I was out to dinner last night with a few Hotshot buddies. We got to talking about the culture, how it’s changed, how it’s stayed the same, and how many people we stepped over during PT hikes. According to our buddy who wasn’t on a Hotshot crew, we have all stepped over an abnormal amount of people on hiking trails. In our defense, we had to close the gap…
“Man down.”
I brought up the survey I did on whether folks in the wildfire world set up tents. Everyone at the table could count on their fingers and toes how many times they had done so while on fires. “Dude, that’s weak.” It was clear that the sentiment at the table was that not setting up a tent every night was more about it being a waste of time than anything else, but there was definitely a stigma around it.
Are there exceptions… sure, apocalyptic mosquitos, extreme torrential downpours, and Boise National Forest mornings in Bear Valley when morning temps are in the teens. But you still gotta break it down… There are also pitfalls and consequences of not setting up a tent and times I wish I had one, which I’ll cover below.
We had a 10-minute wake-up timeline. This meant that from the time you opened your eyes, you had 10 minutes to get dressed, boots on, gear packed up and stowed, and ready to move. Not everyone does it this way, and there isn’t really one correct way to conduct a wake-up but believe me, it’ll change the way you feel about setting up a tent. Because that thing’s gotta come down every morning, and every second counts.
“Don’t be last.”
Everyone has their own nighttime ritual. Some people have a bedroll, some tent all the time, some people sleep next to their bin, others set up hammocks, and some sleep under the truck… I had a folded tarp with a pad on top and a sleeping bag. Roll it up, and you’re done. Once I became overhead, I set up right next to my driver’s side door or bin every night. If we were spiked out, I would find the baller spot under a pine. No tent. When you’re spiked, every ounce counts and space comes at a premium.
Do I bring coffee, a jet boil, a puffy coat, and supplemental food, or do I pack a tent? Smokejumpers and firefighters in Florida are laughing at us all right now…
My buddy was saying his spot was under his truck. Now, before the safety officers wake him up at 2 AM because he’s next to or under his truck… hear me out. No one is going to run him over; they would have to pick up the chaulks, load the truck, start it, let it warm up, call on the radio that they were up, and not realize that he’s not in the cab before driving him over.
Hot take: It’s more dangerous to wake up a Hotshot crew at 2 a.m. after a 16-hour shift for sleeping next to the trucks than to just let them sleep.
But I get it, someone got run over 22 years ago, and now we have a policy.
Now, I’m not one to sleep under a truck. That feels more claustrophobic than zipping yourself up in a bivy sack like Ralphie Parker from The Christmas Story. I've seen plenty of early morning freakouts in the forest because someone can’t find the zipper on their bivy. But some people just roll under the truck. And, when you have a time limit for your wake-up, it’s easier to just roll out from under the truck than spend precious seconds tearing a tent down. Comfort comes second behind time management.
There is also something about sleeping out in the open. You get the fresh air and the stars, and occasionally, a forest creature will walk over your face. I have woken up once to a fox licking my toes and another time to a fox sniffing my head. I’m pretty sure a raccoon ran over my face in Oregon, but I didn’t get a good look at the culprit.
If you have ever fought a lot of fire in the Nevada or Utah desert, an unobstructed breeze is priceless, and you’d miss the massive explosions on the testing grounds just across the valley if you tented up; and why would you want to hinder that? That being said, creatures like to bed down with you in the desert. I got lit up by a scorpion outside Caliente, Nevada, sleeping in the open, and my arm turned into concrete… but I wasn’t last in the morning.
“You think there are creepy crawlers out here?”
Yes.
There is also the problem of space. Not space in your PG bag, but physical space on the mountain. When you are spiked out on a knife ridge in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, there is little space to go around. You can barely find enough flat ground for a single sleeping bag, let alone 23 tents. And with the wind blowing all night, the last thing you want to hear for hours on end is poorly secured tents flapping in the mountain maelstrom all night. Just find some space in between the jagged rocks and put a sleeping bag down.
Hot take: If you don’t secure your tent and it’s flapping all night long, everyone hates you.
