Anchor Point (2021) Movie Script
1
[HELICOPTER HOVERING]
LACEY ENGLAND: We've got
a parallel problem here
with fire suppression
and fire culture.
We're missing
all the different voices and different perspectives.
We're living with this
100-year-old legacy
of absolute fire suppression
that was created
by a homogenous group
of white dudes
and didn't take into account
any indigenous wisdom or experience
of living with fire
on the landscape.
And then we've got
this fire culture that's dominated
by stereotypically macho,
aggressive ways of thinking.
It's not that women
are better at this
or should be
the only ones here. But I am here.
And not everyone in fire,
lots of dudes included,
fits into the framework
that we have right now.
We can't try to completely
suppress fire
and just hope for good outcomes
on the landscape.
And we can't be
suppressing women in this industry
and hoping
for a healthy culture.
We need more diversity
everywhere.
[MAN TALKING INDISTINCTLY
ON RADIO]
LACEY: Whoo! Oh, that's hot.
Can you get in there with me?
It's about to climb up.
Okay, you just take care
of that one.
I'm gonna make sure
it stays out of this one.
- [FIRE CRACKLING]
- [WATER SPRAYING]
- [DEVICE BEEPING]
- [LACEY BREATHING HEAVILY]
[LACEY COUGHS]
- [DEVICE BEEPS]
- LACEY: Oh, shit.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER ON RADIO]
MAN 1: [ON RADIO]
You have any other aircraft on order at this time?
LACEY: I think we should
walk back south.
- MAN 2: [ON RADIO]
No, negative... - LACEY: Meet up with our dudes.
Find an actual anchor point.
This doesn't count.
Yeah, uh... Quick.
Ooh, it's hot.
[GRUNTS] Okay.
[LACEY PANTING]
We need to...
Oh, fuck. I'm tired.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER ON RADIO]
Let's grab this, Ed,
before it gets to that tree.
And we'll tie these little
patches of rock together.
I'll dig. You spread.
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY
ON RADIO]
LACEY: But don't...
Don't overextend yourself if you're not comfortable.
Well, now we're into that.
ED: Yep.
LACEY: Which means
this is not a useful anchor.
I'm saying, just walk that,
start heading north.
Just walk that grass line,
stop the... Stop the forward.
LACEY: Well, yeah,
but we got fire running up behind us,
in juniper.
It's kind of useless stopping
the forward spread
if we don't have
an anchor point.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER ON RADIO]
[FIRE CRACKLING]
That was moving way
too fast for two people.
No way we were gonna catch it.
You still feel safe here?
- Okay, Just making sure, man.
- [LAUGHING]
I mean,
I'm responsible for you.
MAN: [ON RADIO]
Work at the right flank, along the top of the ridge.
LACEY: When I first started
in fire, I didn't feel like
it was my place
to rock the boat, because I wanted to fit in.
Now I'm past the point
of, like, giving any shits.
I've never seen anybody
suppress a fire with their penis.
It shouldn't
hinder me professionally that I don't have one.
- [MATCH STRIKES]
- [FIRE WHOOSHES]
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER]
- [FIRE CRACKLING]
Firing, burn boss trainee.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[CHATTER CONTINUES]
WOMAN 1: [ON RADIO]
Break holding, burn boss.
WOMAN 2: [ON RADIO]
Go for holding.
If that heat is hot enough,
it'll pull this flame
into the wind.
The primary wind direction
is this way.
But there was
enough fire there that...
That fire is drawing
enough oxygen
that it holds this fire back
and pulls it into the wind.
And that's a great way
to deal with...
With corners.
- Go ahead.
- CAMERAPERSON: Thank you.
MAN: [ON RADIO] I'd like to
see a hotter fire, ma'am.
Whereas, if you let it
peter out kind of into this low grass and stuff...
[INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER]
[CHAINSAW BUZZING]
LACEY: If you ask somebody,
like, close your eyes
and picture a firefighter,
a wildland firefighter.
Like tall, broad-shouldered,
the handsome dude.
White dude, you know?
Like, there's your mold.
And you say, okay,
now think about a female firefighter.
You don't think about
all the badass things.
Like, I rappel
out of helicopters.
I weigh 135 pounds,
but when I pack out from a rappel fire,
my backpack weighs
100 pounds.
So, fire takes
a special person.
I think it's important
from the learning perspective.
- Okay.
- Um...
I'm a little reluctant
to, like, break off, uh,
- firing and holding
from the rest of the team. - Yep.
So, but that would be
good for...
Be good for FEMOs. Okay.
For me, fire's never mundane.
It's like a personality.
Like, every time you go out
and put fire on the land,
it has a different personality,
every single day.
And you really
have to respect that.
There's always been
a power imbalance in a patriarchal society,
in a male-dominated
environment.
We see it 'cause we feel it.
Women feel like, sometimes,
they have to assimilate to that behavior
if they wanna fit into
a male-dominated culture and environment.
And I even remember
thinking that about myself.
I'm... I'm walking
into a man's world.
There's gonna be some things
that I can't be oversensitive about.
But, at the same time,
I want to at least know you respect me.
FEMALE REPORTER:
Female Forest Service employees,
many of them firefighters,
have complained about
mistreatment for decades.
In the past ten years,
the agency has paid out
more than
half a million dollars to settle claims
involving sexual harassment
and assault,
and Congress has held
two different hearings to investigate the problem.
There is something rotten
in the US
Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service.
Raise your hands on this,
how many of you heard sexual comments from colleagues?
"Whore." "Slut."
"When you're done with him,
can you sleep with me?"
"Get the [BLEEP]
back in the kitchen and bake me some [BLEEP] cookies."
HOST: What did you feel
was at stake if you reported it to the Forest Service?
WOMAN: Everything.
There is harassment,
assault, intimidation, hostile work environment,
those are very real things.
And I know people
who have experienced...
very awful things.
And that's not the entire story
for every person, everywhere,
all the time.
It's not only about
the individual, because we've created a culture
where those behaviors
are normalized.
And we are all
contributing to it,
whether or not we are
"obviously" perpetrating that kind of harm.
- That looks pretty good.
Mmm-hmm. - Yeah.
During briefing,
Jenny was saying that the burn plan
for all the Tall Timbers units
is the same,
and the objectives match.
And then, once the igniter's out
and I get the okay from the burn boss, we're gonna...
We're gonna bring
these two together.
- FIREFIGHTER: When are you
gonna hold up? - Point to here...
Ten percent of the fire service,
they say, are women, and 90 percent are men,
and so, right away,
Nikole and I were like,
"How cool would it be
if we flip-flop the numbers?"
Like, let's invite
10% men and 90% women,
and get the male perspective
when they're actually the minority of the group.
The women participating here
are more than capable...
of every guy I know.
But I needed
to better understand the hurdles
that were in front of them.
The challenges they face
on a day-to-day basis.
And you cannot function
well as a team
unless all members
are treated equally.
LENYA QUINN-DAVIDSON:
You can't be something that you can't see.
And if you're a young woman
working up in fire
and all of your supervisors
are male,
they may be great leaders,
but if you don't have
that vision
of what a woman leader
looks like in fire,
how can you aspire to be that?
They don't have to fit the bill
of what they're used to,
which can sometimes
be very macho or very militaristic.
Those are, not necessarily,
qualities that everyone wants to have as a leader.
SADIE RUNGE:
It was the first time that I've ever been
in a operational setting
with that many women.
Hanging out in the cabins
at night,
talking about, you know, lives,
work, everything in between.
- WOMAN 1: Look at you! Aw!
- WOMAN 2: Oh, you're so cute!
Did we burn your home?
I'm sorry.
[WOMAN SHOUTING AND WHOOPING]
Sadie.
I found you something.
- Oh, is it... Is it one of
those green tree frogs? - Yeah.
Let me see.
[BOTH EXCLAIMING]
- Oh, it's so cute.
- [ALL EXCLAIMING]
[LAUGHTER]
SADIE: Just having
that atmosphere
of collective learning
and growth,
and having that space
to chat with other folks
who may be going through
similar experiences as me,
you know, it really
sort of lit that spark.
It's up to personal preference
how you wanna run this.
If you wanna lay this here
or you wanna have this on your shoulder.
This will give you
a little bit more room.
- Okay.
- Make sure it's in a way that
it doesn't dangle
over your neck.
LACEY: There are
so many things I love about doing this work.
I love the way fire smells.
I love going home
and being able to smell the smoke in my braids, still.
I love to be outside.
I love that
I'm not working indoors.
I love that it's never the same.
You know? I don't walk into
the same environment every day.
No two fires are alike.
There's constantly a challenge,
a new solution
to come up with, and...
It's dynamic and it's fun.
And I... I honestly
do work with a lot of really wonderful people.
KELLY: If you don't really
feel it in your heart and soul to work
in a very, very
challenging environment,
it's gonna be a really, really
hard career for you, a hard job.
But I do hope
that you find friendships here,
that you find a community here
that you can count on when you leave here.
Because, for me,
the more that I can form
a network outside of my work
at Yosemite
is really, truly, um,
what gives me strength.
- [INSECTS TRILLING]
- [BIRDS SCREECHING]
KELLY: Here he comes again.
