• Format
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Text
• Extent
  • Duration: 10 pages (transcript)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_MPML_Singleton_Pittman_2017-05-18_transcript

Paul Pittman 1 Interviewer: Skyler Singleton Interviewee: Paul Pittman Interview Date: May 18, 2017 Location: Jackson County, NC Length: 41:38 Skyler Singleton: Well thank you so much for being here! Paul Pittman: Yeah no problem- SS: Thank you so much! We have to do a little disclaimer here, we have to do the little disclaimer thing first. So uh, you’ve read the release form, and that I need oral consent from you for the recording. So you are aware that you are being recorded, and that this recording will be made available to Appalachian Oral History. PP: I am. SS: Alright. Great. Good to know. (laughter) So, your name is Paul Pittman. PP: Correct. SS: Glad we have the right person (laughter). This could have been bad. Okay, so when were you born? PP: March 21, 1989. SS: Alright. Uh, where were you born? PP: Born in Sylva, but that’s because Macon county didn’t have a baby doctor, so… (laughter). I was born over here. SS: (laughter) Alright, so what were your parent’s names? PP: Mary Walter Pittman and Phillip Olan Pittman. SS: So what did they do? PP: Mom was a guidance counselor for the school system, and dad was a janitor at First United Methodist Church. SS: So, did anything you did when you were growing up kinda influence you to take this path in life? PP: Um, we grew up in the boonies of Macon county so we were always in the woods, but I guess that was just the major thing. In high school I thought that I was kinda gonna go to school for computers or something, but that kind of took a sharp turn. I don’t really know why, but when I went to college I went for forestry, so. I don’t know why. SS: So, you majored in forestry in college? PP: Well, natural resource conservation and management, with a concentration in forestry. It’s a mouthful. But long story short, forestry. SS: So long story short, forestry. PP: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Paul Pittman 2 SS: Where did you get that degree from? PP: Western. SS: Western, okay. Good, good choice! (laughter) PP: Yeah. SS: So when did you join the forest service after college? PP: Um after college I officially joined in, let’s see… March of ’13, I think? I started part time as a smoke chaser. But all throughout college I did pick up firefighting through the state forest service so… but they hired me on part time, kinda. I was officially hired on part time in March of 2013. SS: Nice, nice. Uh, so what made you want to join the forest service? PP: Uh, fire really. I went to school for forestry, and I liked doing forestry, but if you get sucked into fire it kinda grabs a hold of you. I guess that’s what really pulled me into the forest service rather than any other field. SS: Just to backtrack real quick, can you describe what a smoke chaser is? PP: They’re part-time temporary… well they’re full-time throughout the week, but they’re part time summer. Most are 8 months. Single man counties that only have one full-time employee like Swain and Clay, they can be 11 month. It’s just a full time 8 month position. SS: So what did you do in that position? PP: Uh, in that position your kind of a general utility worker. If you’re not fighting fire, you’re cleaning the office. Anything they ask you, you kinda do. SS: So a glorified intern type thing? PP: Yeah, pretty much yeah. Whatever the county ranger doesn’t feel like doing. As you can see, my smoke detector quit, that’s why the trash isn’t emptied. SS: (laughter) Well that’s as good of a sign as any! So what does the traditional history and patterns of fire look like here in North Carolina? PP: It fluctuates. If you go back historically, they say the time of the Indians I guess or Native Americans, that every acre burned 3-5 years in rotation. Well that all changed when Smoky the Bear came, because it was all about extinguishing them and shutting them down. But historically around here we have a short fall fire season, and spring is our big fire season. So it’s generally once the leaves fall, we have a short fall fire season. And then from mid-March, sometimes early March, until things green up at the end of May, we have our main fire season. SS: Why is that the main fire season? PP: It’s just temperatures are getting hotter, humidity is still low, and before it greens up there’s no moisture in the fields and that’s when the fires burn a little more extreme. SS: Interesting, that’s cool. So um, this past year in the fall of 2016, we had a big increase in forest fires. So what were the circumstances that led up to that increase? Paul Pittman 3 PP: What led up to it was an extreme drought. The rain just shut off in