Renegade firefighters save their town

Fighting the good fight

[Reprinted from Issues & Views July 29, 2002]

As if influenced by recent incidents of the federal government's bungling in the handling of forest fires, members of the volunteer fire department of Pinedale-Clay Springs, Arizona, decided they were not about to follow government directives. Although they were commanded to desert an onrushing fire at its peak, when the destruction of their town seemed imminent, they defied the official order, and slipped through government roadblocks, or, as the Arizona Republic (7/14/02) puts it, "they made a stand in their back yard."

Alternating between strenuous arguments with government officials (that sometimes came close to fist fights), the 26 renegade firemen plowed seven miles of unauthorized firebreaks through national forest land, while deputizing other men along the way. They used bulldozers, chainsaws and hoses to fight the fire. When it was over, instead of a whole town consumed in flames, which was a certainty had they retreated, only three houses were lost and nobody was injured. Reports the Arizona Republic:

For many in this high plateau town, it was more than a firefight, it was a classic rural Western story writ large. The successful wildcat effort seemed to highlight the strength and ingenuity of the American commoner against the forces of nature and bureaucracy.

The Clay Springs rebellion also emerged out of an Arizona frontier culture that prizes local initiative and has long viewed federal land management policies with suspicion.

But Roy Hall, head of the federal task force responsible for fighting the fire, criticized the efforts of the volunteer firefighters, comparing them to a surgeon trying to operate on a spouse. "Fighting to save one's hometown creates emotional pressure that can only cloud judgment and prudence," he claimed. Say, what?

The Arizona Republic continues:

This is a dirt-street town of 149 people, a single general store and a post office the size of a tool shed; a place without a city government where the Volunteer Fire Department comes second only to the local Mormon church as the glue that holds the community together. "I'm sure we did everything against their rules, but our homes are safe," said Coman Garvin, a backhoe operator who emerged as an unofficial leader during the crisis. . . . "I'm going to take full responsibility for anything that was done," he said. "If I get thrown in jail, I'm still going to think I did the right thing."

Copyright © 2010 Issues & Views