Apr 02 2024 38 mins 13
View definitions and links discussed in this episode at go.nps.gov/WhatWeDoPodcast
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TRANSCRIPT:
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Miles: From Yellowstone National Park, this is what we do. I'm Miles Barger.
Ashton: And I'm Ashton Hooker.
Miles: Hey, Ashton.
Ashton: Hey, Miles.
Miles: How's it going?
Ashton: Pretty good. How are you doing?
Miles: I'm doing pretty well. Are you ready to record a fire podcast today?
Ashton: Yes, straight fire podcast coming your way.
Miles: Because today we're going to talk to John Cataldo, Yellowstone's Fire Management Officer and before we get started I have to do a little fire trivia, it's it's going to be a trite one, but I think it's still interesting. So Yellowstone record fire in 1988. How many acres of the park burned? during those fires.
Ashton: I know it was massive. I know it was a lot.
Miles: It was a lot.
Ashton: I mean, in.
Miles: Round to the nearest 100,000 if you want.
Ashton: Okay. I was going to say a few hundred thousand. I'll say 600,000 figures. Okay. I'm getting the motion a little more. 800,000.
Miles: That would be the right rounding.
Ashton: nice.
Miles: 793,880 is the official number I found.
Ashton: You know, like if we were to compare.
Miles: And that's. That's not the full fire.
Ashton: Like what's, like, 800,000 acres compared to.
Miles: Gosh, that's a good question. Yellowstone, 2.2 ish million. Okay. Which is what states combined Rhode Island.
John: To roll out.
Miles: To Rhode Island.
John: And.
Miles: So not so maybe two thirds of Rhode Island is 36% of the park. Pretty big.
Ashton: That's a pretty big fire.
Miles: Yeah, pretty big. And that's just inside of Yellowstone. Anyway, there's our trivia. But today, like I said, we're talking to John Cataldo, fire management officer here, ready to dive in. I'm ready. All right, good. So in your career, have you always worked for the National Park Service in your career? Did you start with a different agency in terms of fire?
John: I started with the National Park Service and 1992, and I've kind of oscillated back and forth between the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, but always a federal agent.
Miles: Okay. Yep. What was your first job in fire?
John: My first job in or in general or. Well, in general, It was actually part of my financial aid package when I was an undergrad at Humboldt State University. I was offered a work study opportunity as part of my financial aid, and I was studying wildlife management at Humboldt State University in Northern California. And my my advisor and a department chair was married to the branch chief of Wildlife at Redwood National Park, and I was on academic scholarship as well at Humboldt and he kind of passed my name along to his wife and said, We've got a potential work study student, if, you know, interested in picking them up for some work and they
John: gave me a key to the office for Redwood National Park and a pile of wildlife observation cards that visitors and employees had filled out. And there was a pile pretty much up to the ceiling, and they gave me a key to the office and let me go in there 10 to 15 hours a week, all during the school year.
John: And just at my own pace, whenever I could fit in, in between classes and whatnot. And that was kind of my yeah, my my very first park service job.
Miles: Interesting. Yeah. So how long after that was it when you first got into fire of some kind?
John: The very next summer, I was working up in Alaska for the Forest Service and Cordova. Which is the last place I ever moved to without checking the Farmer's Farmer's Almanac. Like, how much rain or Sonic gets or doesn't get. And it turns out that Alaska gets 169 inches of rain a year. And I was working in fisheries at the time, so I studied wildlife and fisheries in college and so that was how I got my start in the service was those sorts of positions.
John: And so working in fisheries, we were outside every day in Cordova, you know, wearing rain gear. And I mean, honestly, after a couple of months of that, I was basically pruning like it just been like you know, you just had been in the shower for two months and they said, hey, do you want to go to a fire school?
John: And I just said, Is it indoors? And they're like, Yeah, it's it's down here. And the the district office was an old courthouse of some kind, and it was like, yeah, fire school is in the judge's chambers or something in the courthouse. And it was in fact indoors. And I said, Yeah, I'm your man. And so I took a took fire school.