the middle of the summer pretty much. And I don’t know exactly when we were placed in the extreme drought condition, but that’s kinda what started it. SS: What are some of the factors that lead to helping forest fires spreading? Both small ground fires and big ones. PP: Right. So the reason the fall was kinda different than normal fall fire season was that the fine fuels, the leaves and the small twigs, that’s what carries a fire across a landscape. Well these fires were also burning deep into the ground. So the dump was dry, all that organic material until you got to mineral dirt, which sometimes could be a foot, a foot and a half. So the fires weren’t just burning across the landscape, they were also burning down in it. That’s what made them a little bit harder to control. SS: So can you kind of describe what the timeline is of those forest fires that kind of started with the drought beginning in the summer of 2016 into kind of the end of fall of 2016 kinda looks like? PP: Uh, I can’t remember the dates but I can get a calendar and look. I think October 23rd is when we kinda started the show with Dick’s Creek. That was the first one besides the little occasional fire, that was the one that grabbed everyone’s attention. And it took a week to get that one kind of contained, and that’s when Macon county started getting so many. And Dick’s Creek and Clay county had theirs, the Boteler fire, and then Macon county just started going crazy. SS: Why was Dick’s Creek a unique fire compared to the other ones you have dealt with before? PP: Um, location. It was just hard to get to, there was no good way to get in there. It’s just rough ground. It started on federal land, up high on the mountain, and at the base of the mountain was private land. So we kinda had to work with the feds which normally doesn’t happen, usually they’re with us. This year was just a hard location to get to, to get resources in to the fire, it was just kind of a nasty piece of ground. SS: Um so I want to make sure this number is correct, but over 119,000 acres burned last year, correct? PP: (laughter) That sounds about right. I don’t know, it was a lot. I could probably track that number down. It’s a lot. SS: Yes. So, what kind of contributed to that number being so drastic? PP: To why so many acres burned? SS: Mmhmm. PP: If you look at where these fires were, the main large fires, they’re remote locations. Rough ground like Dick’s Creek and Boteler. Where they started it was just awful ground. Instead of risking lives and risking safety to go in there, to put control lines around them that may or may not have helped, they kinda look big picture. Like there were no houses in danger or immediately threatened, so where can we hold this, this fire? Really there’s no difference between a 10 acre fire out in the middle of nowhere turning into a 100 acre fire if it’s not going to hurt anything. So they kinda look at where they can use existing control lines such as roads, rivers, anything like that and then kinda go big-box picture. SS: When those choices were made, were they made um as kind of a collaboration effort between both you guys who were in charge and everyone you brought in to help- say, public lands, private lands, or federal lands, was that a group collaboration for you all to make that decision? Paul Pittman 4 PP: Generally, as it normally happens, it’s a joint command system. But these were kind of unique because they brought in a type 1 incident management team, which is the same management team that they use for the large fires out West. And it’s kinda a different mindset. So they came in here and took over, most of the big fires were on federal land or at least started. So they took control over them. But after they came in, and we kinda fell back or at least the county personnel kinda fell back to initial tag rule. If anything else started, we’d hit it first, and then go from there. They made the big decisions once they came in, generally, with input from us. The guy over the district, my district forester, district ranger, they’d go to the briefings, throw in their two cents, work together with them. But at that point in time, the federal team was really in command of those big fires. SS: Interesting. PP: Which Dick’s Creek wasn’t that way. They weren’t in there yet when it started so it was a joint between and the local firefighters who were working. SS: So some of the fires burned for over a month and were only partially contained during that time. Is the reason that those were so hard to contain because they were so far in the backcountry or because there were so many that were occurring? PP: Generally, that containment, basically you wouldn’t put it at 100% contained until it rained. And Dick’s Creek is the perfect example. We had the fire contained, we’ll