How working on a hotshot crew helped saved this writer's life

River Selby had a tough time in their teenage years. They grew up in what they describe as a chaotic environment and struggled with addiction.

They worked odd jobs, including as a stripper — basically doing whatever work they could get. And then, a friend who’d worked on a contract firefighting crew suggested Selby try it. The path to finding direction, though, was not a straight one.

"It was a roundabout process. I actually, when I was 19, I had dropped out of community college. I was living in Eugene, Oregon. I was a mess as a human being," Selby said.

But, Selby says, that started to change once they decided to give wildland fire fighting a chance. They tell that story in their first book, out earlier this year, called "Hotshot: A Life on Fire."

Full conversation

RIVER SELBY: I was definitely not the typical person to do it, but I would try anything. So, I went to the compound for the contractor and filled out the application, went to all the classes, did the day of training, and my boss later told me he was sure I was not going to come back the next day after our field training because I was not having an easy time. I did come back, and I ended up really loving the job.

MARK BRODIE: What did you love about it?

SELBY: Like I said, I grew up in a really chaotic environment. I moved often, sometimes several times a year. I lived with a single mom, and when I didn't live with her, I lived with my grandparents. And, so, I didn't have structure, and wildland firefighting gave me structure. I knew when I was expected to wake up in the morning, I knew what was expected of me. I knew that if I worked as hard as I could that I would gain some sort of respect.

And I loved being outside. I had always loved being outside; grew up in the Pacific Northwest. I just love being out there. And also, especially on the contract crew, it was just very diverse people that I worked with.

BRODIE: So what was it like for you as a hotshot? Because, as you say, that's an elite firefighting crew. Also, it's a pretty dangerous job.

SELBY: Yeah. So, I worked on three different hotshot crews, and I feel grateful that I worked on three different crews because each hotshot crew is its own culture. My first hotshot crew, I came on and I — they hadn't had — I identify as nonbinary now, but I did not back then. So, I came on as the first woman that they had had in years.

And, it was kind of a joke that they said I was hired because of affirmative action. There was a lot going on on that crew that was very uncomfortable for me and was difficult. But physically, the job was so much more demanding than being on the contract crew because you're working with the same 18 to 22 people for six months. And, you know, my first year, 16-hour days, 14 to 21 days in a row, depending; two to three days off maybe, and then right back out.

It was just a very physically and mentally intense environment to be in, and that was challenging. And then the other two crews that I worked on were easier for me because the culture was more welcoming to women. And, I also — both of those crews — I wasn't the only one, there were two women on the crew.

BRODIE: When you have that kind of job with that kind of schedule, with those kinds of demands, is it possible, like, do you have time — did you have time to really process, either just by yourself or with your crewmates there, some of the difficulties that you had, especially early on of being the only female on an all-male crew? Or later on, you know, there were a few women, but still male dominated.

Like, was it possible to process that, either yourself or with your crewmates, and talk about things that were difficult or things that maybe were said that were not ok with you, things like that, or was it just work, work, work all the time and deal with that stuff later?

SELBY: In my experience — and, you know, keep in mind that this is in the 2000s, although I don't think things have changed much from what I've heard. Hotshot culture, again, is very similar to military culture; very similar to Marine, Navy Seal, like high — I don't even know what to call it — the more macho military culture, where you don't complain about things, you don't talk about your feelings, you do your work.

And, really, as a woman in that environment, there are a couple of choices. You can either assimilate and act like a man, or you can say something about the things that make you uncomfortable and face whatever backlash you're going to get for that. On some crews, you're not going to get any backlash. On other crews, you are going to get a lot of backlash.

And I left my first crew because I wasn't able to be accepted in having my boundaries as a person on that crew.

BRODIE: So how have you taken what you learned as a firefighter, as a hotshot, into your post-wildland firefighting career?

SELBY: Well, so I left fire in 2010 at the end of — my last season was in Alaska, and I left and I really wanted to go back to school and be a writer. And I went to community college, finished that, and then went to Syracuse University. They gave me some scholarships and I realized that I had an incredible work ethic, and that is something that I took from wildland firefighting.

I'm so grateful for the work ethic that I learned as a wildland firefighter, because I really did learn that I was capable of so much more than I thought I was. And so much of it, even the physical things, so much of it was mental and about what I thought I could do.

And if I could kind of get past these mental blocks I had of, "I can't do this or I can't do that," then literally, I could do anything I set my mind to.

And truly, like, when I left fire, I said, "I want to be a writer. I want to write books. That's what I want." And I didn't have a college degree. Neither of my parents graduated from high school. My dad didn't graduate from middle school. Like, that was not something that I had grown up thinking I could do. And now, I'm getting my first book published.

BRODIE: I mean, it sounds like that, like, had you not joined the firefighting crews to begin with, like, safe to say that you would not have discovered that about yourself, or if you had, it maybe would have taken a lot longer, and, you know, you might have had more trauma along the way doing it.

SELBY: I will be totally honest and say that if I had not started fighting fires, I don't know if I would be alive today because I was headed in a very negative trajectory. So, I truly do think that, wildland firefighting, that that job helped to keep me alive. And it's so ironic because it's a dangerous job, but it really did, I think, save my life.

Like, if I look back and I think, you know, "what would I have done if I hadn't done that?" I truly — I don't think that I would have lived past the age of, like, 23 or 24, to be totally honest.