4

Convicts Will Be Your Co-Workers

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Imagine yourself hiking in the woods when you round a corner and spot a prisoner ahead. What's the one thing you want him to be holding the least? A firearm? His wang? Your mother's face? Your wang? Well, pretty high up on that list is probably stuff like chainsaws, flare guns, and drip torches. But that's exactly what you might see: Most prison industry duty is simple stuff like making license plates, but sometimes it means fighting wildfires with tools that can easily do major bodily harm. Luckily for your mom and your wang (your mom's wang?!), not every convict can join a crew, just the nonviolent offenders.

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Don't worry: The prison system isn't cruelly sending all the white-collar criminals off to burn in the woods -- these cons actually work as volunteers, and not "volunteers." They willingly go out for fire duty because a few weeks breathing fresh (OK, ash-choked) air in the romantic California wilderness (it may be on fire, but doesn't that only lend to its romance?) sure beats picking up needles in the yard. While professional and convict crews are separate, we do encounter each other: We had some convicts come and bum smokes from us, which we actually got in trouble for (firefighting prisoners are apparently like squirrels, and giving them what they want will only teach them to rely on you for cigarettes instead of foraging for them on their own, as nature intended).

3

The Living Conditions Are Terrible

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Your normal city-based firefighters operate on a 24-hour shift. This means a full day in the fire department: living, eating, sleeping, and basically being on call at all times should some sexy coed's kitten get caught up a tree (or a tenement burst into flames, which is honestly more likely, but hey -- we all dream). Then they're off for two days or so before taking another shift. Wildland firefighters have it just a liiiittle bit rougher.

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Out battling a wildfire, you are on a 16-hour shift, which sure beats the 24 straight hours of a city firefighter. Except wildland firefighters don't get the next day off. You get eight hours of total downtime to eat and sleep, and that means camping ... in the path of an inferno. We sleep far enough away from the fires to not be at immediate risk of death, but close enough that you can usually see the faint glow ahead. The only thing missing from the full camping experience is a tent, because you're not taking 20 minutes out of your precious sleep/eat/poop time to bother with that. You've got a sleeping bag, and if that's not enough for Fancy Lord Fauntleroy, maybe he shouldn't be fighting fires in the damn woods.

2

You Might Get Killed, Just Not the Way You'd Expect

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Obviously, fighting wildfires is a dangerous job -- there's only so long you can dance with Lady Fire before she decides to take you home. It's like old fishermen and the sea. You work this job long enough and you just know how you're going to die. That's right: in a vehicle accident, or maybe from a heart attack. Fire and injuries from firefighting rank third, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen: Just trying to fight a fire can be deadly. We cut down dead, damaged, and burning trees all the time. And on those trees? Widowmakers -- limbs that broke off long ago and became stuck in lower branches. They're hard to spot and aren't actually attached to the tree, so they fall unexpectedly as soon as you start chopping.

1

You Might Encounter a Firenado

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More commonly known as fire whirls, a firenado is exactly what it sounds like: a fire tornado. And a fire tornado is exactly what it sounds like, which is fucking terrifying. You just try to keep your cool when a fire tornado comes at you -- and they do come at you. I even had to run from one. There was a dust devil on the other side of the fire from us while we were out in Colorado. That's harmless. Then it hit the fire and sucked up the flames, and suddenly there was a 40-foot tornado of burning coming right at us.

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Somebody yelled "safety zone!" and we all ran like hell. Except for my boss, who shouted frantically at one of the guys closest to him. "Will! Freeze!" he screamed. Will turned toward him, scared out of his mind, expecting to see a firenado towering over him like the Balrog, and that's when my boss ... took a picture.

Because there's always time for a legendary Facebook photo, even when two different elemental forces have actively allied to seek your destruction.

When Drew isn't fighting wildfires, he does stand-up comedy, and he has a full special online for free.

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