[HUMMINGBIRD BUZZING]
Or she...
Here she comes again.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[FROG CROAKING]
[CHUCKLING] This is such a trip.
Get outta here.
A hummingbird out here?
Like, hummingbirds are, like,
attracted to, like, red, bright flowers and...
There's, like, nothing
that would attract a hummingbird.
There's some like
really cool energy going on here, isn't there?
You just have to kind of
let yourself open to it.
And these, like,
these magical things happen here in Yosemite.
Every day, every day here,
something magic happens
that I'm so grateful for.
Just eternally grateful for.
As a kid, I grew up
with my grandmother taking us up to
her cabin on a lake.
As young kids, we...
We had such a love
for the outdoors through my grandmother.
The older I got,
the more difficult it was for me
to be, like,
inside four walls in a school.
Junior high, high school
is when it really started becoming very difficult,
'cause it just felt like
there was so much
incredible energy and beauty in the outdoors
that I just was having
a really tough time.
I knew, at that point,
I wanted to live in the outdoors.
I graduated high school,
transferred to Northland College,
got a four-year degree
in outdoor ed.
I met some really great people
in college.
I loved the sense of spirit
that I was receiving
from Native American students
that I was going to school with.
That finally, kind of,
started to fit my own ideals of what...
The outdoors,
and what's important to me.
Be it the plants
and the trees
and the birds and the sky
and the air and the water,
so, all the elements,
the outdoor elements, was... Is so sacred.
I felt like I had
such a strong connection
to the natural environment
that I just wanted to be in it.
I wanted to live in it,
I wanted to try
to understand it more.
I don't think we can understand
the natural environment without being in it.
You can't read it from a book.
I can't experience it through
somebody teaching me about it.
That, I think, is what drew me
to making the decision to live in a teepee.
I knew it was gonna be cold.
I prepared myself for it.
But throughout the winter,
crazy things happened.
Thirty below, by myself...
Most people thought
I was completely nuts.
I'm sure there was bets
made on me as to whether or not
I was gonna
make it through the winter.
I was sleeping
as close to the earth as I could possibly get
to try to understand
all the changes that go on.
That, unless you're really in it
and you're living it day to day,
you don't really notice
the little nuances that really change.
And what was really neat for me
is just seeing how,
as it got deeper and deeper
into winter
and the light just kept
getting less and less,
what it meant to keep
a fire going, and keep it warm.
Feeling like I had
that protection of fire...
in my teepee.
That sacredness of having fire
protect me, keep me warm,
I knew I had to rely on it
for my own survival.
After the spring
started coming in
and things were
starting to thaw,
I felt like I made it through
a winter, 30 below,
there was such
a sense of accomplishment.
I have anchored my entire life
and my challenges to that winter.
I can look back
on that time in my life and know that...
I came out
a much better person and I survived.
I absolutely know,
without a doubt, I chose my dream job
to come up to fire management.
But very, very few women
choose this as a career,
and very few actually
make it to the rank
that... That... That I'm at.
But all along the way,
throughout my career,
these types of really
difficult situations felt anchored.
Like, look,
if you can live in a teepee
for one winter,
and in the freezing cold, sub-zero,
You can do just about anything.
[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]
[INDISTINCT CONVERSATION]
LACEY: Thank you.
I knew I could get through it,
'cause it wasn't strong.
But just had to
get it off the...
The first twist.
As you were going down,
and then it twisted like...
- LACEY: I know,
I was, like, goddamn it! - [LAUGHS]
Well, that was
an interesting rappel, wasn't it? [CHUCKLES]
[INDISTINCT CONVERSATION]
- [CREWMEMBER FARTING]
- MAN: [LAUGHS] Oh, my God!
This camera does have audio.
- [ALL LAUGHING]
- MAN: You might wanna move.
- That's gonna...
Thank God it was from behind me. - [ALL LAUGHING]
KELLY: This is the sound
of Yosemite. [CHUCKLES] Honking horns.
Somebody got locked
out of their vehicle,
first thing in the morning.
[LAUGHS]
Kinda cracks me up.
You think you're in
a really peaceful place, and then, backup alarms and...
[PAN SIZZLING]
...security alarms
on vehicles.
Kind of funny.
Then again...
Yosemite Valley
really isn't wilderness
when you have,
sometimes up to 30,000 people
coming through in a day
or a weekend.
[CLICKS TONGUE]
But there's always places to go.
Mmm.
Nice day.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
I know what I forgot
to put in there. Flaxseed and hemp seed.
More protein.
This is my air-conditioning...
today.
And the house stays fairly cool
if the windows are closed.
So, yeah, good check.
Right.
[GRUNTS]
Doesn't get any easier.
[EXHALES HEAVILY]
- All right.
- [ZIPS BAG]
Okay, I'll see you guys
a little later.
Bye.
I remember talking
to a friend of mine,
and she said,
do you ever get tired of this?
And I... No, no, no.
The magnitude is...
unbelievable.
And we're gonna see that today
when we hike out to this fire
that we had
a couple of years ago,
and you see
the incredible blooms of wildflowers.
That's just... It's a...
It's a piece of magic on the land.
We just have such a long way
to go to help people understand
that fire creates
incredible diversity and beauty on the landscape.
Right now, we're just...
We see the devastation
and the news
and the people
that are killed and...
I... I understand that from a...
An absolute tragedy
standpoint of view,
but there's so much of it
that we really have to kind of think about how...
How we... How that came about.
When we started exterminating
fire on the landscape,
and we started persecuting it,
that fire was bad.
It needs to be put out.
It needs to be contained.
It needs to be subdued.
- [INSECTS TRILLING]
- [BIRDS CHIRPING]
There's so many different kinds
of butterflies coming out,
and they're all...
They're different colors.
Of course, lots of bees.
Oh, some of my favorites.
When we talk about
nutrient flush after a wildfire,
or any kind of prescribed fire,
what we're helping to do
is actually take
the dead material
on the forest floor,
when it burns,
it releases a flush of nutrients into the soil.
And so what that does
is make it available for tons,
thousands of wildflowers
and grasses and forbs that we're seeing here today.
Normally these are really,
really tight and they hold on to their seeds.
Um, but when they get
a little bit of heat to 'em,
the cone opens up
and they throw their seeds.
So you just start
walking through and you're just, like,
"Gosh, they're just everywhere."
There's literally
hundreds of 'em.
Initially, when you
look out there,
you're like, "Oh,
it's another green plant."
But it's actually a new tree.
This is...
This is what we really look at,
from a rich
biodiversity perspective,
is when you see something like
this come back.
Our interpretation of fire
is that it has killed
these trees,
but it also gave birth
to all these wildflowers.
FIREFIGHTER 1: Here you go.
FIREFIGHTER 2: Thank you.
MICHELE: Burn boss,
go ahead for holding.
[OVERLAPPING CHATTER]
WOMAN: [ON RADIO]
Hey, how are things looking? How do you feel?
I think things are looking
really, really good and feeling very, very good.
[CHATTER CONTINUES]
WOMAN: [ON RADIO]
Okay. Good... Good.
That was really good for me
to hear that you get told all the time,
"Quit being so sensitive."
If they say, like,
two female couplings don't go together.
and I'm like,
well, they do in my house.
- And they're, like...
- "Oh, she's a joke."
She's setting us up
for a lawsuit.
She's totally setting us up.
It's like, I'm not
setting you up.
- I was just trying to
joke with you. - Setting you up for a high-five.
- That's great.
- Exactly.
I was playing with you.
- [CHUCKLES]
- After 14 years...
- Yeah.
- It was all good.
Now, all of a sudden,
it's not good anymore?
I don't know what the rules are,
you changed them on me.
LACEY: You can't talk about
how people make you feel uncomfortable,
'cause, then,
they feel uncomfortable for making you feel bad.
- Yeah.
- So I was, like, you have to take it.
- I wasn't taught that at all.
- Good.
I was actually taught
it's perfectly okay
to have an open discussion
about things as long as you do it in a positive manner
and you're not pointing
fingers of blame.
What you're saying is,
you said a bad...
You said a hurtful thing,
and I would like you to change it.
And what they hear is,
I'm a shitty person,
and they don't wanna feel
like a shitty person.
But, sometimes,
you can't convince them
that that's not
what you actually said.
Yep. I'm outnumbered and...
Wrong time and place.
LACEY: Yeah. And I think,
what you said,
I don't feel respected
on a daily basis.
That's pretty simple.
I need to feel respected,
to be effective as a team member.
But explaining
why I don't feel respected,
that's compli...
That is not simple.
Because you say, like,
"Well, my boss called me a girl."
Okay... Brush it off, let it go.
And I said, "Well,
my boss called me a girl 48 times this week."
[CHUCKLES] You know?
And I let it go 46 of those times,
and then pointed it out twice,
and now I'm difficult.
That's not really simple
to explain to someone who hasn't...
experienced that.
And that's just one example.
The amount of energy
that I spend
regulating my emotional response
to my work environment
is ludicrous. [LAUGHS]
I mean, I spend
a lot of mental energy on the work itself.
It's a dynamic,
risky environment
that we're constantly
reassessing and evaluating.