call it 98% contained, but this fall firefighting season started before the leaves fell. So we put in control lines, we had a scout plane flying over the district, noticed the smoke on Dick’s Creek, and by the time I got up there you couldn’t even see the dozer lines because of all the leaf-fall. That’s kind of why they never called it 100% contained, because any little thing could happen. And when you say a fire is contained, you’re saying you’re 100% sure it’s not going to leave that box. So that’s kind of why it took so long to for them to- SS: For them to call it 100%. PP: Basically. SS: Interesting. PP: You can’t call it until it rains. SS: So what is kind of the environmental impact of these fires, specifically on the region that we live in? PP: It’s kind of hard to say long term. Generally, these fires started at the top. Fires that back down the mountain are not as extreme and don’t move as fast, which is the same concept we do when we do a prescribed burn, which is a real helpful management tool for the forest. Now since we were in an extreme drought I don’t know if that fire maybe damaged those trees because they were already stressed, we’ll just have to find out. I would imagine that except where the fires got real extreme and made some real strong runs uphill, that killed some trees for sure, but I imagine, at least in my opinion, that all of those backwoods fires were maybe helpful, taking away some of the underbrush, removing some of the fuels. Just kinda cleaning up the forest. That’s just my opinion and I’m no scientist, so. SS: So what is the difference between a fire that is started by natural causes and a fire that is started kind of through human means like arson? PP: Generally, not much. Around here, I don’t know how much but I would guess 90% of the fires are caused by man. Not necessarily arson, but people burning brush. I guess you could say the power lines are man-made fires. Naturally, we don’t have a lot of lightning fires or lightning strikes because when we get lightning… well out West, they get dry lightning whereas here if we are getting lightning, generally Paul Pittman 5 we are getting rain with it. So generally we don’t have that much natural… I mean occasionally we will have lightning strikes, but most fires are man caused by some form or fashion. SS: So would you say that the fires last fall, the majority of them, were they man-caused? PP: Oh yeah. Definitely. SS: How can you identify that? Once a fire has started, how can you tell if it was natural or man-made? PP: Um, they’ve done a lot of research into that, wild land origin and cause determination. And we have some law enforcement guys that are really trained in that and we get a little bit of training, and if a fire burns normally, as it would, it’ll leave indicators as to where it came from. And a lot of times, the fire will burn in a V. So if you step back and see the pattern, a lot of times it’ll point to right where it came from. Not every time, but in some cases. But it will always leave indications as to which direction it came from. Those guys who are really trained can go to a fire a day or two after its burned and really close, maybe the size of this table where it started, maybe the size of this room, and then at least that’s where they focus their attention as to whether it’s any kind of arson sets or anything like that. SS: Um, there were reports during all these fires that some of them were caused by arson. Is that true or is that just kind of public paranoia? PP: Uh I think they caught someone in Macon county that admitted to a few of those fires but for the most part here, I don’t think they ever… Dick’s Creek, I don’t know if it was arson or not because it was the first one so there wasn’t a lot of investigation into it. But I think someone has admitted to some of those in Macon county. How many, I don’t know. SS: Would you say that you noticed that people became more concerned with the idea that the fact that some of these fires may have been caused by arson as kind of following the timeline progressed? PP: Yeah. I try to stay off social media- SS: Good call! (laughter) PP: Everyone’s an expert and at that point in time it seemed to be all that people was talking about, and everyone’s an expert on there so they knew, or had heard, or had seen, well maybe not seen but that’s what people were expecting. SS: So would you then suggest that for others, either possibly in the future or advice for people who might be going through this experience unfortunately later on that if someone says “it was arson” do you suggest to not pay attention to it or would you give them another piece of advice? PP: If someone said it was arson and hinted that they knew something I would turn it over to the law enforcement guys on our side, because