John: And of course the place where it rains that much, you don't get off fires. But it was an exceptionally dry summer there. The next year when I returned, and we had a couple of, like, little fires out on the Copper River Delta fireworks, something. And I got to go to those. And then the 1994 fire season in the lower 48, which is kind of another benchmark fire season in the lower 48, it really kicked off in August.
John: And I spent the last six or eight weeks deployed down here on fire crews. I kind of went to each each little team on the district up in Alaska, and everyone had to volunteer, somebody to go be a firefighter. And I was good at hiking and carrying a big pack and stuff. Yeah.
John: They said, Why don't you go and let's go?
Ashton: Well, so what did you. You said you were studying wildlife. Starting out? Yeah. Did you ever envision yourself being in fire? Like, what did you. What were you kind of working toward before you got you know, you got the offer of like, hey, you can come indoors and. Yeah.
Miles: Well.
John: I was just working towards, you know, a career as a wildlife biologist or a fisheries biologist. You know, I studied both and I, I grew up loving it and, you know, loving the outdoors and whatnot. I'm a kid from suburban Long Island, New York, like 20 miles outside city. And that was my big escape, was going to the woods and, you know, even if that was running around catching garter snakes under garbage on the side of some parkway on Long Island, which is honestly how you start in wildlife management.
Ashton: Areas.
John: And a little suburban Long Island kid, there's not a lot of open wild spaces or places to get away from, from the crowds. so yeah, now the woods kind of became my, my retreat when I was young and just got out the book of colleges, You know, when you're in high school and it's like the size of a phone book and it's every, every college in the country and, and all the programs they offer and take three or four of the top wildlife management programs.
John: And one of them happened to be 4 hours from where my brother lived in Oregon, and I ended up at Humboldt.
Ashton: cool.
John: Yeah.
Miles: So when you finally did get into fire, what was it that kept you there?
John: I've always been into a lot of sports growing up, so just like, being really physical. And honestly, probably statistics and organic chemistry pushed me towards firefighting because to kind of take the next step in wildlife and fisheries, it was going to be really heavy. And, you know, you kind of get to that point in your education where it's like, I don't know if I'm good at I don't know if I'm ready to take the next step.
Miles: I think organic chemistry is that line for quite a few people.
Ashton: Yeah, Yeah. Kind of weak people out.
John: Yeah. So just working on a team and being outside and it was just a good fit. it was like I was kind of made to do it, you know? I just. Just felt right. Yeah, it just felt right. It was just right off the bat. It was. It was a good fit. I just fell right into it.
John: I You're lucky if that happens to you. Yes, whatever. Good. Whatever you do.
Miles: Yeah. Yeah, I feel the same way. I'm like, How did I get to where I am today? And I feel lucky. I don't think I would have planned it. Like you're saying. Sometimes these things just happen.
John: Yeah, I had some apprehension, you know, in the beginning, and just talking to other folks who've done it previously and they're like, No, it's great. It's like camping for dollars. Like you're going to yeah, we're going to go camp for four weeks and we're going to work hard all day, and then you go sleep in a tent and we're going to get up and do it again.
John: I was like, That sounds great.
Miles: So what was the I think I'm guessing I don't know yet, but I'm guessing a theme in these podcasts that will come up is, is the career progression can be interesting. So like, what are the steps to go from that where you're like actively out camping, fighting fire.
John: Yeah.
Miles: To where someday you're spending most, if not all of your time in an office and dealing with budgets and hiring in the big picture. Like what did that look like for you? Timeline wise? Yeah, that's kind.
John: Of one of the hazards of the job, is someday someone's going to hand you a radio to talk on. That's the first hazard of the job, right? They kind of leave you alone for a few years because it's dangerous to let you be in charge of anything. And then at some point they're like, like your you seem pretty squared away and they hand your radio and that's a big fork in the road.
John: So you're going to let me talk on the radio while I'm on a fire and actually, you know, help coordinate what's going on and yeah, I've held a lot of positions along the way. We get to go a lot of different places in this job, which is also what attracted me to it. I think I've been to fires in 18 different states.
Miles: Wow.
