Page 45 - Southern Oregon Magazine Summer 2022

MARY KWART

Dream job, dream retirement

Firefighter, hotshot, fire management, hiker

steve boyarsky jerry hagstrom

WHAT SPARKED AN INTEREST AND DESIRE TO WORK IN I wanted to get more fire experience, so I went to more training and
THE WOODS? joined a hotshot crew in 1982 and years later became a Type 3 Incident
Commander. As a Situation Unit Leader, I oversaw mapping. We trave-
MARY: The first time I saw Yosemite, it just blew me away. I was five. led all over the country to other disasters, like Hurricane Katrina. It's
It was a spiritual experience. Oh my God, this is it. I want to be here in this the same Incident Management System as wildfires.
place. I want to be outside. When I was 18, I saw people backpacking and I
started hiking. I became a firefighter because I wanted to work outside. I was a fire monitor at Yosemite in 1985. That meant I didn't suppress
the fires, I measured fire behavior, mapped it and reported back. I
really liked that side of fire work. I decided I was going to have to go
back and get a degree, which I did in 1987 at Colorado State University
HOW DID YOU START FIGHTING FIRES? in Forestry and Wood Sciences with a Fire Management emphasis.

MARY: When I was young, in the 1950s, I never saw women park I liked the resource management activities involved with smoke moni-
rangers. Well, I guess I can't work in the parks. With the women's move- toring and providing fire and fuels management input to land manage-
ment in the 70s, I decided, if I don't mind being the first female, I'm ment decisions. While working in National Forests I oversaw cleaning
going to apply for jobs in firefighting, so that I can work outside. I was up logging slash through prescribed burning. At Yosemite National
exploding dynamite charges for a company looking for natural gas and Park, I managed lightning fires for resource benefits. I continually
oil in 1977. It was a big wildfire year. I got invited to work on a fire evaluated fires burning in wilderness that weren’t threatening com-
crew on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in Northern California. At munities and contained them.
that time, fire crews were paying a lot more than the seismic com-
pany. It was a no-brainer; I could work seasonally and make enough
money to live for the rest of the year. I was still kind of a semi-hippie.
Firefighting seasonally was good money, and I made lots of friends. We HOW DID YOU GET TO ALASKA?
spent a lot of time on fires in Southern Oregon. It was exciting. We'd
ride in helicopters. I got paid for hiking outside and working hard. MARY: I got tired of working in California because of “the good-old-
boy system.” Even though I had 20 years of experience, I wasn't being
promoted within Yosemite National Park. Yosemite is the “New York” of
national parks. Once you get a job there, you're at the pinnacle and you
HOW DID YOU PROGRESS FROM BEING A FIREFIGHTER, don't move. So, I applied for a fire management officer job on a wildlife
TO A HOTSHOT, AND THEN INTO FIRE MANAGEMENT? refuge in Alaska. Alaska is a wonderful place to be if you're really into
the outdoors. I learned about subsistence living. Ultimately, I became
MARY: My third year as a seasonal firefighter, my boss called me the Alaska Regional Wildland Urban Interface Coordinator for the U.S.
to his Forest Service office. “Wouldn't you like to work as a timber Fish and Wildlife Service.
grader?” he asked. “No, I want to stay in fire.” But they weren’t hiring
women for permanent jobs in fire back then.

There was a consent decree in California in the early 80s that charged WHAT WAS IT LIKE WORKING IN A MALE-DOMINATED
the Forest Service with discrimination against women. So, the Forest PROFESSION AND WHAT HAVE YOU HAD TO LEARN?
Service had a big push to hire women in non-traditional occupations
in the 80s. I had been working in fire since 1977. There's no way I MARY: I was among the first females in many situations. I basically
would have gotten a permanent job without that consent decree. I got did the job and didn't complain. I knew how hard the job was going to
a permanent job in 1989 as an Assistant District Fire Manager Officer be and was in good physical condition. The saying was, “To be consid-
on the Modoc National Forest. ered half as good as a man, you have to try to be twice as good.”

summer 2022 | www.southernoregonmagazine.com 43