That itself is exhausting.
To add on top of that,
being constantly aware
of the fact
that I'm in an environment
that's... Like,
a cultural environment
that doesn't feel
totally welcoming
and 100% safe.
That's just an added
energy expenditure that I don't...
I don't think
I have the capacity to keep doing that
for the rest of my career.
One of my fears is getting
to the end of my life
and not thinking
I impacted anything.
[BIRDS SQUAWKING]
It scares me to think
that I could live for 90 years,
thinking I'm doing cool stuff,
helping people,
but in reality, my 90 years
could have never existed
and the world would be
exactly the same.
I feel some sort of duty
to like, leave fire culture better than I found it.
For the people who've come
into fire after me.
I mean, given that this is
the only grown-up job I've ever had,
a lot of the people
I care about in in my life are firefighters,
or involved in fire somehow.
So, like, I care about that world,
and I care about that culture,
because I know
how damaging it can be.
And, like, if there's
something I can do
to help make that better,
I want to keep doing that.
[KNIFE SLICING]
So much of culture
is reinforced and perpetuated,
not by active praise
of the things you're doing,
but just by not getting
in trouble for them.
Silent acceptance.
It's really hard to make
a fish recognize water.
[PAN SIZZLING]
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
- You're here!
- Hi, Lacey!
LACEY: Oh, so glad to see you.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah. Come on, let's eat.
MONICA: If you can
pull it away from sexual harassment
and make the point that
it's about people in charge
dominating people
that aren't in charge...
Right. It's not a gender thing.
It's a power thing.
Yes, and you can get every man
in the room to come back.
Because the minute
you stand up there and say sexual harassment,
the men that
aren't inflicting it or don't see it happening,
- just tune out. They're like,
"Well, that's not..." - "That doesn't apply to me."
If you can be like,
"Well, the same guy that's patting you on the ass,
and calling you cupcake,
is also bullying some
soft-spoken dude,"
he's not just picking
on you and me.
He's picking on anybody
he thinks he can get the upper hand on.
Did I tell you? I was
heavy equipment processing,
and I had, like,
nine pieces of equipment,
and I was finishing up my side
and I misspoke.
I said 800 ton
instead of 80 ton.
Mmm-hmm.
And the dude from the Southeast
took my mistake,
and he just magnified it.
- Can't just move on.
- No.
And, um, he was like,
"Whoa, that's like so and so many pounds."
[FAKE LAUGHTER]
And I looked
right at him, and like,
"That's some good math.
You're really good at math-ing, aren't you?
- "Your mom must be proud."
- [LAUGHS]
As soon as I left,
he said to that group of dudes,
he was like,
"Well, she could be a handful."
What does that translate to?
- "What a bitch!"
- Yeah.
God, I hate it.
- I hate that so much.
- And my buddy...
My buddy stood there
and he's like,
"No way. She takes care
of her own.
"You should have
seen her in Alaska.
"She threatened to kick
a bus driver in the balls."
[LACEY LAUGHS]
And he basically
said to that dude,
and to every other dude
in the group that,
"No, she... She's cool."
Mmm-hmm.
"That was
an appropriate response for your shitty comment."
Pretty much is what he said.
And then every dude
in the group, he said, "She's cool."
And... And that's the way
I feel at work.
- I feel so supported and...
- That's awesome.
I'm just another person.
It kind of started for me,
I was talking to one of my supervisors,
and he said he wouldn't
want his daughter
to go into this line of work,
and I was like, "Why? It's been...
"As a woman,
it's been the best thing that's ever happened to me."
- Mmm-hmm.
- It's made me strong and confident.
And best thing that's
ever happened to me, this job.
And it was sad that
he said he didn't want his little girl doing it.
Yeah. I've had men
that I worked with say that too, like,
"If I had a daughter,
I'd never let her be a firefighter."
But what I wonder is like...
How can they...
How can they acknowledge
that on one hand,
that my work environment
is so shitty and toxic
that I don't want
my family in it,
but on the other hand,
not do anything about that?
Like, how can they recognize
that it's awful,
and also not try to change it?
- Yeah, just sit back...
- Just sit back and go,
"Oh, yeah. I just won't let
my daughter in."
Because everybody
wants to fit in.
And they don't want to be
"that dude" that stands up and causes a scene.
- You know?
- I know.
That's why I've just
resorted to being "that woman."
[LAUGHS]
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[MAN]
What you reading there?
LACEY: It's called
Trust Exercise.
I'm almost done with it.
I'm still not quite sure
what it's about.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
It's fiction, like,
then the narrator becomes
somebody who is in the first half of the story.
- Mmm-hmm.
- Mmm-hmm.
One of them, just, like,
wakes up, and turns out she was just, like,
bitten by a bat, and had...
- [LAUGHING]
- ...been in a coma.
A bat, huh?
That's how I see this ending.
And she's like, "Whoa!"
All right, babe.
I got ten minutes left.
I don't want to go to work.
Don't. That's what they do.
[LACEY CHUCKLES]
But then how are we gonna
afford a new battery for Karen?
That's true.
We can't deprive her.
Okay.
If I was born as a man,
I think it just would have
been smoother.
I grew up outside,
doing outdoor things.
I enjoy manual labor.
Otherwise, I match
the demographic.
I'm young, I'm white.
I check a lot of the boxes
for, like, standard firefighter,
but my being a woman,
like, puts me in this whole other category.
I see men around me
in fire world
just trash it out
and screw it up all the time
and everyone's like,
"Eh, didn't work. Try it again in a different way."
But if I do the same thing,
if I don't, like, calculate exactly
how I'm going to
play this game,
and I just try stuff
and then it doesn't work,
then they're like,
"Hmm, see, women just,
"like, aren't really
cut out for this."
I just...
I don't think I would be
at this level of tired after only ten seasons.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
KELLY: I can't tell you
how many times I wanted to back out.
You just don't wake up one day
and just go,
"I think I want to go testify
in front of Congress
"about these egregious acts
that have happened to me in the past."
I was just having, you know,
huge reservations, and really consternating
over whether or not
this was something that I should do.
I felt like the mere fact
that I was watching this happen
to, uh, more and more women,
and even to some degree,
some men,
then I think
you have to ask yourself, "Do we all stay silent?"
That, I think,
was the tipping point.
But the day that
I got on the plane,
I sat up close to
where the door was, and I kept thinking,
"I still have a chance
to get off the plane.
"I still have a chance.
Still have a chance."
And as soon as the door shut,
I just kind of closed my eyes
and just had to take
a deep breath,
and as the plane started
pulling back from the gate,
that's when I think this
irreversible journey really began.
Every state I flew over,
you know, was just this flood of memories
about all these people
that have supported me.
The men that have been
super supportive of me over the years
and several women
who continued to support me.
I felt like, "Am I putting
all of this at risk?"
FEMALE REPORTER: Female
Forest Service employees, many of them firefighters,
have complained about
mistreatment for decades.
Numerous park employees
from multiple parks
have contacted the committee
to describe patterns
of misconduct
at the Park Service.
It was a similar report
16 years ago.
The task force concluded,
and I quote,
"It is critical for
the National Park Service to show a sense of urgency
"in ensuring that all employees
are working in an environment
"free from unlawful harassment."
Were any of its
recommendations implemented?
Uh, no, they were not,
as far as I can ever figure out.
So... So we're back here again
16 years later.
Yeah, it's a very
regrettable action that did not occur.
I felt it was really,
really important,
because I've been involved
in this for so long
that, somehow, I...
I had to have not just my voice heard,
but there were so many
other people that were also feeling the same way,
and they flat out said,
"There's just no way I can come forward and say anything."
And so, a lot of people
will continue to ask,
you know, why didn't you
come forward?
How come now you're reporting?
Those are questions
that people constantly ask,
because they don't understand
how difficult it is to speak up,
and speak the truth
about these things that have happened,
because of the dire consequences
most women face
when you do speak up
and are honest about the things
that have happened to you
in the past.
My name is Kelly Martin,
and I am the Chief
of Fire and Aviation Management
at Yosemite National Park.
I've been in my current position
for over ten years.
I am here before you today
to tell you my story,
but more importantly,
to provide testimony
regarding the dark clouds
of misconduct
that remains elusive
from public view.
I felt like I have a voice.
I can use my voice.
This is the United States.
We do have the ability
to use our voice
for the betterment
of this generation and the next generation.
Imagine for one minute,
being 20-something again.
We have an idealistic view
of the world that is equitable and just.
My idealist view
was soon shattered
when I became victim
of sexual harassment not once, but three times.
One of my perpetrators was
repeatedly caught engaging in voyeuristic behavior,
all the while
receiving promotions within the National Park Service
until his recent retirement
as Deputy Superintendent.
This is very difficult
to sit before you today.
I'm not boastful of the history
of my sexual harassment experiences.
As a matter of fact,
this is the first time I have come out publicly
to describe the painful scars
of my past
in a hopeful effort to eliminate
these kinds of experiences
from happening to young women
entering our workforce today.
It's almost as it's accepted
that men can be given
the benefit of the doubt,
and women are doubted.
As I walk through
my 32 years of service,
I want to leave here today with
a strong conviction of hope.