John: At this point, and I'm not done yet. Right. I got a lot left in me, but,
Ashton: Was one of those states more memorable than the others? Does one stick out to you?
John: You know, they're so they are so unique. I know it sounds cliche, but I mean, literally, I've spent three weeks camped three feet from the Yukon River in Interior, Alaska, helping manage a long duration fire up there. You know, and I've done a lot of prescribed fire down in Big Cypress down in South LA. So literally this job has taken me from one corner of the country to the other.
John: Yeah, and a lot of places in between. And you just get to granted you're working really long hours while you're there, but you get to see a lot of interesting things. A lot of the you're off the beaten path a lot. Yeah. So you just have a lot of shared experiences and.
Miles: Must be interesting to to, to get to like be pretty intimately familiar with so many different types of forest as well. And like the way fire behaves so differently in these different places.
John: And yeah, and you have to be a student of it because it.
Miles: I bet.
John: It'll kill you if you're not paying attention. So you are very eager to learn. Yeah. When you go to a new place, like how does it move right through this stuff? Does it move by jumping from tree to tree, or is it mostly ground fire? Are there interesting local factors? Like does it burn? Some places it burns really hot and downhill at night.
John: I didn't see that coming. Right. So you got to you got to make sure you're being a student and finding the people that understand how fire moves on that particular landscape helps keep us all safe. Yeah, they meet the objective, whatever that is.
Miles: Yeah. So let's jump ahead to now. So do you have a typical day in your job? You know.
John: A lot of what drew me to this is that it's it's not a lot of typical I guess I should focus on maybe on the summer because like you mentioned the winter, you know, when you're a year round position and you live at 6300 feet, National Park, we get a lot of opportunity for winter and typically don't have fires.
John: And in the off season it is a lot of just planning for next season and hiring and communicating with our partners and cooperators and just kind of getting on the same page for the next season. But once we kind of throw the switch and the temporary employees come on in the spring and and we kind of ramp up and just sort of get into the mode, so to speak.
John: And a typical day, we start off with a briefing with everyone on the team and we get together for about 20 minutes and we go through a safety conversation and a weather conversation situation. Whatever's going on, fires in the park, fires around the park, fires we may find ourselves on later that day. Just whatever's going on go through a plan for the day and then we just sort of fledge everyone to their assignments.
John: And typically we'll go five different directions on a given day and we'll be engaged with a fuels reduction projects. You know, in some of the urban interface areas around Park will be out monitoring the fuel moisture and different types of fuels that we're curious about in the park. That's a big part of the program, is being prepared for what might comment and how wet or dry the fuels are is a big part of that.
John: So we'll be out doing that, maybe helping our neighbors with some incidents that they're managing. So they're just really every day is different.
Miles: Yeah.
John: Especially once we get around to like May or so and then through October, you just really never know what you're getting into.
Miles: So it's a good, good career field for someone who likes to keep, keep moving and have surprises thrown at them.
John: There's a lot of moving. Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts you have to be in.
Miles: You're out in the field a lot in the summer.
John: I get to pick and choose my spots at this point a lot. Unfortunately, the field part of my job is definitely dropped off and particularly here just because of connectivity issues. Yeah, because we are so remote, relatively speaking, to a lot of other places in the lower 48 that because a lot of my day to day responsibility is to be what we call a duty officer.
John: So I'm the first phone call on any new potential or vegetation fire. So I get however that report comes in from a visitor or from an employee. It'll get routed to our dispatch center. Then they call me as the duty officer and say, Here's what we might have. What do you want to do about it?
Miles: So you need to be reachable and.
John: Reachable at all times. Yeah. And if people can't find me, I'm not doing my job. So it does kind of keep me around headquarters. Yeah, a lot. But of course, I do enjoy getting out on fire.
Miles: Yeah. Yeah. So what in your current job, what do you think is the most important skill.
John: For my position? I think the ability to triage a lot of emerging problems and to pretty quickly sift through what's important and what's noise and what can wait and what you know, you're pretty much in a when things are rocking and rolling, there's a constant state of just, you know, your awareness is just piqued and you're just constantly trying to update what we call a common operating picture of like, what is our fire environment, what's going on and what the biggest threats are, right?
