Lafia, Lafia!

So I went to my first fire here in Morocco the other day. Pretty fun and highly entertaining. I’d just returned home from town (Jerada), when my older host brother bursts into the room yelling lafia, lafia, yella, yella (fire, fire, lets go, lets go). Thinking this may be my chance to prove that I may actually be of some use here, I quickly change clothes and throw a bag of water, food, extra clothes, etc together. My brother and I then had off to the road where we are to wait for our ride up to the fire. At this point you could begin to see brown smoke accumulating on the ridge above the village.

After sitting next to the road for awhile (10-15 minutes) and watching the smoke continue to build, and with no ride in site, we head back to the house. My brother then instructs me to look through the collection of rusted, broken shovels and pick out my tool. I select the least pathetic of the bunch. At this point more men are gathering and the decision is made to have tea. “Well of course we should have tea!” After shot-gunning the obligatory two glasses of scalding hot, super sugary tea and shoving some bread in my mouth, we all load up in the Mitsubishi Galloper II and head up the hill. After about 5 minutes of driving 90 mph up the steep slope the Galloper II begins to overheat and slows to a trot and then dies altogether.

Sitting in the middle of the road, an argument breaks out that I don’t understand but then we are saved when the city fire department shows up and we all load up into their structure engine. I know a few of the structure guys from the cafe that I frequent and one of them looks at me and jokes that, unlike America, there will be no helicopters today and this fire will be fought with all muscle. “Good deal.” After much argument as to the best way to get to the fire, we finally arrive.

Pulling into the “staging area” I may have laughed out loud a bit. It seems that all the men of all ages in my village were there. First thing I see is a fairly overweight man in a black 3-piece suit running around in the 90 degree temps. Arguments have broken out everywhere around me as to (I assume with my rudimentary language skills) what are the best tactics to fight this fire. A pissing match has ensued between the city and forest firefighters and nobody really seems to be in charge. Actually......now that I think about it.......not that much different from fire in the states? Haha.....

Quickly assessing my tool options between my broken shovel with homemade handle and a flapper, I grab the flapper and proceed to go to work. Flapping away I look to the fellow on my left who is wearing a polyester adidas warm-up/leisure suit while the gentleman to my right is sporting a dapper-looking sweater vest. Then I look down and realize I’m fighting a fire in running shoes and carharts and chuckle to myself. At one point I came across a group of teenagers with bladder bags who were all wearing shorts and soccer jerseys. Communication solely consisted of cell phones and a whole lot of yelling. I wish I could have taken some pictures.

With the exception of the choice of attire, at times it really didn’t seem that much different. Almost felt like I was back on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico. Hot, steep, and dry. Even had similar fuel types.

After an hour or so, the wind calms down, evening set in and fire behavior decreased significantly. It also helped that the area is horribly overgrazed by sheep and goat herders so fires here seem to be short-lived. A decision is made to abandon the perimeter tactics and focus on hotspots. Shortly thereafter everyone begins to just walk around the perimeter not really doing much of anything. Kind of like being back on the Fire Use Module (just kidding FUM kids:).

So I don’t know if I exactly wowed the Moroccans with my firefighting skills. A few times I tried to make some suggestions but then thought better of it as my language skills are that of a 5 year old. I don’t quite know how to translate “Anchor, Flank er’, spank er” into Moroccan Arabic. So instead I just decided to shut-up and go to work (a change from my modus operandi I know). All in all though I think they were impressed by the fact that the “Merikan” had shown up and worked alongside them. It was fun to get dirty again and all the more satisfying when I realized that for my day of hard work and sweat I’d made the equivalent of $10.