As children, teenagers, and young adults, we all have these ideas of the person we are going to marry. I can tell you right now that I never imagined my spouse to be a chain saw wielding, Nomex wearing, grungy, ash covered Wildland Firefighter. I was more of the girl who planned on marrying a cowboy, or a farmer, or just some nice handsome country boy. It’s true what they say though, if you want to hear God laugh just tell him your plans. Well, I told him all the plans that I had for my life. None of those plans are even half of where I am today.
I grew up in the world of fire. Structure fire that is. My dad was a volunteer firefighter and EMT for the small town we lived in. He continued with this and also being the Fire Chief, for years. Within this town the roll of firefighter also meant having to possibly be the first responders to any wildfires within the area. Agency engines and fire crews are about 36-60 miles away. The town I’m from is a small ranching and farming community surrounded by BLM land. I remember waking up to the sound of the radio beeping late at night. Working on the farm during the day and suddenly everything would stop, because the call came in.
Burning ditches on the weekend meant a lesson in fire. How fires burn, learning to read wind directions and speed. It wasn’t until I was older that my dad really taught me a few things when it comes to wildfires. My brother was also a part of that volunteer service and had his red card and he also played in wildfire while he worked for a federal agency. Least to say fire runs in my blood. I never dreamed however, that I would marry a firefighter, let alone a professional Wildland Firefighter.
My husband and I met in 2015. I had just moved to the town of Elko for a job with the U.S. Forest Service. My first big kid job out of college. Being new to the town I didn’t know anybody. Especially anyone my age. I really wasn’t interested in meeting people at the bar. It just wasn’t really my scene. I did however decide to join some online groups. I know what you’re thinking, wouldn’t a bar be better than an app? Well, you are probably right, but that’s not how my story goes. I was scrolling through Tinder and that’s when I saw him.
This man was sitting in the ground holding a chainsaw. Smiling through an ash and dirt covered face. My first thoughts were oh boy… My opinion of wildland firefighters at the time was kind of snobbish. Honestly I thought the majority were all assholes, after working around some. My opinion has changed dramatically from those days, because little did I know anything at all. With that, I did what any young single woman would do. I swiped right and well we were a match! I don’t remember who struck up the conversation first, but we started chatting. We finally agreed to meet in person. Me being a cautious young lady, I told him we should meet somewhere public. So, we met at my hangout spot. Matties Bar and Grill… Ironic right? Well, the night ended with a drive around town.
Time went on and we continued to hang out. I’m not going to lie; things were a little awkward at first. I guess that’s what happens when you put two shy people in a room together. Well as it goes, we weren’t unable to spend a whole lot of time together. He was based out of a BLM station in Wells NV, a town about 58 miles away. As it is with a wildland firefighter, we didn’t spend much time together. He was away on fires quite often. We did get a few more days to know each other. As time went on, he moved to different stations and towns, and I started a relationship with someone else.
During the next year we kept in touch on and off. Such as it goes, the relationship I was in did not work out. Every cup has a saucer and the man I was dating was not my saucer. I moved to Wells. My now husband was currently working and living in Ely, NV. Our talking had increased since I moved to Wells. There was a woman in his life that had captured his attention in Ely. We saw each other every now and then, but his attention was elsewhere, and I was still trying to figure out what I wanted.
As a someone who has been in nothing but long-distance relationships for most of her life, I honestly didn’t know if I wanted to be in another. Then one day it hit me. I really liked this man. I had never been able to talk to someone the way I was him. We were talking one day and as he does, he flipped my switch and well that Scottish attitude and strong will in this girl came blaring out. I told him I was falling in love with in him and that he needed to pull his head out of his ass. Least to say he showed up in Wells that weekend. We had a long chat over a couple drinks in the middle of nowhere. I told him I was done playing games and he needed to figure out what he wanted. He said he wanted a relationship. That is how it all started. By me yelling at him, is how he puts it! Don’t worry the story doesn’t end here!
It just so happened I had been offered a job back home in Wyoming. I had been searching and praying to get home for some time. As he his, my man was very supportive of this. That spring I moved home. He was still working and residing in Ely. Our once friendship had started growing into a very strong relationship. Before I moved to Wyoming, we spent hours talking on the phone each night. I mean about 4 hours a night. Just talking.. We spent every weekend we could together. We started building that most important foundation.
After moving to Wyoming, the time, we were able to spend together was minuscule. We were 470 miles apart from each other, but not only that, it was now fire season. If you don’t know what that means, it means anywhere from 12-16 hours a day and two days off. That’s if he wasn’t on an active fire. With the miles between us, he was unable to come visit me, unless he could get an extra day or two off, which is extremely difficult during the season.
We saw each other about once every two months. I took every opportunity I could to travel to Ely. These were some of the most boring times. I spent my hours waiting for my man to come home. But the best part of my day was when he would walk through the doors with a big smile on his face. I am known to do random things, when I want too, well one weekend I just showed up and surprised him. I knew there was a chance I may only see him for a few hours, but that didn’t matter to me. I would gladly take five minutes if that’s all I got.
During our time long distance, our communication grew. As we did before, we spent hours talking on the phone. We discussed our future lives together and about getting married. It was decided to see how that first fire season went together before we went any further. He had been around many marriages that ended up in affairs and divorces, because of the fire life, and he wanted to be sure that I was ready for the commitment and lifestyle.
Being the wife of a Wildland Firefighter is no easy task. You end up spending most of your life apart. You have to be able to handle the challenges that being a spouse to this special breed of human being requires. Well, it just so happens that I am a fairly independent and strong willed woman. Having been a part of a federal agency myself and being involved in the fire world, the little that I was, I knew the risks, I understood them. I knew that it would be a challenge to marry into this world, I didn’t know how hard it would truly be, until I spent my first year married to the man.
Yes, in December of that year (2019) he asked me to marry him and I said yes. We will have been married four years in the fall of 2024. Let me tell you planning a wedding around fire season, hunting season, COVID and the weather, is not a task for the faint of heart. I feel like I am one of the lucky women to marry into this world, because of my deep understanding of it and my willingness to accept and take on any challenges to be with the man that I love.
I knew from the moment we started dating what life was going to be like. I didn’t know how much I still had to learn, but I at least knew more than most do. I could go on, but as is the title, this is just the beginning to my story. Checkout my next post here: It’s Not all Flaming Hearts and Nomex .