John: It's all about risk management. Fire management is risk. So risk to people first and foremost, risk to infrastructure, you know, buildings and then everything after that. So yeah, just the ability to maintain the correct flight altitude. And, you know, all of us start out as just ground pounders, right. Swinging a tool, sort of £5 tool 10,000 times a day is how you first prove that you can you can do this right?
John: And then you go from there to where you're virtually never swinging a £5 tool anymore. Yeah. So sometimes when you know, when really things start rocking and rolling, some folks all revert to what they're most comfortable with. Right. Which is the like the first thing you ever learn. And they want to kind of get in the weeds and just being able to maintain that 30,000 foot wide altitude as a fire management officer, that's pretty critical.
Ashton: On that skill to like bring in like all that different types of information and then be able to make decisions that probably comes with a lot of experience and that you've had over the years. So if you were to like, you know, what advice like what types of experience should people be seeking out if they want to, you know, get to your type of position one day.
John: Variety is really see seek variety and particularly prescribed fire so controlled burns and other way we describe those being involved with that is a great way to just see a lot of fire on the landscape and watch it and not necessarily have to just be responding to take those opportunities to see how it moves and understand the physics of it just really pays dividends down the line.
John: So it really it's just experiential learning, all of it. I mean, there's a big on the job training component. We have a huge continuing education component to all of this where as you progress along, we're sending you to like more or less one week long classes. We have a lot of like 32 to 40 hour classes will send it to you, but those just sort of complement that field experience.
John: So it's just go full sound like just get as much fire under your belt as you possibly is the best way to be good at my job. And so that's why I oscillated between the two different agencies because, you know, the Forest Service, that's the big green machine, right? So I think half the U.S. Forest Service budget is fire management.
John: Well, so they're highly invested in it. And that's where the majority of the resources in America are. You know, they're in the green trucks with the different the different logo. And so coming up in the Park Service was great. But I also realized I'm not seeing enough fire on Park Service land to get as good as I need to get at this to have the job I want to have some day.
John: So I. I knew I wanted a job like I have now, but to get there, I had to leave the agency, you know, go to a different federal agency and ended up running a Hotshot crew for close to a decade, which is a great way to see a lot of fire.
Miles: Yeah.
John: So that was just all by design that I was like, Well, I think I've done what I can in the Park Service. There just wasn't as many opportunities to move up or move laterally. We just don't have as big a program. And it's like, I'm going to go fight fire with Forest Service for about a decade and then I'll come back and I'll feel a lot more confident what I'm doing.
Miles: So you wanted you did want to end up back at the Park Service, perhaps? Ultimately, yeah. Why? Why that over? You know, like you said, Forest Service is the big the big agency, the tail end of all this stuff. What what about the Park Service made you want to end up here?
John: I just love the mission. Really. And, I mean, it's the the greatest last, best places. And it's I mean, the the the Park Service units are, you know, particularly for me, loving the mountains. I mean, being in the northern Rockies, it's just outrageous. And I just this region in particular, I've spent time in the Pacific West and the Pacific Northwest, and I love those systems as well.
John: But I mean, the Rockies are just outrageous for me. You can't beat it.
Miles: So yeah.
Ashton: Yeah, I was that kind of same sentiment. What drew you to Yellowstone or was there some sort of draw to Yellowstone for you in particular?
John: You know, I'd I'd spent about five years of my life in Alaska, so one of my early park service positions, actually my first permanent appointment was I was the first helicopter manager hired at Denali in the year 2000. We had the the National Fire plan came out. So we'd had kind of a succession of really intense fire seasons in America.
John: And the result of that was the thing called the 2000 National Fire Plan. And a big part of that was a big injection of funding into fire management in America. So, you know, a lot of life's timing, right? And so when the National Fire plan rolled around, I had about nine seasons under my belt, either a fire management or wildlife or fisheries management, and I think three, three full seasons and and a few qualifications under my belt and then all these permanent jobs popped up and I was sort of in a really good position to compete for one.