Hope for the future generation
of the Park Service conservation leaders
that will not know
what it is like to experience sexual harassment,
gender and racial
discrimination,
sexism and hostile
work environments.
We're going to be watching
the National Park Service,
and the way
Ms. Martin is treated,
and other whistleblowers
are treated
as a consequence of
their bringing these allegations forward.
Uh, it should not
be unaddressed,
and, uh, it has been
inadequately addressed.
We all long for a day
that we don't have to take
these extreme measures
to be heard and believed.
[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]
A hell of a job
for just two people in a few hours,
having to drag trees
quite a ways.
But,
got it done.
We're making a log deck
for the helicopter to land on.
[SAW BUZZING]
Might not be the prettiest.
But it's a log deck.
[INSECTS BUZZING]
The only wildlife we've seen
while we were down here,
are all the mosquitoes.
And other flying pests.
Hopefully pilot
doesn't have a problem with it,
and we won't have to come back
and fix it later.
Some people can't imagine
using the bathroom anywhere but inside a building,
on porcelain.
But come on,
it's way better out here.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER OVER RADIO]
So we were on our way to Helena.
And got diverted
to a fire up in the Bridgers. A lightning strike.
As you can see,
there's the part of the tree that got struck.
You can see it...
kind of exploded into bits.
Not tall anymore.
And there's
pieces of it hanging
up in that other tree.
It's these kind of fires
that really split my mind
about loving my job
and not make me feel conflicted.
On the one hand,
what an awesome place
to hang out.
No people, just hanging out
in the woods.
Super pretty.
Gonna camp for a night or two.
Can't complain about that.
On the other hand,
this was a naturally ignited fire,
it's a lightning strike.
And it wasn't really
doing much, skunking around.
[EMBERS CRACKLING]
Hard to tell how steep it is.
Uh, this is basically
a 45-degree angle here.
So it's not a very big spot,
should be pretty easy
to put out,
except that the duff
is super thick,
and even digging down, like,
couldn't get to dirt yet,
this is still mostly duff...
So this is going to be
a slow mop-up show.
Basically... [CLEARS THROAT]
picking everything up by hand.
Making sure it's cold.
Should I be out here
putting this fire out?
[CHUCKLES SOFTLY]
You know, um...
As I learn more about fire
and fire science and fire ecology,
and how important fire is to,
you know, the well being of an ecosystem.
I feel less like I'm taking
appropriate actions
as a steward of the land.
Sometimes, I feel like
I'm getting paid to do things
that aren't in
the best interest of the ecosystem in question.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
I don't know.
So I just sit here
and eat my Snickers and think about it.
Nothing better than a Snickers
that has melted
and resolidified
a handful of times in your backpack.
[CHUCKLES]
KELLY: Do you guys, uh,
do you guys want a pancake?
Ready for a pancake?
[ALL LAUGHING]
[TAPPING ON COUNTER]
[CUTLERY CLATTERING]
KELLY: David, do you want one?
Are you sure?
- No, no. Yeah, I'm done.
- Okay.
[MAN COUGHING]
MAN: You're anti-pancake?
- WOMAN: You a huge fan
of pancakes? - Yeah.
So you're not biased.
You don't have any implicit bias
- against pancakes.
- No implicit bias.
Copy that.
[LAUGHTER]
We've been talking
a lot about implicit bias.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Just want to make sure.
There's one thing,
you know, that we can do
is kind of, you know,
there's a little bit of humor here.
We can laugh about ourselves.
WOMAN: [OVER RADIO]
Yosemite conditions for today.
Sunny, maximum 64 to 69,
8,000 feet, 53 to 58.
KELLY: The thing
for me was, um,
with you getting here
this weekend was
thinking about the success
that we've had for the last three events.
That third WTREX
really felt like...
- It really solidified
a lot of things. - Yeah.
And there was
new people there from
reaches of
the Nature Conservancy,
National Park Service,
Forest Service,
uh, NGOs that are like,
"I'm kind of really interested
in attending and helping."
And then, like I think,
for me, that was, like, the tipping point for...
We're on to something that
that I don't believe
anybody else is really doing.
- Mmm-hmm.
- And so...
Now what does that look like?
You know,
for the next three years or the next five years.
And this could go any...
Any number of places.
That's really exciting.
Like, it feels like we've taken
kind of a slow road with WTREX
and just doing
one event per year...
I think our pace has been
perfect actually,
because we kind of needed
to have that success.
- Mmm-hmm.
- And to show that we could do it,
and to build out our team
and feel smooth,
like a smooth machine together.
And now
we're at a perfect point
to broaden it out, and...
I think any of us
coming up through the ranks,
think about, like,
what kind of opportunities
- do we really have
to build our competency? - Yeah.
Right, there's confidence
in what we love and what we wanna do,
but where are the opportunities
to actually really build
- our physical skill set?
- Yeah.
Yeah, the way I think
about WTREX moving forward
is that we do diversify
and think about
where are those bottlenecks
for women in fire,
and how can we create
those opportunities.
Leadership training, um,
you know, the diversity and inclusion training...
We could even do short modules
on burn planning,
and, you know, some of
the ecological concepts.
I don't know. I think the sky
is the limit, kind of...
We think about women
in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s,
as they're moving
through their career,
we're not interested
in just getting more women in fire,
but we're interested
in what does it take to...
To keep them in fire,
if that's where they want to be,
and to advance them
and give them power
and leadership capabilities
and stuff.
We really need to...
You know, we understand
what some of those obstacles are in WTREX,
but as federal agencies,
we really, we've got a lot of work to do still.
You know, both from
scaling up the good fire
as well as how do
we empower women
in leadership positions
in wildland fire?
And there's just...
There's nothing else, like, out there like this.
And so that, for me,
is really exciting to think about,
how I can put
my two loves and passion
about gender equity
and more good fire
on the landscape.
- This is just like
the perfect combination. - Yeah.
I'm grateful that we met.
- Yeah, well...
- I'm glad you came up.
I'm so glad.
I think we have a really
strong future ahead of us.
Oh, yeah, with a tremendous
amount of, you know, work.
And so I think...
Thinking about that, too,
- is, it's like, "Ooh,
I'm sort of kind of retired." - [LAUGHS]
So I'm excited about
that type of work on the outside
in retirement as well.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
WOMAN 1: You're good.
Don't worry.
WOMAN 2: Oh, okay, okay.
- That's just the beginning.
- Got you there.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Yeah, yeah.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER CONTINUES]
Coffee, friends.
What else could you ask for?
My hubby.
[MAN CLEARS THROAT]
This'll last about one hour.
I was telling her,
this is really...
Nobody waters
the grass around here.
This place is really dusty
and dirty...
It kind of goes back
to the "opposites attract."
I'm Mr. Clean.
I met Kelly in Moab, Utah.
She knew one of
the people on the team,
and he called her up
and said, "Hey, we're gonna go down and have a beer."
So that's where
I first met her.
From then on,
teams that went together,
and we became
part of a fire team,
and from there on,
it's just kind of like,
you know, good people
attract good people.
I just remember this one time
we were on a fire out at Battle Mountain,
and this was before
we were together,
and we... She had a broken arm.
Fell off a horse.
A Forest Service horse.
She... [LAUGHS] She says,
"You sure you want me on team?
"I've got...
My arm's in a cast."
I go, "Well, can you push
the mic on a radio?
"And can you walk up a hill
and look at what's going on and keep track of stuff?"
And she goes, "Yeah."
I says, "Well, come to the fire."
She's a tough woman.
In the agencies, all of them,
the tough women
tend to survive it,
um, because
it's not an easy road.
One of the worst things
that ever happened was, um...
And I didn't hear about this
for like two months...
One of the women
on the fire crew,
she used one of
the BLM bathrooms
and the fire crew decided
they were gonna tape her in there with duct tape.
And so, Kelly told me one day
she's going to go to Congress
and she was working with
staffers from both sides.
You know,
she's always the hero.
When she decided
to retire early,
an individual
sent a note that said that, "Thank God she's gone,
"and now we can get to
a higher level of management for that agency."
And I'm going,
"You got to be kidding me."
You can't believe
what she went through.
It would take three hours
to tell you all the crap that she had to go through.
Drugs on the crew,
fights and people getting hurt,
and they're covering it up
and car wrecks
and smoking dope
and driving
government vehicles.
You cannot believe
what she went through.
KELLY: So, tonight
is a celebration.
We've got lots and lots of food,
So let's go ahead and eat,
but there are a couple of people
I really want to introduce.
My mom, Mickey Martin.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
- Mom!
- WOMAN: From Illinois.
KELLY: Yep,
she flew in from... from Illinois.
It's just really
a neat opportunity to be with all of you here tonight.
- So...
- WOMAN: Whoo-hoo!
And I bet you there's gonna be
people kind of showing up from time to time.
So please introduce yourself
to each other, and let's eat.
- Okay!
- MAN: Let's do it!
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
LACEY: I met Kelly
at the first WTREX, 2016.
And I had no idea
who she was before that.
But I read through
her testimony and watched the video.
And then I was like,
"Hoy shit, I'm gonna meet this woman.
"That's pretty cool."
