Shelby Descamps

emerges Women’s fire crew in male-dominated field

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT The BLM/Montana Conservation Corps All-Women’s Fire Crew was deployed to Alaska this summer to battle the Hadweenzic River Fire in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge.

CAMILLE ERICKSON

307-266-0592, camille.erickson@trib.com

When Shelby Descamps was in high school, she set out to mow her family’s lawn. Her stepmother immediately directed her to use the non-motorized push mower. But Shelby wanted to try out the big gas mower. Her brother had been using it since he was 11 years old. Why couldn’t she?

But she was a girl, and she remembers being discouraged from using the equipment.

Shelby didn’t end up mowing the lawn that day.

“I was like, ‘Well, OK, never mind,’” she recalled. “I wanted to use the actual lawnmower.”

Now, the 26-year-old has mastered the ins and outs of using heavy chainsaws. She can cut and plumb fire lines. She can also confidently stand at the front lines, fighting wildland fires.

“Oh man, it is so empowering and confidence boosting,” she quipped.

This year, Shelby led an all-women’s fire crew as it protected Wyoming’s wild landscapes. The training, launched by the Montana Conservation Corp, provides women with the necessary qualifications to launch a career in wildland firefighting and conservation. This year, the All-Women’s Fire Crew training was primarily located in Wyoming, with a 19-day stint in Alaska to battle the Hadweenzic River Fire in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge. The experience concluded in Wyoming, west of Rock Springs, with restoration e orts — clipping away at juniper to restore habitats for vulnerable sage grouse populations.

The training aims to address gender disparities in the male-dominated firefighting and natural resources sectors. Women remain severely underrepresented in those fields.

Throughout all U.S. fire departments, women comprise just over 7 percent of firefighters, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Across all federal firefighting entities, the number of women working in fire is unclear. The Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming said it does not collect precise data on the number of female seasonal or permanent wildland firefighters.

“Diversity is important,” said Rance Neighbors, a fire management specialist at the Bureau of Land Management. “Diversity — whether that is through race, gender, culture or where you are from — any time you can add diversity to your program, federal agency or entity, then we make it better. Because everyone comes to the table with di erent views and ideals.”

And intentionally growing an all-women’s fire crew is just one of the ways of bringing more women to the table, he explained.

With the federal government, there are certain qualifications one needs to fight wildfires. The program passes along these required fire suppression techniques to women.

It wasn’t glamorous work. In fact, the six months in the wilderness could be grueling — tough conditions, long hours, extreme weather and few amenities.

The 11 participants are now prepared to launch into the job market and are on the hunt for positions in the firefighting or natural resources sectors. About 85 percent of previous participants go on to land a job in firefighting.

A career outdoors

Shelby grew up in central California and studied animal science in college. When looking at her career options, the adventurer wanted to be outdoors and physically active as often as she could.

“Working outside is a big, big factor in my choice of occupation,” she explained.

She first felt the itch to try out firefighting when working for the American Conservation Experience in Utah. A forest service fuel crew camped alongside

In a 1979 photograph captured at the moment Martinsen received the Levorsen Award for best presentation, the emerging geologist appears with a soft yet defiant smile. Purpose and pride fill her expectant eyes, directed at the plaque held up with both her hands. • • •

Sitting wells was Martinsen’s happy place. She described the chorus of sounds that emerged from the ground whenever the drill string soared through porous, permeable rock hungry for oil.

Five years into working at Cities, Martinsen fell in love with Jim Steidtmann, a University of Wyoming geology professor.

“He really, strongly supported me,” she said.

Following months of arduous com-

Fire Crew

her team for eight days. After seeing what their jobs entailed, she was hooked. Eventually, she started taking fire classes online and looking for job opportunities.

When it comes to Montana Conservation Corp’s training program, Shelby was drawn to its strong emphasis on leadership development. She spent three months before the launch of the program in leadership training.

Shelby anticipates continuing to fight fires for the foreseeable future and is on the hunt for jobs. But for the long term, Shelby may look beyond muting across state lines between Denver and Laramie to stay in one another’s lives, Martinsen relocated to Wyoming and began work as a consultant, eventually teaching at the university too.

Martinsen applied the same zeal she had for geology to her family, balancing the demands of raising children with her career.

“My proudest accomplishments are my children,” the mother of three said.

Martinsen’s sentences picked up speed as she described the sheer joy of regularly riding horses as a family through the open landscapes of Wyoming. In the winter, Martinsen and her husband would cradle the children between their legs as the family zig-zagged down snow-capped mountains on skis.

