COOL IN CRISIS FOREST SERVICE HOTSHOTS READY FOR DISASTER.

Byline: Judy O'Rourke Special to the Daily News

SAUGUS - Fueled by adrenaline and coffee, the Texas Canyon Hotshot crew of Bouquet Canyon has worked disasters across the nation, and now is waiting to hear if it will be deployed to the Gulf Coast to battle the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.

The Hotshots - veterans of wildfires in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and Florida - are a U.S. Forest Service hand crew that shows up for tough, dirty jobs. During fire season the men, who range in age from 18 to 57, are on the front lines. In the winter they burn off brush areas to guard against wildfires come summer.

They work all day in the middle of nowhere, where they eat, sleep nearby and wake up the next day and start over.

``When you're so tired, you fall asleep anywhere,'' said fire Capt. Rudy Medrano, 33, who used to be a Hotshot squad boss.

``You can fall asleep standing up,'' joked Hotshot Capt. Jeff Locke, 44. He spent his longest shift - 54 hours - in the Everglades fire that burned for days in 1989.

If the Hotshots join other Forest Service crews in the Gulf Coast, they likely would deliver water and food, clear roads and help search and rescue teams. They won't know until the call comes, but they'll be ready to go within hours.

Locke returned home two weeks ago from fighting fires in Oregon and Washington. Two months ago he was on the lines in Alaska. Medrano returned two days ago from an assignment in Lake Tahoe.

Unlike most fire crews, Hotshots are not tethered to their green engines. They carry about 50 pounds of hand tools in backpacks and hike to the edge of fires. Crews clear brush and cut wide lines in the dirt they dare the fire to cross. Saw-bearing backpacks are heavier, with the extra chains, fuel and parts. The burned area lies on one side of the line, the untouched area is on the other.

``Unless there's a hundred-mile-an-hour wind blowing - then all bets are off,'' said Bob Brady, a Forest Service fire information officer.

Group leaders carry global positioning system devices to help locate landing spots for helicopters, to map the fire line and to plot their locations for food drops. But the real work begins with the sight of red-hot flames licking at shrubs and trees, a sight that is sometimes no match for the sound.

``If it's really cranking, it's noisy,'' said Superintendent John Armstrong, 44. `I've been in timber where (the fire) sounds like a freight train when it comes out of the canyon bottom.''

Churning helicopter blades add to the drone. Crew members who use chain saws wear earplugs. They stand within arm's reach of a buddy. But no one loses track of where he is.

``Our ears are perked up, the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up,'' Armstrong said.

Their average trip lasts two weeks, though disaster areas can keep them from home for 30 days. ``You come home, pay the bills, cut the grass,'' Locke said.

The Saugus-based Hotshots are part of a three-district Angeles Forest contingent of about 20 engine companies.

The three Hotshot crews based at the Texas Canyon station are made up of about 20 people each. They are led by a superintendent, two captains, two squad bosses and about five lead firefighters.

Nicknames used to be the norm, but they are currently frowned upon. Armstrong though is still affectionately known as ``Lumpy'' or ``Lump.''

On the job they have trade names - sawyers cut brush with chain saws, pullers move the cut brush out of the fire line and toolers dig the lines. When they return to camp for a break, they groom and sharpen their tools - chain saws, Pulaskis (axes with a grub on the end), Rhinos (shovels bent into a 90-degree angle) and Bosleys (shovels than can be transformed with the turn of a pin into scraping tools).

Women hold jobs from grunt to superintendent. No women are part of the Saugus group this season, but they spoke of one woman who is a Forest Service smoke jumper, a firefighter who parachutes into the most remote areas to fight fires. Squad bosses often act as lookouts, climbing nearby ridges to make sure the crew's route is safe. Captains help direct aircraft water drops.

Crews need to pace themselves if they are on the line for 16-hour shifts, which can turn into 24-hour shifts for a relentless fire.

The Texas Canyon crew was formed in 1954. The superintendent enlisted Zuni Indians from a New Mexico reservation as his first crew members. The Hotshots borrowed the group's tribal symbol, a Knife Wing Kachina, which adorns trucks and crew T-shirts today.

A training regimen that includes hiking, running and weight lifting prepares crew members for harsh working conditions. The workouts pay off when they carry 50- to 100-foot hoses, which can be extended to 2,000 feet by adding extensions.

During fire season there are no trips to Disneyland, no weeklong surfing jaunts to Hawaii. When a call comes in they must be fire-ready within two hours.