You know... Here she is,
talking about the hard things
in front of a huge audience,
then met her at WTREX.
And... And it was awesome.
You know, and she's been...
She's been great to work with.
Branches over there
can help build.
And it was... You know,
she's just so passionate
about fire and what it means
and how
we should be treating it
and how it should be
used on the land.
And you know, it feels...
It feels good to be
around somebody who is so...
sure of what they believe.
You know, like...
She's had people
telling her not to believe what she believes
for the past 35 years,
and she's like,
"Well, fuck it. This is still
what I believe, because it's that important to me."
And, like, that feels
good to know
that there are
people like that.
Um... Yeah,
I think she's awesome. She's really wonderful.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
PAUL: She gave her life
and her heart to that place.
And I'll never support
that program again
just because I know
exactly the depths of that.
She was working
at 10:30 at night.
Sometimes she'd work
till 2:00 in the morning,
to get the fire plans done.
And, um, she was,
I would say, 90% successful.
But there was a lot of people
that didn't like her
because she tried
to clean up the shop.
- [INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Yeah. I have to tell you
that seeing her testify
was the most awesome experience,
and to know that she did that
in September '16, 2016.
She led the pack
and wound up onTime magazine
as one of the silence breakers,
which was just absolutely amazing.
I must have run
to every gas station,
every grocery store, and bought
every Timemagazine
I could get my hands on
that night, because I thought
"They're gonna be gone
if I wait till tomorrow."
[WOMAN EXCLAIMS]
- Thanks, Mom.
- Thank you, honey.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
Somebody...
Somebody had to speak up.
And I think our agency,
the National Park Service,
is a better agency
because some of the things that we've been able to address.
I feel like things are
starting to change.
I know a lot of you don't...
Some people really, uh,
have really resented
what I've done.
Um, I would have never chosen
to do anything like this,
but I really, honestly felt like
our agency deserves way better.
And I know we have really,
really good people here.
So, for all of you
that are here with me tonight,
I do know that I've done
the right thing, I hope,
and that I'm still...
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
PAUL: She was never respected.
Because she was an outsider,
and I feel because
she was a woman.
Because they'd never
had a woman FMO.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
WOMAN: I see a lot.
So, I love it. It was Kelly that...
We were sitting here
at Christmas time...
Oh, boy, 2013,
and she just said to me,
she goes,
"What are you waiting for?"
And I said, like, "You're right, you know."
- "Let's do it."
- And in the next month,
- I was enrolled in TREX,
so, yeah. - Yeah, awesome.
Love Kelly. She's a little
special person to me. I love her to death.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
LACEY: And you...
You started this.
MAN: No, you're the one
with the stick. You started it.
- I was fixing it
and then you undid my work. - Ah! Ah!
No, I was working with you.
No, you undid it.
You need to learn to work
with other people.
You need to learn
to mind your own business.
The fire is my business,
I split all that wood.
Only after you
messed up whatever...
Nah, I split the wood.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[CHUCKLES] Do you have
this look on camera?
WOMAN: I do.
[LAUGHS]
Oh, and there's ice
in his whiskey. That's why.
No, it's not me.
I'm sure you can find
more things to dislike about me.
I can. How long do we have?
- Probably a couple of hours.
- [LAUGHS] Okay, great.
- We'll work on it.
- Yeah. No rush.
We'll work on... No, I'm...
- Take your time.
- I'll let it marinate.
Take your time.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER CONTINUES]
WOMAN: I could turn on my light,
but there's enough around...
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
KELLY: There's no one out.
So, we're it.
There's no one here
and it's incredibly powerful.
Uh, there's just nothing
like it.
There's very, very few people
that actually experience the park like this.
So, to me,
it's a lot more intense and a lot more fulfilling
than to be out here
when there's a thousand people on this trail.
So, let's go have a good time,
and we will drink some whiskey
when we get to the beach.
- Okay, whiskey over here.
- [MAN WHOOPS]
Whiskey over here.
And there's tobacco here
if anybody wants to start with their own little offering.
I actually want to throw it
in the river.
I'm gonna honor my dad tonight.
Do you remember...
You remember when I was reading your son
- Goodnight Moon?
- WOMAN: Yes. Oh, my gosh!
- KELLY: I know, huh?
- [LAUGHING]
WOMAN: Goodnight Moon.
Goodnight Moon.
He was just, like, a little kid, little shaver.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you were like,
"Yes, you can read to my son."
WOMAN: Moon in my room.
KELLY: Anybody else
want some tobacco?
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
KELLY: Here we go.
Wow, this is a
bonding experience.
[LAUGHTER]
- How are you feeling?
- Great.
Connections, and...
This is half the fun
of having a big party like this.
- It's like...
- Yeah, bringing together everyone.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
WOMAN: This park's going to be
so different without you.
- Oh, stop.
- No.
This woman was like,
"Do you know that Kelly has changed the park
"and she really speaks up
for what's right even if people don't want her to?"
And I was like, "Yes."
[LAUGHTER]
KELLY: You just never know.
I mean, you're all gonna
find yourself in a position someday to just go,
"This is my moment. I don't know
if it's right or wrong."
You're gonna step into it
and you just...
You can change the world.
WOMAN 2: We are gonna
miss you though.
I'm gonna miss you guys very,
very much.
We're like, yeah,
we know you're amazing
and a rockstar and also,
never leave us.
[ALL LAUGHING]
We know you have bigger
and better things to move on to,
but we're gonna miss you.
KELLY: You know,
the fun thing is just knowing that...
"Okay, so I'm in my 50s
and you guys are in your 30s and 20s."
And so it's just
this cross-generational, like, empowerment.
Women empowerment
is, like, really cool.
Just, like, embrace it,
take it on,
and, you know,
just, like, own it.
[WOMAN] I wanna live
in a matriarchal society.
- I'm serious.
- I mean, the United States is gonna be that soon.
- Soon.
- Well, it's all gonna be up to all of you, right? And me.
I mean,
we're all part of it, right?
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [HELICOPTER APPROACHING]
- [LACEY SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
- MAN: I haven't
seen that before. - Me either.
I made a friend.
Here we are in my last
operational shift as a firefighter.
We've been here
on the Horsefly Fire for couple of weeks.
For sure,
I will be hiking again and backpacking
and doing the kinds of things
that I've done in this job,
but not for this job.
Not as a firefighter and that
will be strange and exciting.
It only took about a week
into this season
for me to feel affirmed
in my decision to leave.
[CHUCKLES]
It was very clear very early that it's a good decision
for me to make this
my last season, so that felt good.
Knowing that I was making
the right choice for me.
But because it's been
so slow, there's been lots of time for me
to keep thinking about that
and wondering
what would it look like and what could I do?
Is it worth staying in it
so I can keep
trying to make
the culture better
and keep influencing
people's perspectives
and maybe changing their mind
and helping them learn,
and there's been some
back and forth.
But it's definitely...
It's time to go, it's time to move on.
Crazy how much stuff
you accumulate over the years.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
KELLY: I think the one thing
I really didn't expect
in retirement, when you leave,
it really is a hard stop.
You're done with phone calls,
you're done with your computer,
you're done with your keys.
Everything gets turned in
on a Friday afternoon.
And Sunday, I find myself
going over Tioga Pass
really early in the morning.
Watching the full moon set
and the sun rise.
And that's a moment
I am never gonna forget.
'Cause that was another
huge transition in my life.
I think there's
some kind of endorphins that keep firefighters going,
because that's what we do.
And then when you come
to the abrupt stop of a retirement,
you feel both elated, relieved,
but you really begin
to feel the exhaustion has really caught up to you.
This little tarragon
is a cutting from a friend of mine.
She's got goats
and a cute little garden and...
I just like plants
that are given to me.
It reminds me of them,
of friends.
PAUL: It's hard to explain
the subtle
and sometimes blatant way
that the agency was treating women.
And not just in fire
and not just in law enforcement,
but in the whole area.
And when you see an indicator,
you know, in fire,
the indicator is low humidity
and high temperature
and some wind.
Well, when you see
a lot of people leaving the agency
and most of them are women,
there's a big indicator
there's something not right.
So this is kinda sour,
but it complements the maple syrup.
Oops!
KELLY: The trigger point
in '16 happened when
reading the story about
the sexual harassment at Grand Canyon.
And to be honest with you,
it was that trigger point
that I immediately just
closed my eyes
and threw my head in my hands
and I'm like,
I can't believe
this is still going on.
I just can't believe
that women are asking
and describing situations,
horrific situations.
And nobody did anything.
And I thought to myself,
these are young women
just like I was at their age
at Grand Canyon
just starting their careers.
And they've had
this horrific thing that's happening to them.
And they're reporting
to senior level officials
who are basically sweeping it
under the rug.
And it was that moment
that through remembering
my own experience
with the peeping Tom,
who continued to promote
for another 25 years within the Park service,
uh, arrested several times
by the way.
And still kept promoting,
so there's this... How can this be?
So this lifetime of experiences
of things that, you know, have happened to me,
and now I'm in a position
at Yosemite, a very powerful position,
and a very high level position,
where I just
never felt validated.
