UI students turn passion for fire ecology into practice
Although fighting fires, surveying land and conducting prescribed burnings aren’t routine parts of most students’ summers, Kyle Swanstrom and Ryan Simler said they wouldn’t want to spend their time off from school any other way.
The two University of Idaho students, both members of the Student Association for Fire Ecology (SAFE), have not only spent past summers serving as volunteer firefighters, they plan to continue serving in the future.
Kyle Swanstrom | CourtesyUI student Kyle Swanstrom prepares the land for a prescribed burn intended to help reduce damage and prevent fire from spreading.
“This is my fifth season with the Idaho Department of Lands,” Simler said. “I received instructional training from the local fire department in high school and I caught the fire bug, so I jumped onto a summer crew.”
Brenda Ely | Argonaut
Ryan Simler is a senior student firefighter.
While Simler has had more experience suppressing fires with the Idaho Department of Lands, Swanstrom served on Idaho’s fuels crew, a group that maintains the various vegetation treatments under the bureau’s fire program.
“While we suppressed a lot of fires, a big part of the job was monitoring the land and conducting prescribed burnings,” Swanstrom said. “It helps the ecology of specific environments and reduces the likelihood of a fire.”
Other crews encompass various fire-specific tasks, such as helicopter, engine, fire prevention and fire dispatch crews.
Simler said the composition of crews varies, and some members are students who return to school in the fall, while others are fulltime firefighters who are able to operate the crew for the remaining months of fire season.
“Fire season is five months long,” Simler said. “The crews are mixed with students and more seasoned professionals, because after summer ends there are still two months of fire season that need to be tended to.”
According to Simler, the fire seasons can be rigorous and challenging, but they can also be rewarding.
Brenda Ely | Argonaut
Kyle Swanstorm is a junior at UI and a student firefighter who has worked with Idaho’s fuel crew.
Simler said his most thrilling moment was during his third season as a volunteer firefighter when his crew was called in at 3 a.m. to suppress a brush fire a few miles out of town.
“It was pitch black, overcast and we see this glow coming around the canyon … It’s this big fire running up the ridge,” Simler said. “We had every single length of hose on our truck out on the line, and we were able to catch the head of the fire when a burning log came rolling down the hill — it wrapped up in our hose and burned most of it.”
Swanstrom said a benefit of being a volunteer firefighter is the opportunities it gives him to learn outside of the classroom.
“It’s great, because being out (in) the field gives me a kind of experience and knowledge that you’re not going to learn in the classroom,” Swanstrom said. “But at the same time, I am able to apply the science I’m learning in class to my work with the vegetation in the field.”
Kyle Swanstrom | Courtesy
UI junior Kyle Swanstrom surveys the land with fellow fuels crew member.
While crews usually operate within certain boundaries, Simler said volunteers sometimes have the opportunity to travel to different states.
“If the local fire season has a late start, then our crew will be dispatched to districts in struggling places like Colorado or Alaska,” Simler said. “That’s always a cool experience, because you get to travel and work with fire in a variety of environments … It really broadens your horizons.”
Swanstrom said experiencing different environments and understanding the ecological role of fire is crucial to working in the field.
“The best thing about fires is that we can use them as an ecological tool,” Swanstrom said. “A lot of times people don’t realize that fires play a natural role in every ecosystem, and the most important thing I’ve learned about volunteering as a firefighter is that fire isn’t just this destructive thing, but a tool that we can use to help the environment.”
Corrin Bond can be reached at [email protected]