John: So that was that was just good timing. And a lot of my peers, we call ourselves like National Fire Plan babies because we all got our start. We all got our very first appointment sometime in the spring of 2000.
Miles: I mean, I think yeah, a couple of things you said I think are good for people to keep in mind in terms of thinking about wanting to work for federal agency in general. In the Park Service specifically is like there is timing, there is luck, there is when these things come along. And also being having having the 30,000 foot view of your own career, like you were saying, is like, maybe I need to leave for a while to get these other experiences because I think sometimes people think I'll just be able to follow this exact path that I want and get the jobs I want.
Miles: And I feel like that so rarely happens. If anyone that I know in the Park Service, whether they leave for a completely different field sometimes or switch agencies or whatever, it's like, this is where I would like to be, but I need to get this experience here or this there, or thinking about the career ladders in the way things can go.
Miles: Yeah, I think that's I'm glad that you brought up those points because I think it's a good thing for people to remember. That's certainly how my career has been. I think almost everybody I talk to.
John: Yeah, I think a big part of it is I tell folks all the time, you know, to some extent you have to be prepared to move at the speed of opportunity, you know, And you can't just expect in a in the federal service and the Park Service like plant roots in one spot and march up the ladder through your entire career in one place.
John: It's just not realistic. Possible that a massive unit like we work at. Right. Because I do have a tremendous organizational chart here and a lot of really deep programs and a lot of career ladder potential. That's pretty unique. It is in the service, though. Yeah, pretty rare. Yeah. You can go to a lot of parks and there there might be you know the chief ranger and to seasonal law enforcement.
Miles: Yeah.
John: You know at these smaller units you know in that career and obviously there you know you're not going to try to stay in one place 30 years, become the chief ranger like you might have to step to the side to step up and step back. And now there's tremendous opportunity to move around. I think that's a great thing.
John: You know, I'd want to see a lot of places and I want to do a lot of different things. And for me, the emphasis in my life wasn't going to be plant roots, start a family, young, be in one place, you know, coach the volleyball team or someplace. Like, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to, like, just really move around a lot and to see a lot of things.
John: Like I said, I'm a suburban Long Island kid, yet once I hit the West, I wasn't slowing down. Yeah, I wasn't going to move out west and plant yet somewhere. So I've achieved that.
Miles: So even so, with all these different experiences that you have, might be hard to pick one. But is there like a moment in your career that stands out to you as really being a defining moment or even the defining moment? Is there was there some time where you were like, This is it for me? Or was it more gradual?
John: You know, in my in my fire service career, I'd say the day that we were certified as a as a hotshot crew in Northern California, that was a that process took several years and was pretty intense. And so I'll remember that day for sure.
Miles: Yeah.
John: You know, anytime you're working towards the same goal for six years, year round, it's a pretty big day. Yeah. Someone finally says you're good enough. Wow. But it and within my park service experience really that the entire 2016 fire season here in Yellowstone is kind of a kind of a benchmark to, you know, any fire season you're a part of that ends up with like a commemorative pint glass or something is usually probably a pretty big deal.
John: Yeah. And in that year, we successfully managed 100 square miles of fire. Wow. In Yellowstone and while concurrently celebrating the centennial.
John: Yeah. So there was a period of time where we had an incident management team just managing the centennial celebrations and in Mammoth in Gardiner, Montana, and we had a separate incident management team assigned to the Maple Fire, which was out by West Yellowstone, ultimately burned about 55,000 acres, and we had a third incident management team concurrently managing a basket of about five or six smaller fires, most of which were out on the northern range of the park.
John: And we had all that going at once and we didn't have any single serious injuries, you know, rotating firefighters through that for for months on end. There's a single shingle off the side of the structure, so no one got hurt. We didn't burn anything up that we didn't want burnt up or or were willing to accept burning up and, you know, I mean, we a hundred square miles of a pretty incredible natural process in the world's first national park so that that year sticks out.
Ashton: Yeah. Yeah. So you just mentioned like protecting these historic, you know, buildings that are in the park and stuff like that. And earlier you mentioned fuels reduction projects for people who don't really know what that means. Like how do you do that? How do you protect like because, you know, there's all these historic buildings throughout the park. How do you how do you go about protecting those?
