About Me

    I graduated from the University of Montana in Missoula with a B.S. in Forestry in 2006, and returned there for the fall semester of '07 to get 12 credits closer to a B.A. in History.  I am going to be returning there in the fall of '08 to finish the History degree and start on an M.A. in Geography. 

    I started working in fire in 2001 with the state of Montana DNRC as an emergency firefighter (kind of like a call-when-needed position), and had no idea of where it would lead me.  I had no intention of working in the woods, and really only took the position as a way of making some extra money in the summer between my high school graduation and the start of college.  As I went off to school, I discovered that I really didn't want a desk job making $25,000 a year working as a technical writer, and that I could make that much as a firefighter or forester.  I still had no real goal, only an idea that I could change majors to something I knew more about (trees) and still make the same amount of money.  The next summer (2002), I was unable to get hired on with the DNRC, but was fortunate to stumble into a position with the Forest Service on the Flathead National Forest, and I guess started down the path that led me to where I am.  I spent 2003 on the Flathead, 2004 on the Lolo NF (just south of the Flathead), and then "went to the dark side" and worked for the BLM in eastern Montana for two seasons in 2005 and 2006.  Those two seasons were where I realized that I wanted to try and make a career in fire and aviation, especially the aviation part of the fire world.  In 2007 I spent the spring working in Missouri with the National Park Service on a prescribed fire module, and I returned to the northern rockies that summer, working on the Clearwater NF in northern Idaho.  I returned to the Ozarks in Missouri this spring, and saw rain and flooding so intense I thought about building an ark, but no fires.  This summer I decided to hang close to Missoula, and accepted a position on the Montana DNRC's Missoula Helitack crew, and came full circle, returning to the agency I started with. 

    So, what does all this make me?  I guess I would describe myself as a professional fire gypsy, a wanderer who is firmly rooted in the mountains of Montana (parts of my family have been in MT since the 1860s), a "new westerner" who likes his Starbucks and his wilderness to both be within an hour's drive, an information junkie, and a techno-nerd.

    I have made somewhat of a hobby of documenting wildland firefighting through images and video, and this site is an offshoot of that hobby.  I hope that browsing the site is a pleasant experience, and may prove enlightening in some way, shape, or form.

Justin V. - May 2008

"Why study fire?  Because it's there.  Because it's fascinating.  Because it matters.  Because it's fun.  Because if we can no longer get excited about fire, then we might as well resign our species membership in the Great Chain of Being." - Stephen Pyne