When Your Job is in the Line of Fire . . . On the Job, On the Go

by Sally Jack
Contributing writer
When most folks go to work, they drive to the office. But when Janiece Atwood of Monticello goes to work, she does just the opposite: she drives the office to her job.
Janiece is an independent contractor in the firefighting and incident management industry. When she is called on a job, she simply takes her office with her—even if that means driving her 32-foot trailer and truck all the way to California. “Of all the things we had to learn in this business, getting my CDL stressed me out THE Most,” Janiece comments. “It’s not something I ever thought I would do.”
But as business partners of a mobile clerical unit, Abajo Incident Management Services LLC (AIMS), Janiece and Julie Atwood, sisters-in-law, are on the go, driving trucks and hauling generators and mobile offices to Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Utah as a regular part of their job.
When lightning strikes and / or a big fire starts they get a call, accept the job, sign contracts, and are expected to be at the site within 24 hours of the call. Although they mainly respond to fires, they are a national resource for any large-scale incident and are registered with FEMA to go out for any national disasters. They were once called to a hurricane but were called back when it turned out that their services would not be needed.
“We never know where we’ll go or for how long. It’s usually for two weeks, but sometimes we’ll be gone for a whole month. When a call comes we drop everything and go. We are usually on the road within five or six hours after receiving the call,” said Janiece.
“We also have to be self-sustaining. We might be camping in the middle of an alfalfa field, or at the county fairground, so we have to provide our own generator and power source for what we need.”
There are a variety of essential resources at the incident command site, from firefighters and other supervisory personnel to food services and first aid, creating a small village.
The Atwood contribution is a Clerical Support Unit that provides a valuable printing service for the incident command team.
“There are so many facets to the operation. There’s a lot going on. We’re just one tiny piece of the business. It’s a team effort and it must be well organized,” said Janiece.
The daily Incident Action Plans or IAP’s compiled and printed at the command post play a key role in coordinating this team effort.
Every night after dinner, unit leaders bring their documents, their maps, and anything else they need for their team to the clerical trailer. Julie and Janiece take the information and make copies of the IAP for the team to distribute as needed by 5 a.m. the next day.
Since it is between 8 and 11 p.m. before they get all the orders, they are often up until the wee hours of the morning preparing the IAP’s before they retire to their tents for a little sleep.
Printing maps of the fire and the surrounding area is also an important part of what Atwoods do. All of the mapping for the operation is created by the team’s GISS unit that then sends them to the clerical trailer where they print out maps in the size and quantity every division needs to go to work.
The maps change daily, along with the fire progression. Many of the maps are 3 by 5 feet, but some of the BAM’S or Big Area Maps are so large they can be put on the side of a semi-truck so everyone can see them during the morning briefing.
Because the maps are so big, Julie and Janiece often print them in sections for the team to piece together like a giant puzzle.
The Atwoods also print out the majority of public notices and signs that inform the public of the firefighting progress.
Summing up their experience as a mobile clerical support unit, Janiece said, “We meet the most interesting people in our job. There’s always a challenge, but Julie and I have a blast working together.”
(This is Part Two of a three-part series. Next week Part Three will cover The Role of Prescribed Burns in Firefighting.)