After 30-some odd years
of working very, very hard
to some of these assignments
being given away
to subordinate men
or being oppressed and dismissed.
I just felt like
this can't continue to happen.
So, in my testimony,
I do talk about creating
gender parity
at the highest levels.
You can't just relegate women
to non-authoritative type of positions.
They need to be responsible
in positions of authority, in positions of power.
And we just have not
gotten there.
So, knowing that
that power disparity exists,
that's a place where
we should recognize
that there's still work
to be done to try to reduce that disparity.
And on my way home.
And I'm going to take
the not very direct route home.
Um, but while I'm on the road,
figured it'd be a great time
to stop by and see Kelly.
Talk about fire.
Catch up on things, see how
retirement is going for her.
Talk about my next chapter,
you know, it'll be good.
KELLY: Hi!
- Hello!
- It's so good to see you.
Aw, look at you.
Oh, you look so good.
LACEY: I'll be on campus
starting August 17th.
Well, it'll be like three days
a week on campus
and two days a week
doing rotations in the hospital.
We won't be working
with patients that require, like...
More involved precautions
than just standard gloves.
So, they really
try to limit that then?
Yeah, you know, I don't.
I don't know what it usually
looks like outside of a pandemic situation,
but that's what
they've told us to expect
going into this semester.
And other than that,
I don't have a whole lot of information.
Obviously, I'm not a nurse yet.
But it's kind of like fire,
everything...
Everything
that's worth learning, you learn on the job.
[HUMMING]
I... I hope, I'm pretty sure
that I changed some
people's minds over the past ten years
when it comes to attitudes about
who's supposed to be in fire,
who's good at fire.
And I don't think
I would have been successful changing their minds
if I had picked
every single fight with them that I could have.
You know, if fire is something
that you really wanna do,
which is a legit choice,
a valid choice,
you gotta pick your battles
so that you can move towards the final goal.
And you know...[SIGHS]
I fucking hate saying this,
but shit's gonna happen,
you know.
You're gonna work
with assholes.
There's gonna be some
sexist shit going down.
Some misogynistic stuff.
And no one else is gonna say
anything about it.
Eventually I got to the point
where I didn't feel like I had a choice anymore.
It was, like, leave
or this is going to destroy you kind of thing.
And if fire culture
was not what it was,
maybe it would have felt more
like a choice.
I read something recently about
kind of the trauma that communities go through
of having to evacuate
all the time and I'm thinking to myself,
imagine what that's like
as a career firefighter.
You know,
year after year after year
that they're being exposed
to hundreds of houses being destroyed
and people's lives being lost.
We know that that's
the business that we're in,
but I don't think we've really
elevated it to the status of...
- Well, in knowing...
- This is trauma.
Knowing that
it's part of your job doesn't make it easier.
You know, that's a
"routine" part of your job.
Like, it's still a thing
you're going through.
It's still, you know,
they can still be a traumatic event.
But I think the conversations
are starting to happen.
But I'm really hoping that...
I would like to see that expand
to a more holistic understanding
of who we are as people, you know?
The fighting fire,
the putting fire out part is one aspect.
You know, and then there's
the mental health thing.
And then there's
the leadership development
and the interpersonal
communication and the relationship building.
You know, those are all
separate things and it seems like,
most of those
just get sidelined
to focus on the putting
fire out part, you know.
I would love to know
from some of the men
I've worked with in the past, like,
"What do you remember me
saying to you?"
You know,
maybe it's a conversation I don't even remember,
but I said something
that took that person back
and they were,
like, "Holy shit."
There is one experience
that stands out very strong in my memory.
There was a person
I was working with
who was new to the crew,
a crew that I had previously been on.
And this person came in
and decided that
I was not going to be
a good firefighter.
This person who had never
worked with me before.
You know, I was too small.
I wasn't strong enough,
you know, obviously,
I wasn't going to be able to pull my own weight or whatever.
Whether he was trying to
or not, it was clear to me.
And it got to the point
where the rest of the crew
was being impacted
by, like, us not getting along.
The crew boss
pulled us aside and said,
"Give me your version of events.
Give me your version of events."
You hear it from each other,
so we can figure out where the mismatch is, you know?
It all boiled down to,
at the very end, I was like, "Okay, look,
"there's one thing I need
from you that would help me
"feel like the situation
is resolved."
I said, "I don't need you
to be my friend
"or to want to work with me,
"or to even think that,
you know, like, I'm a great firefighter.
"I simply need you to say
that I'm competent, you know.
"Not great, not the best,
not you wanna work with me all the time.
"Simply, I am competent
at my job."
Pretty low bar, pretty low bar,
what I thought.
And he looked at me and said,
"Well, I'd be lying
if I said that."
I didn't know
what the fuck to say.
My crew boss was standing
right there and he didn't say a fucking thing.
Here's the man who hired me
in the first place,
then hired me back
because apparently he thought I could do the job,
and was competent.
And here's this other person,
new to the crew,
who's barely worked with me
for a season
saying, "I don't even think
you are baseline competent,"
and nobody else fucking
said anything.
And I was like,
"Okay, well, I... This is it."
And then the conversation
was over and nobody ever fucking addressed it again.
I was like,
"Okay, well, I guess, I guess I'm on my own."
You know, I didn't...
Goddamn it, that happened...
[SNIFFLES]
Happened a long time ago
and it still makes me... [CHUCKLES]
Still makes me cry.
Oh, and it made me so mad.
I think I probably cried
then, too.
And it's that like,
I'm so mad I don't know what else to do but cry.
But that very often
gets interpreted
as like, "Oh, my God.
Look at her. She's crying again. She's so emotional."
But it's like,
you don't understand.
I'm crying because I wanna rip
your head off.
Not because I am sad, you know.
And after that, I was like,
well, I guess it doesn't fucking matter.
That situation I had tried
to talk to people,
I had tried to say,
this is happening. I need support.
And it didn't matter.
The situation didn't change for better or for worse.
I don't regret leaving at all.
I'm so glad I did not... [SIGHS]
It was just time.
You know, and I don't...
I don't say that to, like,
shit on anyone who's still doing it and loving it,
or doing it and not loving it
and they're just choosing to keep doing it, like...
You do you,
but for me, it was just...
It was time to be done, move on.
And I don't regret it at all.
I don't regret spending
ten years doing it.
But I'm very happy
to have made the decision to not do it anymore.
It was time.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
Kelly's cafe, Kelly's car wash.
Kelly's BnB.
[LAUGHING]
Yeah, that's all good.
Thank you so much for hosting.
Thank you for coming by
and putting me on your path.
And thanks for the time
that you spent in fire.
You made a difference
Yeah, I hope so.
You did. You absolutely did.
I changed at least
one person's mind maybe somewhere along the road.
I think you should
put your standards a little higher than that.
I think you had a big impact
on a lot of young women.
So, myself personally,
I appreciate that.
Aw, thanks.
Well, I'll definitely...
Whenever we're allowed to have a WTREX in person again,
- I'll see you there.
- Please.
- [CHUCKLES]
- Okay, good. So you're not giving up on that?
- No, I think WTREX
is the one thing I'll stay. - Good, good.
You know,
'cause that's the part I care about.
Making fire better
for the next firefighters
and I can do that
without being a firefighter.
You know? So I can still be
a part of that.
Good. Well,
I'm glad to know that.
- Good.
- I'll be around.
Okay, dear.
Oh, take care. I love you.
- I love you, too.
- All right. Best wishes.
- Gotta hit the road.
- Text me when you...
- When I make it?
- When you make it.
- Nine hours is a long time.
- Okay. Yeah, it's gonna be a long drive.
I got snacks.
- Good. Cookies?
- All right.
I got cookies.
Yay!
[ENGINE STARTS]
KELLY: Good woman.
I wish she was still
working with us.
I feel so empowered by people
that are so different
from one another and I think
that's probably the key.
Everybody has a different
journey and a different path.
You know, the time
that I spent working
in the fire environment,
I would never give up.
I just knew as a young kid even
that this was what I wanted to do.
I learned a lot,
but made a lot of mistakes.
But I also, I think it was
an incredible journey.
The only reason I could have
a career in fire
that went as well as it did
is because of the women 40 years ago who fixed stuff.
You know, Kelly put up
with a lot of bullshit over her 35 years.
I have no doubt
that if I had met her earlier in my fire career,
you know, things might
have been different.
Yeah, I know things
would have been different for sure.
As the new Deputy Director,
I'm personally committed
to providing
a culture of transparency,
inclusion, respect,
and accountability
and making this a safe place
for employees to work.
We want to become
a model agency.
We will become a model agency.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You can hold my hand
When you need to let go
I can be your mountain
When you're feeling
Valley-low
I can be your streetlight
Showing you the way home
You can hold my hand
When you need to let go
I want a house
With a crowded table
And a place by the fire
For everyone
Let us take on the world
While we're young and able
And bring us back together
When the day is done
If we want a garden
We're gonna have to sow
The seed
Plant a little happiness
Let the roots run deep
If it's love that we give
Then it's love that we reap
If we want a garden
We're gonna have to sow
The seed
Yeah, I want a house
With a crowded table
And a place by the fire
For everyone
Let us take on the world
While we're young and able
And bring us back together
When the day is done
The door is always open
Your picture's on my wall
Everyone's a little broken
And everyone belongs
Yeah, everyone belongs
I want a house
With a crowded table
And a place by the fire
For everyone
Let us take on the world
While we're young and able
And bring us back together
When the day is done
And bring us back together
When the day is done
[MUSIC ENDS]
[HELICOPTER HOVERING]
LACEY ENGLAND: We've got
a parallel problem here
with fire suppression
and fire culture.
