Three years ago, a raging California fire sparked a friendship between a young farmer from the pecan fields of east central Georgia and a grizzled firefighter from Napa, Calif.
The Napa firefighter, Jeff Hammond, was desperate for crews that were knowledgeable about fighting fires. He needed workers who could hike the hillsides of northern California before an inferno destroyed its forests and residents’ homes.
The farmer, Benji Anderson, also a ranger with the Georgia Forestry Commission and a member of its chainsaw strike team, wanted to help his fellow man, primarily wildfire victims who were about to lose most of everything they owned. So he boarded a plane and headed west.
“You help your brother when he’s in need, or your sister,’’ Anderson said. “It was just the thing to do.”
Anderson is among the thousands of first responders in Georgia who have been hauled to the scene of a natural disaster, like a tornado, hurricane or wildfire, in recent years. They say the experiences have given them a deeper sense of gratitude. After witnessing the devastation that hits people during a catastrophe or a natural disaster, it becomes a lot easier to be thankful for what life has provided, said David Bullard, president of the Atlanta-based Georgia State Firefighters Association, one of the largest member organizations of firefighters in the state.
“The ability to serve others allows you to be more grateful for what you have,’’ Bullard said. “The sense of serving others makes every sacrifice worthwhile.”
Since January alone, the Georgia Forestry Commission has deployed more than 200 rangers to nearly a dozen states, in the midst of crisis, officials said. Just this past October, the crews worked endless hours to bring food, water and clear tree-jammed roads for thousands of Georgia victims of Hurricane Michael.
“In simple terms, these guys just have big hearts,’’ said Bo Chesser, a GFC zone fire management officer, who oversees more than 150 rangers.
On a day like Thanksgiving, many firefighters were on call.
One of them was Gary Clark, a fire lieutenant and paramedic of the Gainesville Fire Department, and vice president of the GSFA.
“There is no holiday in the fire service,’’ Clark said. “We get our days when we can get them. Emergencies never take a holiday.”
But he’s not complaining, he said. The crew had planned a morning breakfast at the fire station. Later, they ate Thanksgiving dinner with their families, also at the fire station.
“We get our gratitude from helping other people,’’ Clark said. “That’s where we get our gratitude.”
Overcoming fear
In the last few years, Georgia crews have rescued people from porches and roofs after hurricanes and storms. They’ve swept wildfire and hurricane victims to safety in places like Florida, Tennessee and southwest Georgia, officials said.
At times, the crews are pulled into unpredictable situations and in parts of the country that are unfamiliar to them. In those cases, their sense of duty pushes them to go, and the satisfaction of assisting others, in turn, helps them overcome their fears, they said.
Take Tony Thomas. The ranger had a long history of fighting fires in the flat lands of southern Georgia. He is experienced with a bulldozer that is used to remove the brush that feeds the flames of a fire.
Several years ago, Thomas was deployed to the hillsides of Ware County, where a fire threatened the Okenfenokee National Wildlife Refuge.
“I’m from flat ground so we get there and it’s a mountain,” he said. “I didn’t want to go, but it was my duty.”
There, Thomas couldn’t use a bulldozer to fight the fire. Instead, he had to hop on a water truck. The crews and homeowners were so grateful that he was there to help, the ranger forgot about his anxieties.
“The people up there are just as nice as we are down here,’’ he said. “I fell right in with that group of people that were on that fire and we became a family up there.”
Small blessings
As a Georgia ranger, Anderson has a skill that is high in demand among firefighters who battle the biggest blazes in the U.S. Because of his fire management skills, he can lead teams of bulldozers up a hillside to help clear vegetation that provides fuel to a fire.
When Hammond, the Napa firefighter, contacted Anderson, he had that task in mind. Anderson was to serve as a “dozer boss.”
“We’re knocking brush down and knocking trees down,” Hammond said. “So, we might knock a tree down 40, 50 feet, and he (Anderson) has to stay ahead of that and stay out of the path of the bulldozer, all while trying to find the best path for the bulldozer to past through the woods and create the best fire line.”
It’s very dangerous work. In fact, during one deployment on the California-Oregon border a few years ago, Anderson suffered heat exhaustion and had to be transported to a hospital, where he received at least four IV lines of fluid.
Hammond, who at 76 has been fighting wildfires for almost two decades, says that despite the risks, fighting fires can be therapeutic.
He understands the experience both as a first responder and as a victim of a fire.
Last year, he lost the family home that his grandmother had built in 1912 to a fire on Atlas Peak in Napa. He was out fighting another fire when the structure burned.
“When you’re working around fires, you have to have your priorities straight,’’ he said. “That is, what you’re going to do, what you’re going to save.”
He is grateful for little blessings. A few days earlier, the early riser noticed it had just started to sprinkle at about 5 in the morning.
“I’m so thankful for a good world,” he said. “We haven’t had any rain in six or seven months.”
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