“We did a lot of things together as a family, and everything just seemed to work,” she said.

The youngest, Matt Steidtmann, 33, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT fire. The reason comes down to the work culture.

“What’s interesting about Montana Conservation Corp and Bureau of Land Management partnership is that (the program) really strongly values communication and feedback,” she noted. “There are not many employers that I’ve had that value that. I want to find a workplace that does value that and where people are open to feedback, change and growth as individuals.”

In contrast, the firefighting world can be what Shelby called, “rigid.”

“People have the mentality of, ‘Yup, that’s the way it is. Deal with it,’” she added. “That’s why I don’t think longterm that would be the most beneficial or healthy, at least for me personally.” entered geology just like his parents and works at a Denver-based independent oil and gas company.

“She is one of the most passionate people,” Matt said of his mother. “She genuinely and truly loves what she does and instills that in the people around her. Definitely don’t get me wrong, I enjoy what I do, but I don’t think I’ll ever love it as much as she does.”

***

Teaching at the university never lived up to the thrill of being constantly out in the oil and gas fields, Martinsen admitted. But she harbors no regrets about making the switch to academia.

“I’m eternally grateful that I had that opportunity because it allowed me to grow and raise children, which a lot of women of my generation had to make a choice either or,” she said.

The oil industry also experienced a downturn in the 1980s, just as Martinsen

Connolly

From 17

“You don’t think about this stuff, you don’t analyze it,” she says now. “You consciously don’t pee (to avoid a third-floor bathroom), you recognize that some of the girls that you go to class with are having an affair with a teacher, you just see things around you. It was the height of the hippie movement, to see what the future could be, a future that would be more collective and you wouldn’t need to worry about making ends meet if everybody shared more.”

“Collectivism, as opposed to individualism and money, right?” she continues. Her voice can be quiet and deadly serious one minute, energetic and quick the next. She frequently uses “right” as punctuation. “As a kid, I juxtaposed them. I went here rather than there.”

That desire for collectivism followed her into college, where she says she bounced around undergraduate programs for 10 years and had semesters with straight F’s. She spent some time studying to be an environmentalist, until “I recognized that what I was being trained to do was work for the logging industry.” She worked on energy issues and studied the labor movement.

She lived a collectivist life. For years in the 1980s, she stayed in a red Victorian-style house on St. John’s Place in Buffalo, New York. More than half a dozen people lived there with her. The group shared the various duties of the home, specifically eschewing gender roles. All made the professional switch.

“I’ve had a fabulous career. I’ve been very, very fortunate,” she said. “I had fantastic mentors; they were all men. But they taught me, encouraged me and promoted me. I know other women in my generation had some substantial difficulties.”

But in her mind, the field of petroleum geology has some work to do if it wants to achieve gender parity.

Companies could provide paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers, she said. And more flexibility is needed to allow working mothers to continue advancing their careers while raising families.

“I saw (being a woman) as a double-edged sword,” she said. “I was being more closely watched than the average male and I would say females in general. So if I didn’t perform quite right, it would get more attention. And if I did perform

Hannah Zamorski performs chainsaw maintenance as Patty Derner looks on

well, it got more attention.” were expected to cook, clean, wash the dishes and help remodel the old building.

“We were living our politics,” says Laura Grube, who lived with Connolly in the St. John’s residence.

Grube remembers how the group at St. John’s would stay up late, sitting around the old oak kitchen table that the owners had picked up secondhand. The residents, all of whom were active in various progressive political movements, would talk politics over a box of donuts.

Bill Nowak lived in the house too, and he first met Connolly at a food co-op where they both worked. The two worked on efforts in the 1980s to place control of the public power utility in the hands of Buffalo residents.

“She was a person who took her responsibilities seriously,” Nowak says. “She was a person who was doing things for the right reasons. She was a person who was respected. Sometimes when people get respect, they get egos. Cathy never got an ego. ... She maintained a focus on why she was doing what she was doing.”

Nowak’s son was born in that house, in one of the upstairs rooms. Nowak remembers the residents crowding around the living room TV every weekend to watch “Saturday Night Live.” He remembers Connolly working in a collective vegetarian restaurant, where — like the house — all the duties were shared, and how the staff would have Breyers ice cream after shifts.

Grube and Nowak both remember Connolly leaving for Wyoming in 1992 and being a bit worried for her. By that time, Connolly had earned both a law