any lead is a good lead. It’s hard to prove that someone set a forest fire. They either have to admit to it or you have to have it on camera. It’s hard for them to prove it. That social media is a good thing but it’s also a bad thing because you have Dick’s Creek, which was right in the middle of everything. It’s right off the four-lane in Dillsboro. Someone sees that and goes “well, fires are burning.” So people are talking about fires and everyone’s aware that obviously fires are burning extreme where you get those few cases of someone saying “well fires are burning” and I think that kinda helped spark the spread of them, although I have no proof of that. SS: Yeah, that makes sense. Um so how did the fires affect our surrounding area? Paul Pittman 6 PP: While they were going on it was smoky. Every county, every cove, everywhere was smoky. It made people more aware. And it takes that, years where it just rains every two days and people forget about wildfires, and then something like this past fall happens. It helps people remember what can happen and uh I don’t know if it affected it negatively or positively, I just don’t know. I guess we’ll wait and see. SS: So who was fighting the fires? PP: Um well at the beginning of it, like I said it’s kind of a joint thing, if it’s in a certain amount of distance from the U.S. Forest Service they come and help us, and vice versa. If it’s on U.S. Forest Service but it’s a certain distance from private, we come in and help them. But us and the county are initial attack and we get help through our district if we need more resources. The U.S. is kind of the same way, they have initial attack guys. Per county, the county ranger, the assistant, and the smoke chaser are your ones out there fighting the fires. The U.S., it’s just whoever they bring. SS: What were the best methods you used for fighting fires? PP: This past fall? SS: This past fall, but also just in general. PP: In general, in fall, in normal fall fire seasons, generally a leaf blower line will hold it. In the first few inches of leaves, there’s still a lot of moisture, and that wasn’t the case this fall. I mean an acre, two acre fires that we would normally use hand tools and leaf blowers and things like that to put in control lines, we couldn’t do it. It was burning so deep we were using a dozer, just because it was so deep. Instead of spending our time and resources and breaking our backs on an acre fire digging a control line three feet wide and a foot deep, we just get the dozer and push it and be done with it. But generally, fires on the mountains, it’s kind of like a snake, you cut the head off. That’s where the fire’s going to be burning the quickest and the hottest. You cut the head off, and then you go around it. Dig down to mineral soil all the way around, and that’s how you kind of contain it. SS: So what are the worst ways, either that people attempt to fight fires or that you’ve seen people try to fight fires with? PP: The worst ways? Um, people who just aren’t trained. You have people who are burning brush and they’re the reason the fire got out and they feel like they need to be out there helping and really that’s just more of a headache for us because then you have someone in the woods who isn’t wearing the proper gear and doesn’t know the proper tactics or anything like that. So its um, I haven’t really seen any… I mean that’s what we are trained to do, that’s what the U.S. is trained to do, I haven’t really seen much on our end, as far as bad tactics or anything. You know sometimes lines could be placed a little bit better, instead of putting it here you could’ve put it there, that happens a lot in the dark. You’ll spend all night digging a line to come back in the morning and find out that there was a road bed ten feet away from you. There’s not many bad ways though. SS: Alright, so what are some of the measures that are in place for preventing forest fires? PP: Uh we do a lot of fire prevention, it’s called “Information and Education” programs. We go to elementary schools and do Smoky the Bear programs and go to the more grown up kids in middle school and high school and do more formal presentations. We are a part of a lot of county stuff, like Greening Up the Mountains or anything like that, we put up booths. We try to make sure people don’t forget, especially in those years where it is wet, fires can still happen and we’re still here. Just like this spring, it’s rained every two days and then we’ll have a day or two of sun and wind, and you can have a fire. We Paul Pittman 7 haven’t had many this spring, but it can still happen. We just try to stay involved with the public and in the public’s eyes and make sure they know things can still burn. SS: Right (laughter). So how does the forest service usually