The Beginning

Welcome back!

I figured it was only appropriate to continue by giving you additional background on myself and my WFF. I mentioned that I grew up in Rhode Island. Well, so did he. I get it, geography is hard, so here's a map:

There's little Rhody! It's a tiny, but beautiful state. A whole 37 miles wide, 48 miles 'tall'. Our even smaller hometowns are known for their sandy beaches, frozen lemonade (shout-out to Del's!) and coffee flavored milk. We dip our French fries in malt vinegar and use the term "wicked" as a synonym for "really" or "very". RI is a seafood-lover's haven, that's 'home'.

I grew up in the same house on the same street, never moved. After grade school, I attended a local University to study Animal Science. I gained experience by working at my friend's dog grooming salon and as our town's assistant Animal Control Officer, while attending classes.

It was during my undergraduate years, in 2007, that I met my husband through mutual friends at a party. He actually kissed my best friend that night (and she'd go on to marry my ex-boyfriend)! We acknowledged each other's existence but didn't start to form a connection until the winter of 2010, when I learned that he actually lived in Utah. I was gearing up to embark on a new adventure after grad school, which would take me to Western Colorado. Not terribly far away.

During my brief stint living there, my WFF and I visited each other. We hiked Storm King mountain and paid our respects to the memorials of 14 fallen Wildland Firefighters. Even then, I had a hard time grasping how fire could burn such steep terrain. I can remember him hastily bouncing with each step, as I clambered behind, unaccustomed to the atmosphere and sweating like a pig.

He brought a tiny digital camera, and took photos of each and every carefully placed plaque bearing the name of the fallen. I fear that I failed to recognize the dedication he displayed for his job in this moment, a hint for what was to come. I was far too focused on consuming as much oxygen as possible, while staying conscious under the shade of a scraggly shrub.

When I visited him in Utah, he had us hiking Mt. Olympus, another ridiculously steep trek. Again he happily skipped ahead while I struggled with every inch. For a bit of reference, Mt. Olympus is like 5 star difficulty, a nearly 4800 ft. of elevation gain over a mere few miles. I won't lie, I thought he might be either trying to kill me or was somehow testing my physical abilities. I was sure I failed, we never did make it to the top.

We rode his snowmobile and built a snowman the next day. It was undeniable that we enjoyed each other's company. We had a mutual love of adventure and the outdoors. But I was stubborn and on a quest for independence, busy exploring my beautiful new surroundings in the Rockies. Soon after my return to CO, my WFF was busy with fire season and I was off living my best life. Our communications over the course of the summer dwindled as a result.

Fast forward to winter of 2011. I returned home to RI and fell back into my old routine grooming dogs. As the holidays grew closer, I wondered if I would hear from my WFF and found myself thinking about him often. I hoped that we would reconnect. As fate would have it, he reached out and expressed a desire to get together, knowing I was back on the East coast.

We met at our favorite pub, across the street from my dog grooming job. Seeing him again, my heart was suddenly all a-flutter. We talked and kissed the night away, sparks flying out our ears. It was in this very moment that I knew I was ready to commit and that he might be the 'one'. We declared ourselves boyfriend-girlfriend (finally) on December 29, 2011, the same night he warned me that dating a WFF would be hard.

Growing up, I knew nothing of wildfire outside Smokey Bear's famous singular line, and certainly had no idea what a job being a wildland firefighter entailed. Yet, I wasn't unaccustomed to hard times. I had grown up battling depression and PTSD as a result of a childhood medical trauma. Surely dating a Wildland Firefighter couldn't be THAT hard, could it?

Having only just moved back across the country, I was hesitant to pack my pets and car again. I had taken on 2 more part time jobs, working animal control for another neighboring town and helping out at a friend's Mediterranean restaurant slinging falafel wraps. I had also recently found a beautiful apartment and was happy to be close to family and friends again. I'd ultimately make my WFF wait another year before I'd consider moving to Utah.

I'd had experience with long distance relationships, and naively believed it would be a cinch. I had plenty on my plate to keep me busy. The plan was that he'd return to Utah and I would visit before and after fire season. We could text, call, or Facetime every day in between, right? This is what I truly believed. But reality had other plans.

Fire season kicked off that May, and with it came a steep decline in regular communication. I'd learn that his job took him places where service would be scarce, or he'd rarely have time or energy to talk. I never found myself overly concerned with his safety or worried about the strength of our relationship though. I was still so ignorant to the physical and mental demands of his job. Here I was, living in a bubble, filled with fun at work and time with good friends and family. Meanwhile he was scaling mountains, digging line under the hot sun, and calculating risk for days or weeks on end, calling me whenever he could.

