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SPOTFIRE IMAGES
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WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING PHOTOJOURNAL
PHOTOS AND VIDEOS BY MIKE MCMILLAN
ABOUT
Wildfires are more destructive today than when I began fighting them in 1988. Summers became fire seasons and fire seasons became fire years - harsher, longer, drier, and with more people living with the threat of wildfires to their homes and livelihoods. "It's fire season somewhere" is now the norm.
Media coverage of wildfires today almost exclusively leans on tragedy, burning structures and devastated towns. I've experienced a fair amount of success limiting or preventing this type of destruction, leading crews, working and documenting the work of wildland firefighters as a task force leader and as a public information officer, side-by-side with federal, state, local, and volunteer firefighters in the west, north, south and eastward.
I worked four wildfire seasons from 1988 to 1990, and 1992 with USFS Santa Lucia Crew 3, now Crew 7, based in San Luis Obispo, California, when I was a student at Cal Poly University SLO.
I worked three wildfire seasons from 1993 to 1995
as a USFS Los Padres Hotshot based in Santa Barbara.
I worked 17 wildfire seasons from 1996 to 2012 as a BLM Alaska Smokejumper based in Fairbanks. Today I lead wildland firefighting resources as task force leader and as a public information officer.
Education: San Mateo High School, CA 1985. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo CA: B.S. News Journalism, 1991. Boise State Univeristy, ID: Masters Certificate, Technical Communiucations, 2018.
Please contact me about using images for publication purposes.
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