Inside their suits and reinforced $400 boots the heat can mount. Staying hydrated is critical. Crew members often carry two gallons of water in their packs.

``One day it was 115 degrees,'' Armstrong said. `It can probably get up to 118 or 120 degrees.''

Old-timers mentor young Hotshots, who thrive on the unpredictability of the workdays.

``You never know where you'll end up,'' said acting squad boss Adam Stanwood, 22. ``The next thing you know you're driving to Alaska, flying to Washington. You can go to work and not come home for two weeks.''

The young folks try to lead normal lives, but the work never fails to get in the way. ``It's guaranteed if you make plans we'll be on a fire,'' Stanwood said.

The old-timers reminisce about where they have been and what they have seen.

Armstrong, who has been a Hotshot for 24 years, found an Indian village thought to be about 500 years old near the north rim of the Grand Canyon. The site was littered with arrowheads and pottery. He used a GPS device to identify the spot for conservationists. He found skeletal remains of a hunter on a local hillside while he was cutting a line for a controlled burn, and old mortars, a grenade and undeployed ordnance at military bases.

He also has come across residue dumped from illicit drug labs.

Among their worst enemies are rolling rocks, Lock said. They can be as large as a Volkswagen bus, Medrano added.

``They can take a knee out,'' Armstrong said.

Two-hundred-foot trees knocked over by wind are another danger from above. The Hotshots truck bears a sticker honoring a colleague killed in Lake Arrowhead when he was hit by a fiery falling tree limb.

Locke, whose 17 years of service include about 10 as a Hotshot, plotted debris scattered in Texas after the Challenger disaster. ``If you found a part you didn't touch it,'' he said. He found a piece of a wing. ``Where I was, was where the shuttle began to come apart before it first disintegrated.''

He has been stared down by marijuana growers intent on protecting their crops.

Medrano found Indian pictographs while fighting a recent fire in Palm Springs.

Sometimes their best efforts to avoid being corralled by crackling columns of fire fail. Then their only protection may be a one-person fire shelter, an enclosed, full-size insulated foil bag that reflects radiant heat and retains air to breathe. They drop to the ground and enter the cocoon, in which they resemble a foil-wrapped hot dog.

``It's a last resort,'' Armstrong said.

Each one of them has a story.

Medrano was born in San Fernando. He had never heard of the Forest Service until his former gang life led to a stint as an inmate in a Los Angeles County camp. His work ethic prompted supervisors to urge him to consider firefighting as a career. He joined the Hotshots in 1990 and stayed for 10 years. He has spent the last five years on an engine crew.

The men say the demands and rewards of the work are addicting. Tino Julian, 38, is a rookie who was a computer company representative. He has traded more money for more happiness, spurred on by a supportive wife.

Stanwood likes the camaraderie. ``You got 20 brothers out here,'' he said. ``Sometimes we yell at each other, just like a family.''

The newcomers hail from Santa Clarita, Van Nuys, the Antelope Valley, Whittier, El Monte, Ventura and Simi Valley.

Josh Thomas' father was the superintendent before Armstrong took the post. Thomas said his father doubted he could hack the job, but Thomas, 20, plans to prove his dad wrong. In the end, the crew members are there for each other.

``Someone's always hurting, everyone has good and bad days,'' Stanwood said. ``We pick it up. Everyone does for everyone.''

Judy O'Rourke, [phone]

judy.orourke(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

6 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color -- ran in SAC edition only) Members of the Texas Canyon HotShots hike down steep terrain above Bouquet Canyon.

(2 -- color -- ran in SAC edition only) After hiking up more than 1,200 feet, Jorge Perez and other Texas Canyon HotShots take quick break before heading down a steep mountain.

(3 -- ran in SAC edition only) Texas Canyon HotShots Chris Loomis loads his gear into the crew's truck in Bouquet Canyon. The crew are first responders to large wildfires.

(4 -- ran in SAC edition only) Capt. Dave Nish, a 16-year Veteran of the Texas Canyon HotShots, leads a crew down the side of a mountain in Bouquet Canyon. The HotShots are ready to tackle blazes in the Angeles Nation Forest.

(5 -- ran in SAC edition only) no caption (TEXAS CANYON HOTSHOTS ANGELS NATIONAL FOREST)

(6 -- ran in SAC edition only) - John Armstrong

HotShots superintendent

David Crane/Staff Photographer