Forest Recovery Team, so far

So far through August and this part of September I have been training as a wildland firefighter. I had to take 3 weeks of classes, and 1 week, the first, as Physical Training for make benefit of altitudinal workings.The 3 weeks of classes were pretty interesting, although we had to get up pretty early to go into San Bernardino in the valley to go to class at the Forest Service Offices. We had to learn firefighting strategy and how to go about doing all the things necessary to our job. After the three weeks we spent time doing what we call "cutting line". This is basically what all HotShots and SmokeJumpers do to contain a fire in the wilderness. We cut a certain amount of material, depending on the fire, usually 6 feet-10 feet of cut line, and 2 feet-4 feet of scraped stuff to mineral soil to prevent the fire from spreading unwatched past us.
After that, we went back to classes for Chainsaw training, which was basically us taking a bunch of written tests and learning about the cuts, and how and where, and also when to drop a tree. After that was our out in the filed test, which was a lot of fun. We cut down a whole bunch of dead and burned trees, and spent 2 days doing that. And now after all of that I am a "red carded" firefighter which basically means I can be a firefighter anywhere, a hotshot in any region of the US, which is pretty cool. Also I am in a cabin with some pretty cool guys, and all the people here in the camp, in Angelus Oaks CA, are really cool.