John: It's really all about just creating what we call defensible space around those. And we really focus on the first 30 to 300 feet of vegetation immediately around that structure. So we just basically need some elbow room around there to function as firefighters. We can't have a little baby trees growing out of foundation of old building and pushing the shingles off the side of them and stuff like that.
John: That'll happen in a place like Yellowstone. You know, Lodgepole Pine is a pretty robust species and it's a little bit weedy in some places where it gets really thick and comes in pretty strong, especially after a fire. So when we're talking about fuels reduction, we're just literally in and around the the developed areas in the park, just reducing the amount of biomass.
John: So we're focusing on the the smaller brush and grasses and trees that are, say under 4 to 6 inches in diameter and just removing those and just basically thinning it out.
Ashton: Okay.
John: In other areas we might use prescribed fire or controlled burning to try to accomplish that same objective because fires are really efficient way to to reduce the amount of biomass around, you know, around a subdivision. But lodgepole pine, when it burns, it burns completely. So it's natural fire regime is stand replacement. So it burns from the surface of the ground or the tops of the trees and and completely is what we would expect.
John: And that's not really a great thing to have in and around a community because you're just treating one problem for another. So you do a controlled burn and then you have a patch of dead trees next to your homes and then you're dealing with that. So we just prefer not to do controlled burning around our developed areas and we just go in and yeah, just then out the vegetation so that if a fire does come in there, it's not moving through the tops of the trees, which is of course where it's really intense and dangerous.
John: It's it's going to stay on the ground where we can deal with it and probably on the ground with wavelengths less than eight feet. That's kind of our cut off. If the flames are taller than eight feet, we're going to need a pretty heavy hand to deal with that. We can't swap that out.
Ashton: Gotcha.
Miles: So for people interested in your field, you know, your career field, what before we get to your series and and grade and all that kind of stuff, where would people look if they wanted to get started and fire? Like, what series would they look for?
John: We're actually going through a really big transition right now and in how we're classified as firefighter tours. We were forestry technicians for the first few decades of this profession, and essentially it's been decided over the past few years. That's not a very accurate description of wildland firefighting for lots of good reasons. And so now there's a new wildland firefighter job series, and that's zero four, five, six, and it's designed to be a higher to retire job series.
John: So we're going to be recruiting and advertising positions in that from now on, literally from the GS three to the GS 15 level. Wow.
Ashton: So that's really cool.
John: Yeah. And previous to that, we were we were hiring entry level positions as OE for six to forestry technicians and then I'm currently in in 0401 which is biologist ecologist job series and that's all transitioning. So going forward it will be zero four or five six from just three to just 15.
Miles: Wow. So that simplifies it a lot for people interested in looking at does. Yeah, yeah. They can focus in on that series and find something that aligns with whatever experience they have. Yeah. And get in the door.
John: Yeah. And getting in the door is not that complicated. You know, we don't have super high educational requirements, basically a high school diploma and a great attitude and an aptitude to learn new things, you know, commitment to physical fitness. Like, let's go. Yeah, that's it. Like we can, we can start there, right? And we can we're going to teach you the rest.
John: So it's.
Miles: Pretty cool. It's I think. Yeah, yeah. Because I've definitely noticed, like I've never been in wildland fire, anything myself, but just being around people who are, there's definitely like a vibe, a culture. I think of the people who stick with it because like you said, you got to you got to want to Yeah. Into it.
John: Well, when you have a lot of intense shared experiences, right? Yeah. So any time you do that, you do form a certain bond with the people that you're doing that with, that you can't simulate elsewhere, except maybe like within your actual immediate family, like the experiences you might have with your brothers and sisters growing up. And there's so many stories I can't tell anybody because they won't even understand.
John: Sure. You know, and that's a powerful thing. And it can be lonely at times because there's, you know, you got to like, find your old hotshot friends to, like, talk about, you know, some fire you're on because you just spend all your time trying to explain it to other people. Yeah. You know, So, yeah, it's it's kind of a unique and unique job in that in that regard, would you meet a lot of great people there?
