CALL THEM FIRE WARRIORS THE THE ORIGINS ORIGINS OF OF THE THE NATIVE NATIVE HOT HOT SHOT SHOT GROUPS GROUPS
three men over 75); some other rules were bent to accommodate tribal needs and most groups were limited to members of a single tribe. The purpose of the CCC was conservation as the name states. These men made and stabilized trails in the back country, built check dams against erosion, fixed and stabilized roads, erected fences and fire towers, and fought fires. The program came to an end with WWII in 1942. But the need for these services did not just go away. An interesting note: while interviewing Code Talkers, some forty years ago, it came out that many Navajos recruited late in the war skipped basic training. They were excellent shots because they grew up hunting, and they were already in excellent condition because of the rigors of reservation life. Much the same was true of the Indian firefighters. No boot camp needed. After the war ended, the fire fighting aspect of these crews fell to Forestry and TEXAS CANYON FIREFIGHTERS. SEATED UNKOWN,TOM TUCSON, HUGO SANCHEZ. the Department of Indian Affairs and its KNEELING-UNKNOWN , GEORGE CHEECHEE, LEE TUCSON, STEVEN GIA. STANDING- devision of Wildland Fire Management. AUGUSTINE PINTO, UNKNOWN, CURTIS KUKATE, ED LASILOO, HERMAN CHIMONI. There is record of a Hopi firefighting (UNKNOWNS - JOE QUAMPEHON AND CELESTINE NASTACIO) group as early as 1949, but they joined a Mescalero Apache crew known as the men who were located in camps in “Red Hats” in 1948 to fight the fire known as the West. The Indian Division was rather different than the national the Capitan Gap Fire. As often happens with popular stories program in that Natives were not required to be single and did not have to be moved to primitive areas and housed in camps. Most reservations were already located in “primitive” locations. HOT FOOT TEDDY One of the special distinctions of the o bring some relief from the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt Indian Division was that the created the much reviled Civilian Department of Labor did not Conservation Corps in 1933. There was an choose the participants but left Indian Division that eventually employed an the bureaucracy to local tribal astonishing 88 thousand Native Americans. leaders. This division differed The Zunis, largest of New Mexico Pueblos, in other ways: the participants only numbered between three and four were not limited to young men 18 to 25, and in 1940, the thousand members at the time. CONRAD LESARRLEY WITH The CCC was composed of single young average age was 34 (there were CELESTINE NASTACIO
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