Student fights flames in many states, Belton

Most employed UMHB students might consider their jobs ordinary. Such is not the case for junior Jake Tatum. 
He has served on a hot-shot crew in Arizona, fighting wildfires the past two summers, and was a local on-call firefighter for almost a year. 

Tatum, a junior criminal justice major, first developed a serious passion for firefighting during his senior year of high school.

“I’ve always been interested in public service,” he said.  “Just before my graduation, a wildfire started in my town and burned one quarter of a mile from my house.  We were evacuated from my home for three days, and that’s when I decided that I wanted to be a firefighter.”

Tatum received his training in a fire-fighting class in Arizona his junior year of high school.

“The minimum age for working on a wildlife hot-shot crew is 18,” he said. “But anyone can sign up for the class.”

Tatum tried out for a crew after he graduated from high school but did not make it.  The next year, he tried out again and was accepted.  Since then, he has been all over Arizona, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho and Utah putting out wildfires. 

Deciphering which blaze was his most hazardous was difficult for Tatum.

“All fires have the potential of being dangerous,” he said. “You just have to keep your eyes open and work with what you have in front of you.”

Not all the fires turn out to be a major threat.

“My easiest fire was probably when an old man in a park set a patch of grass on fire.” Tatum said. “It was a potential wildfire, but it only burned a few acres. It wasn’t bad.”

Regardless of the difficulty level of fires, they have their effects on the mind.

“They are all heartbreaking because you see families packing up their belongings and leaving things behind,” Tatum said. “I really feel for these families because they don’t know if they’ll ever see their houses again.”

It is not enough just to have the proper training, but firefighters must also be well equipped.

“Equipment depends on the crew,” he said. “We hike into the fire or fly in on helicopter, carrying a pack with 50 pounds with food, flashlights and basic necessities for a 24-hour time span. We also carry chainsaws and other hand tools. Occasionally, we take bladder bags, which hold 64 pounds of water, but usually just hand tools.”

Tatum said balancing schoolwork and firefighting doesn’t seem to bother him.

“I just have to put school first, and I answer calls whenever I’m able to.”

The loss of homes is very common in western states such as Arizona, Oregon and Montana due to the popularity of forest housing.

“In Arizona, all fires I deal with are wild land,” he said. “The only interior structures we fight fires in are all houses that are hit by the wildfires.”

Tatum’s work hours are obviously not set to a specific schedule. A fire call may come through at any time of day or night.

“I keep my pager on during the night, and when I get a call, I go to the fire.” Tatum said. “I just try to make it to class in the morning. It’s all part of the job.”

Tatum’s favorite part of firefighting is the thrill of the experience.

“The best thing about it is the rush of adrenaline you get when you arrive on the scene,” Tatum said. “You don’t know what’s going on, and you have to deal with it quickly.”

Tatum said the recent California fires are a big deal because there were not enough hot-shot crews to put them out effectively.

“When I’m in school, it’s hard to know exactly what’s going on, and what you see on the news isn’t always how the actual situation is,” he said. “I have several buddies who have called me and told me what’s going on, and it sounds like it’s a wind directed fire, which is dangerous, because you can’t always fight those types of fires. Sometimes you have to be def-ensive and see where the wind is taking the fire.”

One dilemma pertaining to the blazes in California was the shortage of wildlife firefighters. Tatum explained that many are off duty and occupied with tasks like college.

“The crew I work on is a seasonal crew,” he said. “We try to be on call by about May, and we’ll work until the end of October. If it’s a heavy fire season like this, we can be called back on. Our crew is a 20-man crew from May to October, and after that it drops down to about 10 people. They can send a few of our crew over, but not a full hot-shot crew. One problem is that it’s late in the season, and a lot of hot shot crews are finished.”

Tatum has never fought blazes in California, and he has not experienced flames of the same caliber of those that raged there.

“I’ve never been on a fire call that was 300,000 acres,” Tatum said. “Most of the fires I’ve been to were anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 acres.”

According to his roommate, Elliott Powell, the worst part of Tatum’s job is not the danger itself, but the obnoxious noise from his pager.

“It’s very annoying,” Powell said. “But he’s had it for two years, so I’ve learned how to tune it out and pretend it’s not there.”

Cody Callen shares an apartment with Tatum and Powell. He also does not enjoy the noise of the pager.

“It’s so annoying,” said Callen. “It’s going off all the time, and I always think that it’s either my cell phone or an alarm, but it’s just Jake’s stupid pager again.”

Tatum and Powell were roommates their first semester at UMHB and have continued living together ever since. 
Powell said being roommates with a firefighter is cool, and it creates fascinating conversations.

“Jake has some interesting stories come across his pager. I get to hear about many of these stories from him.”
Tatum doesn’t find his pager to be inconvenient. In fact, he didn’t find a bad aspect to his job.

“There’s nothing I don’t enjoy. Every scene is different. If there’s anything that I don’t like, it’s the fact that it’s never good to see homes destroyed or family lost.”

Tatum enjoys serving as a firefighter.

“I love it.  You see many weird and cool things when out on calls,” he said.

Tatum plans on being in public service of some sort after graduating from college.

“I’d like to either be a part of a police or fire department,” he said. “But I definitely love working for the fire department.”