regulate fires? PP: How do we usually regulate them? SS: Yeah. PP: Um, generally the process is someone will call into 911 and then they page whatever volunteer firefighting district it’s in, and then they page us, it’s not always a forest fire. Especially after this fall, anytime anybody sees smoke they think the woods are burning down (laughter). So they call us and we show up and it’s in state law that we take control on private land where the incident commander or outside fire so we work together whether it’s the U.S. Forest Service or the EFD’s,(?) any cooperators we just kind of work together. If we have fires on the parkway we call the park service or anything like that and we work together until we can kind of figure it out and get it out. SS: So since you do really only have a handful of forest service staff, what do you do to get the manpower that will help you contain fires? PP: Depending on the way… our ops get sent out every morning, it’s called a readiness plan, and it’s a number between one and five and that kind of gives us an idea of fire danger for the day. Three and up we can call in extra hands, pick up firefighters, which is what I did when I went to Western, we can call them in and get a little bit more help. If we get on a fire, we kinda get a size up. What we’ve got, what we think we need, and can we handle what we’ve got. If we need something else, we relay through our ops office and they get us what we need, whether it be dozers, manpower, helicopters, whatever. We don’t always get it, we only have one helicopter for all of Western North Carolina so… SS: Oh my. PP: At least we ask for them. Whether or not we get it, we’ll find out. But generally most stuff- dozers, manpower- we run it through the ops officer and they give us what we need. SS: Can you describe what it is like working on these fires? PP: The first little bit, the first ten minutes, is chaotic, if it’s a good fire. And even if it’s not a good fire it’s pretty chaotic. The pager goes off, and we’re here eating lunch, but the pager goes off. Next thing you know we’re driving down the four lane headed to wherever. We’re trying to listen to who’s talking on the radio, what dispatch is saying, and trying to get a good idea of what’s happening before you get there. And you get there and it’s just chaos until you can get there and kind of organize things. What exactly is going on, are houses around, what do we have and what we need? It’s kind of like a game of chess, that’s kind of the way I put it, but my assistant makes fun of me for that (laughter). You have to predict what it’s going to do and what you need to control it. It’s pretty chaotic but once you get things in place and start working it calms down. But then on the environmental side, you’re in the heat, the spring is our worst fire season so it’s 80-degree weather, you’re in the beating sun, winds could be blowing like crazy. There’s smoke, anything like that- it’s pretty nasty. You don’t always come home smelling the best. SS: (laughter) sounds like it! So do you only work on fires that are within or close to Jackson County, or do you help out with others that are not in Jackson County? PP: Generally, we are initial attack for Jackson County but if we don’t have anything going on, we can go out and help the other counties. Or help the state if… while the fall fire season was going on, guys down Paul Pittman 8 East they weren’t really having anything, so they came and helped us, and we would repay the favor when they had big fires on the coast, we go down and help them. This fall I didn’t go anywhere, but I sent my smoke chaser at the time up to Clay county for two weeks. And just this past month, I went to McDowell County on that Dobson Knob fire. So it kinda just depends. At this moment, we got two guys down in Georgia on that West Mims fire. You worry about your county and the state first, and then you go from there. SS: What is it like shuffling around personnel like that? PP: A headache! (laughter) So we had Dick’s Creek going on, I basically lost my third hand for two weeks. They needed help over there, so it was kinda up for me to decide well, should I send him or keep him here to help us? It can be a headache. But it’s also fun if you get to go somewhere else, you kinda get to get away for a little bit. SS: So what was the local reaction to the fires last fall? PP: Um, from my perspective, like I said I stayed off Facebook, I don’t know what was on there. But from my perspective, Jackson County was amazing. The federal team wasn’t… they have an obligation… when you go out West, or you go to any fires run by a federal team, they have an obligation to feed you so many calories per day, have everything there that you need. The locals… they were actually turning people away with food and