Patrolling the Line

I took this photo on the Hastings Fire outside of Fairbanks, Alaska in 2011 during a burnout. In the four years I worked on Hotshot Crews, I'd say that the majority of fires we went on were too steep or remote for dozers, so it was uncommon to be working alongside them. Occasionally they can be the cause of a serious morale drop on crews, because twenty people might be working hard for 24 hours or more putting in line, and then all the sudden a dozer comes up from behind and plows on ahead, rendering all that work useless. Still, they're great tools to have.

Olympus XZ-1