727: Boulder v. Hill
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. To fight those massive fires out west, there are these camps hidden from view. If you were driving by, you might not even know they're there. Like one of the largest fires in California history, the Creek Fire, has a base camp for 700 people in the parking lot of a ski resort in Central California just outside Fresno. If you know where to go, the first thing that you see when you pull up to camp is these 20-somethings running back and forth with bright yellow fire hose, hundreds and hundreds of miles of it. Their job is to not entangle miles of hoses all day, every day. One of our producers, Miki Meek, recorded the sound that you're hearing right now and talked to these guys, including R.J. Brown, who's 23 in a dirt street yellow jacket and a face mask with a panda nose and a mouth printed on it. The official motto of his employer, the California Conservation Corps, which sends young people all over the state to do this kind of job. Our work will pay miserable conditions and more. You guys, why? Hardware will pay miserable conditions and more. That is the actual motto. The best part of your job, and what is the worst part of your job? The best part, I still know, hang on, I'm starting with the worst part, just the worst part is when they say when you over here on the walkie-talkie, oh, we got 60,000 layers of hoses coming in, and then once the 60 comes in, they're bringing another 30. So when you hear 60,000 hoses coming over the radio, what is going through your head when you hear that? Defeats. Like, I want to go home, like, oh, no, no, no, I don't want to do this. The way this job works is this, trucks come back from the fire line and dump huge piles of jumbled hoses, five guys untangle them, and then, with each hose, they take one end, all right, ready? Everybody grab a corner and sprint across the parking lot. Each hose is 100 feet long, so it's kind of a long way to go. They let out one bright yellow hose next to another, next to another, so the whole parking lot is blanketed with tight yellow hose. What do you do to keep yourself safe when you're rolling hoses? I'll just be thinking about music in my head that I have already listened to, and it just keeps me going. They're not allowed to wear headphones on this job. This team made Corey Rovey as a different strategy to deal with that. I sing it out, and I tell everybody, what songs on your mind lately? Can't break my stride. It was like, "Last night I had this strange history. I sailed away to China in a little rowboat to find ya." Ain't nobody gonna break my stride. So that song just keeps going in my head. First up in this process, they wind the hoses up in coils, put them on pallets, wrap them in plastic wrap, and send them to be cleaned. After that, the hoses go out to the fire line again, then back to the hose rolling crews, then back to the place where they're clean, over and over, week after week after week, which is life at a fire camp.
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