equipment and supplies and stuff. And the locals here in Jackson County… they brought us cases upon cases of water, toothbrushes, socks, food, anything like that. I’ve never seen that. I’ve worked in Macon and Clay county and I’ve never seen any reaction like that, they were real supportive and real helpful. SS: Did you ever experience the flip side to that? Did you ever experience any negative reactions from the community? PP: During that time, no. If someone’s house was real smoked in, and people have breathing problems or something, that’s always an issue. They’re never excited about that, but they know we’re there doing our jobs. It was never any kind of negative thing like that. SS: Yeah. So I was actually directly affected by the fires that were in the Nantahala Gorge, we have a house out there, and we kind of had to leave our home, get all our valuable possessions out. And it was fairly close, I don’t remember which one it was, but it was one that merged… this whole fiasco with it- PP: The Fairview fire? SS: Yeah the Fairview fire, that’s what it was. I just remembered it was named after a put in on the river. So that’s my personal story from it, but were there any other stories from people who were directly affected by the fires, from people who came up and told you or that were particularly moving to you? PP: Um… I haven’t heard much. And I think that’s because Dick’s Creek was our main fire, and that was it. So after we got Dick’s Creek handled, we didn’t really have any other big fires. Macon County, and Swain, and all that with the Fairview fire, they were really burning down. So they probably know some more personal stories. But it is always nice if you light a backfire around someone’s house to burn out so that the main fire won’t get there, they’re always appreciative. If that makes sense, putting fire right beside a house to protect it. That’s how they do it mostly. I mean we’d get letters, cards from kids, all that. It feels good, knowing that people appreciate what you do out there. I don’t know any just one story but- SS: The overall reaction and appreciation is enough. Paul Pittman 9 PP: Yeah. SS: Certainly. So after the fires that occurred last fall, are there any other preventative measures that you will be taking that will hopefully stop another season like that from occurring again? PP: Um, well we’ve done a little more mitigation work and people are a little more open to that, the prescribed burning. Any kind of fuel reduction type of stuff, people are real big on that right now because it’s in the back of their minds. So we’ve been doing a lot more of that. The state has been working on some more programs and stuff like that… there’s these communities called “Fire Wise” communities and they’re trying to promote that. We have one in Jackson, and its Bradley Branch I think is the community. There was a bad fire there where we actually burnt up a truck, but it is a community that’s fire wise. They know about fires, they keep fuel away from the house, they don’t plant any trees or any non-native species that might be fire receptive. So they’re a community built around wildfires and being safer around wildfires. The state has been pushing stuff like that, and that’s actually a federal program. But uh, we’re connected with it. SS: So do you hope to expand that program to other communities? PP: I’d like to. But it’s hard, because most housing developments are part-time residents, and everyone has to be on board. So it’s hard to get everyone if they’re in Florida or… it’s a hard thing to do, but it’s a good thing to do too. SS: Yes. PP: I’d like to expand it if possible. SS: It sounds like a really great program, it’s really incredible. Kind of just over the past calendar year, with kind of both the fires and the community reaction to the fires and the awareness that this could potentially be another problem again, has the work that you’re doing changed with it? PP: For the most part, no. It hasn’t changed that much, we’ve kind of just carried on as we always have. We’ve always done fuel reduction stuff, prescribed burn and anything like that and um we’ve just carried on normally. Hopefully we might get some more money to help out, or more positions to help out. But whether we do, I don’t know. We’ve just kind of carried on as is. SS: You would say then that the biggest change has been awareness? PP: Yeah, yeah definitely. And I mean we were expecting a bad spring, but we just haven’t had it so… you just kinda play the hand you’re dealt I guess. There’s outlooks saying the fire season is going to be more extreme, longer lasting, dryer, hotter. Whether that’s the case, I guess we’ll find out. SS: Is that for like for everywhere, or just here? PP: Everywhere. If you look at global warming, kinda how it’s going to