Gifts

Through the six fire seasons I've been supporting BAER (Burned Area Emergency Response) teams, I've interacted with a lot of people. I've dealt with a plethora of field personnel, academia, interagency professionals, and researchers. I've attempted to provide good service to them. Occasionally, some of these people send their thanks in ways besides words.

1. Someone at the U. of Montana in Missoula was seeking a bunch of data from me. These data weren't easily extracted or delivered, so it took some effort on my part. This person recognized the work I was putting into their request. They asked how they could repay my efforts. "Oh, I like cookies..." I jokingly replied. A few days later, I got to work and found a basket full of cookies, delivered by a local florist / cookie joint. The person at the university seriously sent cookies. I really should request those more often.

2. I was trying to map a bunch of fires on the Clearwater NF during late summer 2003. We were having tons of problems with clouds and smoke in our imagery. After a few week effort of getting data, we finally got 'em all mapped. I got a package in the mail a few weeks later with, ironically enough, a waterproof match holder / lighter. It was marked with the following words: "Clearwater National Forest: Born of Fire." Along with this gift came a letter of appreciation.

3. Northern California lit up like a ... well ... wildfire last June. I mapped about 40 (large) fires in California last year alone. The Plumas NF in particular was hit with some ornery fires that were driving the FS folks crazy. I mapped each of their fires more than once in an effort to provide intermediate data so they could at least start on their field assessment while part of the fire was still burning. A few weeks later I got a package with a 12" long sugar pine cone. This wasn't your typical cone you'd see on any trees out here. It's enormous and was still dripping with sap. Yummy.

4. I traveled to Duluth, MN, this winter to give a report on my work on fires in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). I gave a 30 minute talk to about 115 people, most of which were mostly Superior NF employees. About a month later, I got a package in the mail with a letter of appreciation and a coffee-table book called Chased by the Light by Jim Brandenburg. Sweet mother.

5. Finally (and this is probably my favorite ... you'll see why), Australia had a pretty significant fire season this year. Many people died and nearly 800,000 acres burned in a crazy month down under. The US Government sent over 3 BAER teams (of 30 people each) to help in their emergency assessments. This was essentially a "who's who" of BAER personnel -- or really an All-Star team. I'd worked with most of them over the last 5 years, so they called me for remote sensing support. It was decided that the USGS would support this effort (I'm assuming since I mapped the Greek fires in 2007), so I referred these folks to my Dept. of Interior counterpart. A month later, I got a visit from one of the returning BAER team members who is based out of Utah and he delivered two golf shirts that said "BAER Down Under 2009." I told the guy, "But I didn't actually do anything for these fires. I was just a casual observer." He said, "We don't care." The second golf shirt was for the guy who actually did the work and I had to mail it to him.


This was probably favorite, not because of the gift itself, but because I didn't have to do anything to get it!

Gifts aren't expected and are really just a nice token of appreciation from the field folks. I'm totally diggin' it.