-person team were among those called to fight the wildfires that have devastated much of the San Diego area.
They have been working 16-hour shifts since then, performing hot, exhausting, inglorious manual labor that sounds about as much fun as yard work in June. Wielding chainsaws, axes, picks and shovels, they spend much of their time creating firebreaks and clearing sagebrush and chaparral away from a stripe of land to starve the fire.
Sometimes after doing this they set fire to the fire-side of the break so that fire will meet fire and extinguish itself — fighting fire with fire, as it were.
It's like working in an oven, with the added fun of smoke and wind-whipped dust.
Henson and his "kids," as he calls them, think they are winning this battle in California. "It's not under control," Henson reported Monday, "but it has calmed down."
For Henson and Co., this is pretty routine stuff, except that the fire is raging in a populated area. Since mid-May, they have spent about 110 days fighting fires in the drought-stricken West, which adds up to almost four months of being away from home. When they go on a job, they stay on the job until they're finished, camping on site for anywhere from one to 21 days.
It's dangerous, hot work, of course. For safety reasons, they often prefer to be close to the fire — it's actually more dangerous to be farther away. "If the wind does a swap on you suddenly, you can step into the stuff that's already burned," Henson explains. They carry portable fire shelters to crawl under in case they are trapped.
"I've had friends who have died (on fire crews) but not in our crew," says Henson. "But I'd rather not talk about it." After a long silence, he adds, "You get pretty close to the people you work with here, as opposed to someone you might meet on a 9 to 5 job."
That's because for three to four months a year, they spend long hours with their comrades, fighting fires side by side and eating and sleeping together at the job site.
"I love the camaraderie," says Henson. "Team work is essential in this business. We have to work together."
Henson, who was raised in Arizona, served in the Army for a couple of years and attended a community college before he decided to become a municipal firefighter. At 22, he joined a wildfire crew, thinking it was temporary duty until he got a firefighter's job in the city.
Twenty-four years later he's still fighting wildfires. He never got around to quitting. He has fought wildfires in Alaska and Canada and Minnesota — 21 states in all.
"I have a passion for this job," he says.
In California today, he is fighting to save more than land and vegetation from the fires. He has seen homes burned to the ground, and there have been fatalities.
"It's depressing to see people's homes and all their belongings burned to the ground," he says. "This gives you a sense of purpose, a feeling that you are helping people."
Copyright 2007 The Deseret News Publishing Co.