be hotter and dryer, obviously that’s going to increase- well I wouldn’t say increase- fires burning when its hotter and dryer. And whether that’s the case, I don’t know. A lot of those outlooks I take with a grain of salt. They expected the spring to be real bad and it wasn’t so we’ll just kinda wait and see what happens. So the spring hasn’t at all been like what was predicted for you? PP: No, they were predicting pretty much… and we’re still in a drought, but we’re getting just enough rain to where the fuels that carry the fires are moist enough to catch. We’ve had fires but… I don’t even know if we’ve had one over and acre. So… at least in Jackson County. We’re still in a drought, but the Paul Pittman 10 fuels are getting enough rain to keep everything in check. The fires we have had have been power line fires. SS: Um so what do you kind of picture the future of forest fires in Western North Carolina looking like now? PP: Uh, I’d say probably about the same. It’s kind of a cycle. We go through two or three years of rain and have the occasional fire here and there, and then it’ll dry up. Whether it be spring or fall, we’ll get a year or two of drought. I think the last one was in 2007, that was the last extreme drought. So it’s kind of a cycle. They link it to El Nino, La Nina type of thing. El Nino comes through and we get a lot of rain, and then La Nina comes through and we dry out. That’s kind of where we’re at, the hotter and the dryer. That’s what was happening this past fall. So it’s just a rollercoaster, and I kind of expect it to stay the same. SS: Do you think that climate change will possibly break that cycle in any way? PP: Ahh… I have no clue. I mean we live in a deciduous rainforest pretty much, so obviously we’re going to get rain (laughter). And obviously there will be months where we don’t get rain. It just kind of lines up. You know maybe the summer will be dry, but the fall we’ll get rain, and we’ll be dry again in the spring, I mean you never really know. Or I don’t know at least. Maybe someone does. Someone smarter than me (laughter). I expect it to be kind of normal. Wet, wet, wet, dry, dry, dry, wet… just back and forth. SS: So would you tell people to just in general prepare for that and to- well always being aware of forest fires- but at the same time not always quite overreacting when they see a campfire break out. PP: Yeah, yeah. If I had to tell people anything, it would just be smart burning. I mean that’s how most of our fires start. You’re burning your brush pile and the wind starts picking up in the afternoon and carries and ember off into the woods. That would be the best way to educate people. But, you don’t have to overreact every time you see a puff of smoke (laughter). It’s not always a bad thing. I don’t know. We’ll see. If 90% of our fires are man-caused than obviously there’s room for improvement, for reducing the amount of wildfires we have. But like I said, people just forget. We haven’t had any fires all spring, so people are thinking “oh I’ll light that brush pile” and then there you are. It’s kind of a weird situation. SS: Well I don’t really have any more questions, so is there something else you’d like to add? PP: I don’t think so. I just appreciate you coming by and talking to me. I don’t have anything to add much unless you have anything. SS: I probably will as soon as I drive away, I’ll be like “drat! Why didn’t I ask that?” but oh well (laughter). Alright I’m going to end the recording now.

Paul Pittman is interviewed by a Smoky Mountain High School student as a part of Mountain People, Mountain Lives: A Student Led Oral History Project. Pittman works for the North Carolina Forest Service in Jackson County. They discuss firefighting in general as well as Western North Carolina’s 2016 autumn fire season which was particularly bad and included the Boteler Fire, the Dick’s Creek fire, the Fairview fire, and more.

• Creator
  • Pittman, Paul, 1989-
• Contributor
  • Singleton, Skyler
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
• Date
  • Date interview: 2017-05-18;
  • Date: 2000s (Decade); 2010s;
  • Date digitized: 2018-02-06
• Extent
  • Duration: 0:41:37 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 10 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • Forest fires
  • Forest fires -- Prevention and control
  • Forest management
  • Forest rangers -- Interviews
  • Forests and forestry -- Fire management
  • North Carolina. Forest Service
  • Pittman, Paul, 1989- -- Interviews
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • North Carolina, Western
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - Mountain People, Mountain Lives
• Identifier
  • HL_MPML_Singleton_Pittman_2017-05-18_audio
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library