Rookie wildland firefighters in Montana didn't have long to wait before heading to the front lines of a blaze. They were deployed on their first day.
“I thought we’d wait until like August or July, late you know, like I didn’t think we’d be working, and then the second day we were training, it’s just like, are we gonna be able to go?” Bradie Pretty Weasel, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Crow firefighter, told KTVQ-TV.
Pretty Weasel is one of seven rookie firefighters who were part of the response to contain the Buffalo Pasture Fire, which broke out June 15 in the Bighorn Mountains on the Crow Reservation. The wildfire was 65 percent contained earlier this week.
“We were expecting to wait a little bit longer, but everything popped up,” Leah Takesenemy, a new wildland firefighter this year who went through rookie school with her brother, Tuff.
The BIA rookies had just finished their seven-day training before being sent out to their first wildfire. That training also cemented whether they wanted to pursue the challenging road of a wildland firefighter.
"If they come to the rookie school, they’ll find out if they like it or not," firefighter Karl Bighair, Crow Fire's lead engine foreman, said. "If they like it, they can make a career out of it just like me. When back in '93 I just tried it out to see how it was. But now I made a career out of it, and I love my job."
Interest in becoming a BIA wildland firefighter, however, has been waning. According to Bighair, there has been a dramatic dropoff in new firefighters in recent years.
“My rookie year, man, there was like maybe four crews, and now seeing the rookies, we’re getting less and less," he said. "Like last year, we had 29, 28 rookies, and this year there is only seven."
