BOISE, Idaho — Much like the blazing infernos that he battled for more than three decades, Ryan “Tedd” Swartz vividly recalls the day a drive through Yellowstone National Park ignited his passion for wildland firefighting.
“Honestly, I can’t believe they paid me to do what I’ve done for the last 31 years,” said the 53-year-old Swartz, a native of Mifflintown. “I can’t imagine what I would have done with my career, if not this.”
Swartz was recently featured on the website for the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management as some of the incredible individuals in the wildland fire community were highlighted ahead of National Wildland Firefighter Day on Wednesday.
Based in Boise, Idaho, Swartz is currently an assistant base manager for the Bureau of Land Management Fire’s Great Basin Smokejumpers at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC).
He was recently dispatched to Atlin, located in the far northwestern corner of British Columbia, with a crew of about 20 smokejumpers to battle a forest fire. Atlin is located about 100 air miles from Juneau, Ak., Swartz said.
“Just because I get to do things like go to Atlin, B.C.,” said Swartz, speaking from British Columbia on Friday. “I’d have no other reason to come here; it’s a beautiful country with good people.”
Swartz’s career in wildland fire began in 1994. He worked on an engine, rappel crew, hotshot crews and a fire use module before his rookie season with the Great Basin Smokejumpers in 2002.
At age 29 when he started, Swartz was the oldest of his rookie cohorts. Since then, he’s held every level of position on the crew, including three years as crew supervisor. This year marks Swartz’s 32nd fire year, and also marks the year of his retirement.
He’s tried to retire twice previously — on May 31 and June 30. Work has foiled those attempts, including his current assignment which is why he had to extend the June date.
Swartz insists the now-July 31 retirement will be his last. “I’m coming home, but it’s hard to leave,” Swartz explained. “I’m ready to do some traveling and hunting. I’m going to be doing a lot of things I haven’t been able to do for the past 32 summers.”
That might sound like a complaint, but it’s not really. Life has been about choices. To date, his wildland firefighting career has won out over family. That’s all about to change.
“I was loving it so much that I hardly ever took days off,” Swartz said. “I’d work three weeks in a row then take a day off.”
For Swartz, it all started after driving through Yellowstone during the 1988 fires. It was an infamous time and place for wildland fire.
Seeing the firefighters, Swartz was enthralled, and studied forestry at the University of Montana to prepare for a career in wildland fire. At the start of a season early in his career, he had to choose between assignments in Alaska, Florida and Hawaii. He chose Alaska, where he first witnessed the world of smokejumping.
He went on to work all over the country before landing with the Great Basin Smokejumpers. He still remembers the summer of 2006 when the crew set a record number of missions.
Between the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, there are nine smokejumper base locations across the United States. Three of the smokejumper bases are in Idaho (one in Boise, one in McCall and another in Grangeville), while the other bases are in Montana, California, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.
Smokejumping is not an entry-level firefighting position, and smokejumper candidates must have previous fire experience, experience using chainsaws and hand tools and be able to pass a rigorous physical training test, according to the McCall Smokejumpers website.
Smokejumper candidates must also pass a multi-week training program where they spend time in the field and in classrooms. The training includes mock airplane exits and jumps, leadership skills, parachute landing techniques, tree climbing, navigation exercises, work with tools and chainsaws and practice parachute jumps.
According to the Department of Interior’s wildland fire jobs website, a hotshot crew is a mobile, specialized firefighting crew that works on the ground in rugged terrain on active and difficult areas of wildfires.
“It’s the camaraderie that keeps us coming back,” he quipped. “Last week I was at training and someone asked me, ‘How do you guys get such great people?’ I think the only real answer to that is that we love our jobs.”
Swartz recalls that summer of 2006 as one of the wildest times he’s experienced. “It was a crazy summer in the Great Basin. As a crew, we did 247 missions, that’s our record. I did 20 jumps.”
Throughout his years with the crew, “It’s the camaraderie that keeps us all coming back,” he said.
“This kind of work is defined by variability. I’m going to be going to Wyoming this week to do some prescribed burning, I didn’t know that when I came in this morning. Dispatch might change your plans midair — you thought you were going to Oregon, but it turns out you’re going to Utah. And we love it, as long as we’re going to go jump somewhere. We trained hard to be here and we want to go do it.”
While attending Penn State for forestry, Swartz realized he needed to be closer to the action to have the career he longed for. That’s why he headed west to Missoula, Mont.
Swartz discovered many students working on the fire crews to pay for school. When they graduated, they left for other professions. Swartz did the same, but he took a different approach.
“I used college as a crutch to get me into fire,” he said. “Others go into other jobs, but I stayed in the fire program and continued on.”
Swartz admitted he wouldn’t mind coming back to B.C. to hike and fish. The circumstances would be different. “Get to enjoy summer, and not be smoke filled and working all the time,” he quipped.
“Your body gets abused,” he added. “I’ve had back surgery and I’ve got a young son I want to spend some time with. With jumping, people love their jobs. It keeps us going, so it’s hard to take a vacation. That’s all I think about.”
Even the Canadian assignment is difficult because Swartz let his certification expire due to his pending retirement. He’s there in more of a consultant and supervisory role. “Canada asked for a booster crew,” he said of the smokejumpers’ role. “I’m here to give oversight and make sure the programs mesh.”
While the policies and procedures in the United States vary from those used in Canada — and the equipment used is different — the goal remains the same: To extinguish the forest fire and preserve the wildland.
Swartz wasn’t certain he was ready to hang it up just yet, but he also realized there were things on his bucket list that we wanted to tackle. The timing just seemed right.
“I keep thinking, do I really want to stop? Maybe I should go for another three years? But there’s a lot of other things I want to do, and I can’t take leave in the middle of the summer,” Swartz added. “It’s not how we do things. I’ll just be thinking about what I’m missing at work.”