I remember the phone call that first flickered at the lightbulb, artlessly placed over my ignorant little head. It was MAFFs-7. A C-130 from the Air Force was dropping fire retardant on the same flames my WFF and his crew were fighting in South Dakota. The huge plane had crashed during operations and 4 of the 6 crewmen aboard had died, the other 2 sustained critical injuries. Some of his very own crewmates were first on scene, administering life-saving interventions for the survivors. I'll never forget his comment on our phone call, 'can you please let my parents know I'm ok?'.

He was upset, obviously, meanwhile I had a hard time grasping the enormity of the situation or finding words of consolation. I felt detached and helpless, situated thousands of miles away in the coziness of my little apartment. Here I thought that being long distance would be a breeze, that we'd just happily keep in touch while going about our business. My brain would slowly come to grasp the enormity of risk involved in his job...

I asked my WFF to give me some feedback on his perspective during this time period. I felt that it's important to include these moving forward, in case any WFF's themselves are reading and could perhaps relate. Here is what he said:

"I was on Provo Helitack in 2011. It was the last season before the merge, 3 different crews coming to 1 'Wasatch Helitack'. Instead of driving South I'd be driving North next year. The season ended kind of abruptly in September. I was still Seasonal, a GS-5 and was looking to get a Senior Firefighter position. Now I needed to start working this avue process (through USA jobs), the hiring platform they used at the time, and figure out how to navigate getting a permanent job with Wasatch. I wasn't very good with the application process at that point, it was only my second year in with the feds.

"I was making my way to RI for the holidays, and texted you that I'd be passing through Colorado. I remember you replying saying you'd actually moved back East. We linked up and I wanted to warn you that dating a WFF would be hard, it felt like it was only fair, but I knew that you'd really have to live it to know. The biggest thing would be the time apart so I thought it was good, doing the long distance thing first, rather than jumping right in. Coming into the summer, it's pretty much the same thing anyway, since I'd be gone so much. I remember it was hard, but it was good. I felt like I was filling a void, something I had been missing in my life for a long time.

"So now it's 2012 season, we were on the White Draw fire. We were flown out to the fire, me and 4 others I think. We were tasked with checking some line that hadn't been scouted. It was really hard to tell were the edge was, there were so many fingers (long, narrow projections of fire) coming out from the source. Some storms were coming in so we made our way back to a drop point with a few other people. There were a bunch of heavy equipment (like bulldozers), state folks, others crews all gaggled up. As we were walking in to this drop point, there was this huge microburst that just blew everything around and made it all black (because we were in the black). The wind blew it all up, and you couldn't see. Then the lightning and thunder started and I was like 'I don't like this' and asked the state guys if I could sit in their truck with them.

"On the C-130's first drop they had to do a go-around because they were affected by the winds and the downdrafts, that might have been that first microburst, the one that we felt. Then I remember the C-130 flying over us. Maybe 10 minutes later, I heard over the radio, not the fire radio, but the local dispatch center if you were to call 911, they got a report of a C-130 crash. I got out of the truck and told my supervisor what I heard on the radio, then he texted one of our crew mates to give him a heads up for a possible medevac situation.

"Our guys were getting ready but they couldn't fly yet because of the storms. The fire didn't even know yet that the C-130 crashed, because the lead plane, the one that guides the C-130 in, experienced that same downdraft and almost crashed themselves. They got out of there and flew to another airport because they overtemped (overheated) their engines. There was limited conversation, no communication, about what was going on, they just got out of there. Then the other guys crashed.

"The storms cleared for the helicopters to go look and they finally found them and landed. From there I'm sure it just was pure chaos. One of the kids that went to help was in shock, zoned out, they had to worry about him not walking into the tail rotor. Other people trying to find survivors. They didn't even know how many people were on the plane. The person that actually called 911, was someone that was on board the plane that crashed, they called with their cell phone, which that in turn made it to the local dispatch, which I heard on the radio.

"We eventually got a ride back to the helibase, it was all done at that point. I think it was then that I probably called you. Now it was cleaning up the blood in the helicopter and stuff. After that we got a hotel and had some beers, had our own little debrief on it."

Talking about fire came more naturally than talking about the gooey relationship stuff. This post is dedicated to the families of the men who lost their lives that day.

Until next time,

Erin

P.S. In case you haven't figured it out (or already know)....my WFF's name is Josh ♥