We're missing
all the different voices and different perspectives.
We're living with this
100-year-old legacy
of absolute fire suppression
that was created
by a homogenous group
of white dudes
and didn't take into account
any indigenous wisdom or experience
of living with fire
on the landscape.
And then we've got
this fire culture that's dominated
by stereotypically macho,
aggressive ways of thinking.
It's not that women
are better at this
or should be
the only ones here. But I am here.
And not everyone in fire,
lots of dudes included,
fits into the framework
that we have right now.
We can't try to completely
suppress fire
and just hope for good outcomes
on the landscape.
And we can't be
suppressing women in this industry
and hoping
for a healthy culture.
We need more diversity
everywhere.
[MAN TALKING INDISTINCTLY
ON RADIO]
LACEY: Whoo! Oh, that's hot.
Can you get in there with me?
It's about to climb up.
Okay, you just take care
of that one.
I'm gonna make sure
it stays out of this one.
- [FIRE CRACKLING]
- [WATER SPRAYING]
- [DEVICE BEEPING]
- [LACEY BREATHING HEAVILY]
[LACEY COUGHS]
- [DEVICE BEEPS]
- LACEY: Oh, shit.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER ON RADIO]
MAN 1: [ON RADIO]
You have any other aircraft on order at this time?
LACEY: I think we should
walk back south.
- MAN 2: [ON RADIO]
No, negative... - LACEY: Meet up with our dudes.
Find an actual anchor point.
This doesn't count.
Yeah, uh... Quick.
Ooh, it's hot.
[GRUNTS] Okay.
[LACEY PANTING]
We need to...
Oh, fuck. I'm tired.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER ON RADIO]
Let's grab this, Ed,
before it gets to that tree.
And we'll tie these little
patches of rock together.
I'll dig. You spread.
[MAN SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY
ON RADIO]
LACEY: But don't...
Don't overextend yourself if you're not comfortable.
Well, now we're into that.
ED: Yep.
LACEY: Which means
this is not a useful anchor.
I'm saying, just walk that,
start heading north.
Just walk that grass line,
stop the... Stop the forward.
LACEY: Well, yeah,
but we got fire running up behind us,
in juniper.
It's kind of useless stopping
the forward spread
if we don't have
an anchor point.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER ON RADIO]
[FIRE CRACKLING]
That was moving way
too fast for two people.
No way we were gonna catch it.
You still feel safe here?
- Okay, Just making sure, man.
- [LAUGHING]
I mean,
I'm responsible for you.
MAN: [ON RADIO]
Work at the right flank, along the top of the ridge.
LACEY: When I first started
in fire, I didn't feel like
it was my place
to rock the boat, because I wanted to fit in.
Now I'm past the point
of, like, giving any shits.
I've never seen anybody
suppress a fire with their penis.
It shouldn't
hinder me professionally that I don't have one.
- [MATCH STRIKES]
- [FIRE WHOOSHES]
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER]
- [FIRE CRACKLING]
Firing, burn boss trainee.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[CHATTER CONTINUES]
WOMAN 1: [ON RADIO]
Break holding, burn boss.
WOMAN 2: [ON RADIO]
Go for holding.
If that heat is hot enough,
it'll pull this flame
into the wind.
The primary wind direction
is this way.
But there was
enough fire there that...
That fire is drawing
enough oxygen
that it holds this fire back
and pulls it into the wind.
And that's a great way
to deal with...
With corners.
- Go ahead.
- CAMERAPERSON: Thank you.
MAN: [ON RADIO] I'd like to
see a hotter fire, ma'am.
Whereas, if you let it
peter out kind of into this low grass and stuff...
[INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER]
[CHAINSAW BUZZING]
LACEY: If you ask somebody,
like, close your eyes
and picture a firefighter,
a wildland firefighter.
Like tall, broad-shouldered,
the handsome dude.
White dude, you know?
Like, there's your mold.
And you say, okay,
now think about a female firefighter.
You don't think about
all the badass things.
Like, I rappel
out of helicopters.
I weigh 135 pounds,
but when I pack out from a rappel fire,
my backpack weighs
100 pounds.
So, fire takes
a special person.
I think it's important
from the learning perspective.
- Okay.
- Um...
I'm a little reluctant
to, like, break off, uh,
- firing and holding
from the rest of the team. - Yep.
So, but that would be
good for...
Be good for FEMOs. Okay.
For me, fire's never mundane.
It's like a personality.
Like, every time you go out
and put fire on the land,
it has a different personality,
every single day.
And you really
have to respect that.
There's always been
a power imbalance in a patriarchal society,
in a male-dominated
environment.
We see it 'cause we feel it.
Women feel like, sometimes,
they have to assimilate to that behavior
if they wanna fit into
a male-dominated culture and environment.
And I even remember
thinking that about myself.
I'm... I'm walking
into a man's world.
There's gonna be some things
that I can't be oversensitive about.
But, at the same time,
I want to at least know you respect me.
FEMALE REPORTER:
Female Forest Service employees,
many of them firefighters,
have complained about
mistreatment for decades.
In the past ten years,
the agency has paid out
more than
half a million dollars to settle claims
involving sexual harassment
and assault,
and Congress has held
two different hearings to investigate the problem.
There is something rotten
in the US
Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service.
Raise your hands on this,
how many of you heard sexual comments from colleagues?
"Whore." "Slut."
"When you're done with him,
can you sleep with me?"
"Get the [BLEEP]
back in the kitchen and bake me some [BLEEP] cookies."
HOST: What did you feel
was at stake if you reported it to the Forest Service?
WOMAN: Everything.
There is harassment,
assault, intimidation, hostile work environment,
those are very real things.
And I know people
who have experienced...
very awful things.
And that's not the entire story
for every person, everywhere,
all the time.
It's not only about
the individual, because we've created a culture
where those behaviors
are normalized.
And we are all
contributing to it,
whether or not we are
"obviously" perpetrating that kind of harm.
- That looks pretty good.
Mmm-hmm. - Yeah.
During briefing,
Jenny was saying that the burn plan
for all the Tall Timbers units
is the same,
and the objectives match.
And then, once the igniter's out
and I get the okay from the burn boss, we're gonna...
We're gonna bring
these two together.
- FIREFIGHTER: When are you
gonna hold up? - Point to here...
Ten percent of the fire service,
they say, are women, and 90 percent are men,
and so, right away,
Nikole and I were like,
"How cool would it be
if we flip-flop the numbers?"
Like, let's invite
10% men and 90% women,
and get the male perspective
when they're actually the minority of the group.
The women participating here
are more than capable...
of every guy I know.
But I needed
to better understand the hurdles
that were in front of them.
The challenges they face
on a day-to-day basis.
And you cannot function
well as a team
unless all members
are treated equally.
LENYA QUINN-DAVIDSON:
You can't be something that you can't see.
And if you're a young woman
working up in fire
and all of your supervisors
are male,
they may be great leaders,
but if you don't have
that vision
of what a woman leader
looks like in fire,
how can you aspire to be that?
They don't have to fit the bill
of what they're used to,
which can sometimes
be very macho or very militaristic.
Those are, not necessarily,
qualities that everyone wants to have as a leader.
SADIE RUNGE:
It was the first time that I've ever been
in a operational setting
with that many women.
Hanging out in the cabins
at night,
talking about, you know, lives,
work, everything in between.
- WOMAN 1: Look at you! Aw!
- WOMAN 2: Oh, you're so cute!
Did we burn your home?
I'm sorry.
[WOMAN SHOUTING AND WHOOPING]
Sadie.
I found you something.
- Oh, is it... Is it one of
those green tree frogs? - Yeah.
Let me see.
[BOTH EXCLAIMING]
- Oh, it's so cute.
- [ALL EXCLAIMING]
[LAUGHTER]
SADIE: Just having
that atmosphere
of collective learning
and growth,
and having that space
to chat with other folks
who may be going through
similar experiences as me,
you know, it really
sort of lit that spark.
It's up to personal preference
how you wanna run this.
If you wanna lay this here
or you wanna have this on your shoulder.
This will give you
a little bit more room.
- Okay.
- Make sure it's in a way that
it doesn't dangle
over your neck.
LACEY: There are
so many things I love about doing this work.
I love the way fire smells.
I love going home
and being able to smell the smoke in my braids, still.
I love to be outside.
I love that
I'm not working indoors.
I love that it's never the same.
You know? I don't walk into
the same environment every day.
No two fires are alike.
There's constantly a challenge,
a new solution
to come up with, and...
It's dynamic and it's fun.
And I... I honestly
do work with a lot of really wonderful people.
KELLY: If you don't really
feel it in your heart and soul to work
in a very, very
challenging environment,
it's gonna be a really, really
hard career for you, a hard job.
