Students Assist Fighting Wildfire

As the residents of Santa Barbara County prepared for festivities in the early afternoon of July 4, the smell of smoke and the low drone of fire trucks disturbed their merrymaking.

Humboldt State University student Chris Braden, a resident of the Santa Barbara area, witnessed what has been categorized as the second-largest fire in California's history. He was in Santa Barbara from day 14 to day 28 of the fire.

"The smoke and ash being dropped onto the Goleta and Santa Barbara area was intense," he said.

Firefighters such as Kyle Luker, a wildland firefighter from the Santa Barbara Fire Department, spent more than a month taming the blaze that consumed more than 240,000 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Several Humboldt State students helped control the burn. Jenifer Muha, a forestry student in her second year, assisted firefighters from the air as a Geographic Information System (GIS) operator for two weeks in July and August.

"Please don't call me a firefighter. I'm not," Muha said. "I'm a GIS technician. Firefighters work on the ground fighting fire. I'm a nerd who tracks the fire."

It is typical, both Luker and Muha said, for a fire technician to travel large distances to assist other fire departments in taming major blazes. Luker, who is going into his fifth season with the Santa Barbara Fire Department, has traveled to Arizona to assist in the control of a blaze, but spoke of comrades who have fought fires in nearly all fifty states.

"One is more likely to go out-of-state when they work for the U.S. Forest Service since it is a nationally run agency," Luker said.

When Luker worked for the forestry service, he was able to fight fires in Arizona, but that same crew has gone to many other states as well. Now that he works for a county municipality, his main job is responding to fires within the Santa Barbara County.

Student firefighters make the choice to go to school full-time during the school year and fight fires only in the summer or only attend school during the spring semester when it is no longer fire season. Muha, on the other hand, remains active with her unit while she attends classes.

"I am still working weekends with my crew," Muha said. "I have the ability to work a few days and give one of the other GIS techs a few days off."

The opportunity to go out and help firefighters as a GIS technician has strengthened Muha's faith in her career choice. "I love my job. It is the best job I have ever had," she said. "I hope next summer is even better."
printed 9-19-07