John: It's not easy. It's not an easy job to do, right. So if if you're around people that are doing it and sticking with it and making it pass, there's kind of this imaginary line at year three where you're sort of in or out, right? You're either like, This is what we're doing because the commitment level's so high or maybe this isn't for me and I don't like sleeping on the ground.
John: Yeah, yeah. Being completely convinced, like when the next meal is going to show up, you're out here or just being out in that environment. Yeah. So when you're around people that have made that commitment and made those sacrifices, it's a pretty special. Very. Yeah, Yeah. So real good stories if you can get us to tell them.
Ashton: Maybe someday.
Miles: That to say I could keep that I Yeah. I wish we could talk for like 3 hours.
Ashton: Yeah. So along those lines, like, if somebody is looking for this job in a national park, not every national park has these jobs, right? Or do they.
Miles: Not.
John: Ever unit certainly the larger midsize to larger parks. So, for example, in our region we have 14 park level fire programs and those programs either manage one or group of parks. So, you know, when you talk about a Yellowstone or Mesa Verde or a bent, we're Rocky Mountain Dinosaur, Zion, all those units have a program. and pretty robust, you know.
John: So sometimes when you get into like a much smaller unit, like we manage fire for the little big, you know, a Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, about 4 hours east of where we're sitting. And we provide fire management services for. But they don't have any firefighter, okay. Or any equipment. So it's just sort of an administrative responsibility. And so, yeah, we we manage their fires through agreements and relationships.
John: So the Crow agency has agreed to put out fires if we get any. So yeah, but most mid midsize national parks are going to have, especially out west will have their own program. So there's a ton of opportunity investment. The bipartisan infrastructure law has it's I call it National Fire Plan 2.0. It's essential labor. The next huge influx of investment in wildland firefighting in America.
John: The Park Service has benefited greatly from. So all those programs are kind of on the kind of on the uptick. It's a great time to get your foot in the door and start a career or or advance in your career in fire.
Miles: Awesome.
John: Yeah.
Miles: Well, like I said, I wish you could talk for like 3 hours. I want to just ask you about fire ecology and behavior and what it's like to get to know such a it's such a it's just like a fascinating process to me. You know, it's like a chemical reaction happening that.
John: Yeah, has.
Miles: Its own life and scale and like you said, behaves so differently. But we do have to wrap it up. So, do you have a favorite story or memory from your time in Yellowstone or another national park? But just something that.
John: You know, I've been reflecting on that. Yeah, recently and I couldn't come up with, you know, the one thing, and maybe that's because at this point in my career, in my life, I've learned to appreciate, like, smaller, small things, you know? And I mean, obviously we live in a place where we're just kind of surrounded by wonder, and people have a hard time even relating sometimes to the things we try to describe that happen in our backyard.
John: But for example, literally in my backyard the other day, I went out to chop some wood for our stove and was just enjoying the weekend and I kind of had a quiet moment and I stood there and a wolf howled and it sounded like it was, you know, maybe a mile behind us. And I thought, you know, it's like noon.
John: That's not typically when I hear wolves howl. Sometimes they come around at night and I'll I'll hear them when I'm wet the dog out, you know, for the last time in the evening or something. And, so I sat there real quiet and and howled again, you know, and I, I probably have a 100, you know, little stories like that.
John: we're just surrounded by it all the time. And, yeah, it's there all the time. If you're, if you're listening for it and if you're, if you're open to it and Yeah. Mean we're just surrounded by. I wonder if you got your eyes and ears up. That's always there. Go enjoy it.
Miles: I think that's the perfect way to wrap up. Thanks for coming and talking to us today. You're all fascinating.
John: Let's do it again.
Miles: Yeah, I would like to call.
Ashton: Thank you. Thank you.
John: You're welcome.
Miles: Well, that's it for this week's episode of What We Do. Thanks again to our guest, John Cataldo. If you like what we do, rate and review the show wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. If you have questions or want to learn more about a particular job, contact us using the form at Go dot NPS dot gov forward slash what we do podcasts.
Miles: Thanks.
