Fort Lewis College softball player Cara Daugherty spent 26 days over the summer in Alaska. The outfielder wasn’t leisurely hiking or fishing in the rugged state. She was fighting forest fires.
“I love it,” she said. “You never know what’s going to happen. It’s hard work, but it’s fun.”
Most days on fires she said she works 16 hours, digging lines to create fuel breaks. She said her longest shift was 23 hours.
To get to the remote Billy Creek Fire in southeast Alaska, Daugherty said they had to ride a helicopter in. Once there, they built their own camp, coolers and kitchens while dealing with bears. The helicopter periodically dropped food for them.
“It was quite the experience,” she said.
Daugherty, who is from Aztec, New Mexico, started working on a fire crew in Farmington two years ago, following in her father’s footsteps.
“Growing up, he would come home from fires and tell us about his experiences,” she said. “As I grew older, it sounded fun.”
Her first year, she said she went out on about 90 fires in the Farmington area. Most of them were caused by lightning, but she also helped on some house fires.
“It was a lot of single tree fires,” she said. She fought fewer fires last summer, but they were bigger ones. She said she been on four big forest fires, battling blazes in Arizona, Idaho, California and Alaska.
While they usually fight the fires from a distance by creating fuel breaks or starting their own fires to burn back to the main fire and deplete its fuel sources, she said she has a few scary moments in the field.
On a fire in Arizona, for instance, she said they made a dozer line that was 100 feet wide, but the line didn’t help much when the wind changed direction.
“It blew to where we were in a matter of seconds,” she said. At that point, she said their focus was simply to get out of harm’s way. “Gear is replaceable,” she said. “You can replace a lot of things, but you can’t replace yourself.”
At Fort Lewis, Daugherty is studying environmental science and also pursuing a GIS (cartography and mapping) certificate. She said she thinks she’ll continue fighting forest fires, but in a different capacity, after she graduates.
“I think I’ll try to stick with it, but in a different way – move into the GIS side,” she said. “I’d still go on fires, but have a different role in them.”
Working on the GIS side, she would map out the edge of fires, drop points where helicopters can land, water sources, topography they’re facing and also potential hazards.
“It gives them a general idea what to expect,” she said.
Daugherty started playing softball when she was about 8 years old. She said she likes that it’s a team sport but has an individual component to it.
In high school, Daugherty was part of a state championship team in Aztec. She said she was originally going to go to college in Idaho, but then “some family stuff happened.”
“I got an opportunity to play softball and be close to my family (at FLC); it was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss out on,” she said.
Fort Lewis has been a good fit for her.
“I love it up here,” she said. “There’s so much to do outside of school. And the school is a perfect size. My professors know me.”
Daugherty previously pitched and played in the outfield, but chose to focus on being an outfielder for FLC.
“I loved them both, but I know outfield gets a lot of balls, and I’d rather stick to one thing,” she said.
The team also had a big change last year with Dwight Sanders taking over as its head coach.
“It was good; he came in and made us work,” she said. “It was a different atmosphere. On the field last year, it felt like there was more competitiveness.”
The team also had to grow together after losing about a dozen seniors. Being one of the team’s veterans, however, is something she liked.
“It was fun getting to be a leader and show them the roles we’ve been put in,” she said. “It was fun to lead by example. That’s something I really enjoy.”
“I’m very excited about this year,” she continued. “I think we’ll be that sneaky team know one expects. We have a lot of talent and I think it will be fun. I’m looking forward to competing.”
The upcoming fire season, however, might not be as fun.
“It was an interesting year,” she said. “It’s so dry, but there really hasn’t been anything to ignite the fires. But it’s so dry, if it does ignite, it’s going to go. It’s kind of scary for next year.”
