Messenger for the U.S. Forrest service

   
  I worked at supply in the fire camp for the Tiller Complex Fire of 2001. I was in a crew of locals, some of whom i new. We worked 15+ hours a day 7 days a week.  most people went a little crazy after a few days of that. we got no overtime pay though.
     on my 2nd day The supply boss showed me how to organize these shipments that would come in from town 4 or 5 times a day. these would be ordered from the various departments through out camp. they would be bought from near by cities & brought to us for distribution. Then she took me to all the different offices around camp. She hated this job & only did it because the union crew we were replacing refused to do it.
      when the shipments arrived i would go through the paper work, figure out who ordered them stick them into different bags & deliver them on a forrest service owned mountain bike. After a couple of days of this, I got a raise & got to share the new office with the new supply boss, who was really cool, they also gave me a truck to drive so I could deliver stuff that was too big for the bike & make deliveries to the helicopter base a few miles away.
     Every body at camp loved me & said how great it was to be getting there orders so fast & told me that before I started they often times didn’t get there orders at all & would go to supply to see it out for anybody to get. I would tell them that I used to be a courier in S.F. & that the job was perfect for me.
     Well the fire got upgraded to a level 1, So they brought in a level 1 overhead  crew to run the camp & the fire. Everything changed for the worst really quickly after that. We had these 2 overhead jerks at supply all the time, they didn’t know anything & made it unsafe & they were totally rude & snotty.
     One day a fire crew boss ordered a fire gun to start back burns. It came in a couple of nights later, with all this ammo & tons of flares. The next morning he showed up & I went into the office to get it, I brought it out & this new sub-boss started filling out the paperwork for it, since I was busy. As the crew boss was walking away with the gun, I looked down at the paperwork & noticed his name & Crew number weren’t written down, So I called him back & got his info. The new guy said “good thing you caught my mess up, or there wouldn’t have been any record of him getting that, huh?”
     I replied ” Yeah, & I’m the last one who signed for it.”
     Later while I was in my office sorting deliveries one of the jerk overhead guys, I think his name was Clide,  came in & asked me where that gun went. I told him that it went to the guy who ordered it & asked him if he wanted to see the paper work. He told me no & walked out.

     That evening my buddy & I went to dinner & he told me how fed up he was with the place & that he started smoking pot in camp & that he got the pot off a fire crew who found a grow op while fighting fires. I told him he was crazy, with the Feds all over & That it was considered federal land that we were on. He told me he didn’t care.
     After dinner we were headed back to work & saw Clide talking to 2 feds & as we walked by they turned toward us & said that they wanted to ask us some questions. Then one of them smelled pot on my friend & placed him under arrest. Then they made me throw away my ice cream & took us away.
     They split us up & started playin’ good cop, bad cop. The good cop asked if he could search my bag. I asked if he had a warrant & he got mad. I told him if he told me what he was looking for I could tell him if I had it or not. He wouldn’t tell me. I asked if I could smoke a cigarette. He said “No.” He still wanted to look in my bag & I didn’t have anything , so I let him. 
     Later, they took me inside the security yurt,  read me my rights & told me i was fired. They took me back out side & sat me down. Then good cop lit up a cigarette. I said “First you wont let me smoke, then You arrest me & wont tell me why, & now your going to smoke in front of me.” He was still playing good, So he gave me one of his & lit it.
     After the smoke, they took me back inside & bad cop said “OK, tell us where the gun is.”
     I totally bust out laughing & said back to him ” This is all about that flare gun, I’ll tell you about the flare gun.” I told them how I saved my self by getting that guys signature when the sub-boss messed up, & told them to go ask him.
     He vouched for me & they un-arrested me & gave me back my job. Good cop was so pissed at Clide. He went over & yelled at him for 15 minuets. He came back & told me what a jerk Clide was & said he was going to write a report on him that would be in his permanent records.
     I was made to take 2 days off & when I returned they had moved my whole crew to the food trucks. My new job was handing out brown bag lunches, ice, & snacks during the day & at night they made me be clicker. I would sit next to this huge bag of gross smelling gray water clicking for every person who got a dinner. The first night the boss stood behind me with his own clicker for half an hour to see if I could do it right. There were over 2000 people in this camp. It was maddening. on my second night someone was spraying water on the other side of the giant roach coach which made gray water shoot up & get all over me. I freaked out & kicked over a couple of stacks of milk crates.              I quit After that night. I did make almost $4000 in three weeks though.