Now, not setting up a tent can cause undiagnosed psychological issues… We had a kid who was so sick of the short-term wake-up that he would just sleep in his greens, yellow, and boots… yes, he kept his boots on. We even had a dude who would shower in his boots when we got to hotels, but that’s a whole different story. There are also the stubborn no-tent folks; even if there were a typhoon predicted to hit camp in the middle of the night, they would just roll out the sleeping bag and crawl in. “Fuck it.”
When the sound of rain starts to hit the sleeping savages, you will almost always hear the sound of space blankets being pulled on top of the exposed egocentric no-tenters, with a slow chorus of “fuck”s making its rounds. The grizzled and salty veterans just roll over and let it happen. You can dry out in two weeks when you get home. And really, a little rain never hurt anyone.
Then you have the hammock people. I have nothing against these folks; they usually set up away from everyone and are pretty chill crewmembers, but for God’s sake, just stop telling me about your hammock. I get it; you're sleeping in the trees, it’s comfortable, you like to slackline; yes, I’ve heard of “oil pulling,” and your homemade Kombucha is delicious; thank you… but I know what a hammock is.
There is always once a year when you hear branches snap late at night, followed by a thud. Turns out that dead Pondo wasn’t as structurally sound as you thought it was. The one thing I always liked about people’s hammock setup was that you could sit up in the morning and let your feet hang while you put socks on. That did actually seem like luxury living compared to bending down and realizing my back was fucked as I put my crusty socks on.
Now, there are times when I wish I had a tent. Dust storms and mosquitos were always more of a reason than rain. We were down in Arizona scrapping on some desert fire and had finished a 32-hour shift. They had an impromptu camp set up on some BLM land down some dirt road and well out of the way. We found a place to stash the rigs and set up to bed down.
About halfway through the night, a massive sandstorm came through. Really, if you set up a tent, it was collapsing; if you were sleeping in the open, your bag filled with sand in seconds. People had sand in their hair, ears, and gear for days afterward. I’ll never forget sitting up and watching the chaos unfold when a stop sign whizzed by… and a Snake River Hotshot who was also sitting up said to himself… “was that a fucking stop sign?” before rolling back over face down and pulling his sleeping bag over his head.
The other time is when we hiked in to spike out on a small California fire above Tahoe. Long story short, once we got to the top of the mountain, a radio broadcast came in, blaring a weather warning that a winter storm was coming. It started to downpour as soon as we got to the fire’s edge, and we scrambled to make shelter for the night.
Headlamps and silky saws feverishly working to get some sort of semblance of a structure. No one could keep a fire going. It rained for 12 hours, and when we woke up, it was snowing. I woke up twice to dump the standing water out of my sleeping bag. It’s probably the one time I really wish I had a tent.
Mosquitos will make the most sane person crazy in a very short period of time. You will be told that you can just mummy up in your bag, and you’ll be fine, but those winged vampires always find a crevis to slurp your blood. Even the most advanced no-tenters will still wake up with their forehead looking like the surface of the moon after it was left exposed during the night. A perfectly calm and composed individual will lose their mind if the bugs are bad enough. And you don’t want to be around someone that is having a mosquito spaz attack, but don’t worry, they will tire themselves out soon enough.
You can always just douse your gear in bug dope, though, right? Sure, but remember that the good stuff that actually works will melt your sleeping bag and sunglasses… but load that stuff up on your skin!
In the end, whatever sleeping setup works best for you is fine. The main determining factor is and always has been time. Some fire resources just don’t have the time to set up and take down tents every day. And really, I think it’s better for the soul to sleep in the open. The sleep is usually higher quality, and the dreams are 10x better.
Why hide away in the tent? I’m sure you all have a comment on this…
But how does the community feel?
Here are the results of the tent poll. We had over 4,000 respondents, and I think the results speak for themselves.
Many don’t use tents. Clearly, it’s still a topic of pride, and I can totally understand that. But available time in the morning is always on the mind.
“You’re setting up a tent?”
The majority of people sometimes set one up; I'm sure this is weather—and time-dependent. The hammock people are still the outliers and a small group seems to have a lot of time in the morning to pack their tents up. And that’s okay… but it's not surprising to me that it’s the minority.
However you decide to set up at night before you bed down, just remember, don’t be last.
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Good stuff