But I do hope
that you find friendships here,
that you find a community here
that you can count on when you leave here.
Because, for me,
the more that I can form
a network outside of my work
at Yosemite
is really, truly, um,
what gives me strength.
- [INSECTS TRILLING]
- [BIRDS SCREECHING]
KELLY: Here he comes again.
[HUMMINGBIRD BUZZING]
Or she...
Here she comes again.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
[FROG CROAKING]
[CHUCKLING] This is such a trip.
Get outta here.
A hummingbird out here?
Like, hummingbirds are, like,
attracted to, like, red, bright flowers and...
There's, like, nothing
that would attract a hummingbird.
There's some like
really cool energy going on here, isn't there?
You just have to kind of
let yourself open to it.
And these, like,
these magical things happen here in Yosemite.
Every day, every day here,
something magic happens
that I'm so grateful for.
Just eternally grateful for.
As a kid, I grew up
with my grandmother taking us up to
her cabin on a lake.
As young kids, we...
We had such a love
for the outdoors through my grandmother.
The older I got,
the more difficult it was for me
to be, like,
inside four walls in a school.
Junior high, high school
is when it really started becoming very difficult,
'cause it just felt like
there was so much
incredible energy and beauty in the outdoors
that I just was having
a really tough time.
I knew, at that point,
I wanted to live in the outdoors.
I graduated high school,
transferred to Northland College,
got a four-year degree
in outdoor ed.
I met some really great people
in college.
I loved the sense of spirit
that I was receiving
from Native American students
that I was going to school with.
That finally, kind of,
started to fit my own ideals of what...
The outdoors,
and what's important to me.
Be it the plants
and the trees
and the birds and the sky
and the air and the water,
so, all the elements,
the outdoor elements, was... Is so sacred.
I felt like I had
such a strong connection
to the natural environment
that I just wanted to be in it.
I wanted to live in it,
I wanted to try
to understand it more.
I don't think we can understand
the natural environment without being in it.
You can't read it from a book.
I can't experience it through
somebody teaching me about it.
That, I think, is what drew me
to making the decision to live in a teepee.
I knew it was gonna be cold.
I prepared myself for it.
But throughout the winter,
crazy things happened.
Thirty below, by myself...
Most people thought
I was completely nuts.
I'm sure there was bets
made on me as to whether or not
I was gonna
make it through the winter.
I was sleeping
as close to the earth as I could possibly get
to try to understand
all the changes that go on.
That, unless you're really in it
and you're living it day to day,
you don't really notice
the little nuances that really change.
And what was really neat for me
is just seeing how,
as it got deeper and deeper
into winter
and the light just kept
getting less and less,
what it meant to keep
a fire going, and keep it warm.
Feeling like I had
that protection of fire...
in my teepee.
That sacredness of having fire
protect me, keep me warm,
I knew I had to rely on it
for my own survival.
After the spring
started coming in
and things were
starting to thaw,
I felt like I made it through
a winter, 30 below,
there was such
a sense of accomplishment.
I have anchored my entire life
and my challenges to that winter.
I can look back
on that time in my life and know that...
I came out
a much better person and I survived.
I absolutely know,
without a doubt, I chose my dream job
to come up to fire management.
But very, very few women
choose this as a career,
and very few actually
make it to the rank
that... That... That I'm at.
But all along the way,
throughout my career,
these types of really
difficult situations felt anchored.
Like, look,
if you can live in a teepee
for one winter,
and in the freezing cold, sub-zero,
You can do just about anything.
[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]
[INDISTINCT CONVERSATION]
LACEY: Thank you.
I knew I could get through it,
'cause it wasn't strong.
But just had to
get it off the...
The first twist.
As you were going down,
and then it twisted like...
- LACEY: I know,
I was, like, goddamn it! - [LAUGHS]
Well, that was
an interesting rappel, wasn't it? [CHUCKLES]
[INDISTINCT CONVERSATION]
- [CREWMEMBER FARTING]
- MAN: [LAUGHS] Oh, my God!
This camera does have audio.
- [ALL LAUGHING]
- MAN: You might wanna move.
- That's gonna...
Thank God it was from behind me. - [ALL LAUGHING]
KELLY: This is the sound
of Yosemite. [CHUCKLES] Honking horns.
Somebody got locked
out of their vehicle,
first thing in the morning.
[LAUGHS]
Kinda cracks me up.
You think you're in
a really peaceful place, and then, backup alarms and...
[PAN SIZZLING]
...security alarms
on vehicles.
Kind of funny.
Then again...
Yosemite Valley
really isn't wilderness
when you have,
sometimes up to 30,000 people
coming through in a day
or a weekend.
[CLICKS TONGUE]
But there's always places to go.
Mmm.
Nice day.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
I know what I forgot
to put in there. Flaxseed and hemp seed.
More protein.
This is my air-conditioning...
today.
And the house stays fairly cool
if the windows are closed.
So, yeah, good check.
Right.
[GRUNTS]
Doesn't get any easier.
[EXHALES HEAVILY]
- All right.
- [ZIPS BAG]
Okay, I'll see you guys
a little later.
Bye.
I remember talking
to a friend of mine,
and she said,
do you ever get tired of this?
And I... No, no, no.
The magnitude is...
unbelievable.
And we're gonna see that today
when we hike out to this fire
that we had
a couple of years ago,
and you see
the incredible blooms of wildflowers.
That's just... It's a...
It's a piece of magic on the land.
We just have such a long way
to go to help people understand
that fire creates
incredible diversity and beauty on the landscape.
Right now, we're just...
We see the devastation
and the news
and the people
that are killed and...
I... I understand that from a...
An absolute tragedy
standpoint of view,
but there's so much of it
that we really have to kind of think about how...
How we... How that came about.
When we started exterminating
fire on the landscape,
and we started persecuting it,
that fire was bad.
It needs to be put out.
It needs to be contained.
It needs to be subdued.
- [INSECTS TRILLING]
- [BIRDS CHIRPING]
There's so many different kinds
of butterflies coming out,
and they're all...
They're different colors.
Of course, lots of bees.
Oh, some of my favorites.
When we talk about
nutrient flush after a wildfire,
or any kind of prescribed fire,
what we're helping to do
is actually take
the dead material
on the forest floor,
when it burns,
it releases a flush of nutrients into the soil.
And so what that does
is make it available for tons,
thousands of wildflowers
and grasses and forbs that we're seeing here today.
Normally these are really,
really tight and they hold on to their seeds.
Um, but when they get
a little bit of heat to 'em,
the cone opens up
and they throw their seeds.
So you just start
walking through and you're just, like,
"Gosh, they're just everywhere."
There's literally
hundreds of 'em.
Initially, when you
look out there,
you're like, "Oh,
it's another green plant."
But it's actually a new tree.
This is...
This is what we really look at,
from a rich
biodiversity perspective,
is when you see something like
this come back.
Our interpretation of fire
is that it has killed
these trees,
but it also gave birth
to all these wildflowers.
FIREFIGHTER 1: Here you go.
FIREFIGHTER 2: Thank you.
MICHELE: Burn boss,
go ahead for holding.
[OVERLAPPING CHATTER]
WOMAN: [ON RADIO]
Hey, how are things looking? How do you feel?
I think things are looking
really, really good and feeling very, very good.
[CHATTER CONTINUES]
WOMAN: [ON RADIO]
Okay. Good... Good.
That was really good for me
to hear that you get told all the time,
"Quit being so sensitive."
If they say, like,
two female couplings don't go together.
and I'm like,
well, they do in my house.
- And they're, like...
- "Oh, she's a joke."
She's setting us up
for a lawsuit.
She's totally setting us up.
It's like, I'm not
setting you up.
- I was just trying to
joke with you. - Setting you up for a high-five.
- That's great.
- Exactly.
I was playing with you.
- [CHUCKLES]
- After 14 years...
- Yeah.
- It was all good.
Now, all of a sudden,
it's not good anymore?
I don't know what the rules are,
you changed them on me.
LACEY: You can't talk about
how people make you feel uncomfortable,
'cause, then,
they feel uncomfortable for making you feel bad.
- Yeah.
- So I was, like, you have to take it.
- I wasn't taught that at all.
- Good.
I was actually taught
it's perfectly okay
to have an open discussion
about things as long as you do it in a positive manner
and you're not pointing
fingers of blame.
What you're saying is,
you said a bad...
You said a hurtful thing,
and I would like you to change it.
And what they hear is,
I'm a shitty person,
and they don't wanna feel
like a shitty person.
But, sometimes,
you can't convince them
that that's not
what you actually said.
Yep. I'm outnumbered and...
Wrong time and place.
LACEY: Yeah. And I think,
what you said,
I don't feel respected
on a daily basis.
That's pretty simple.
I need to feel respected,
to be effective as a team member.
But explaining
why I don't feel respected,
that's compli...
That is not simple.
Because you say, like,
"Well, my boss called me a girl."
Okay... Brush it off, let it go.
And I said, "Well,
my boss called me a girl 48 times this week."
[CHUCKLES] You know?
And I let it go 46 of those times,
and then pointed it out twice,
and now I'm difficult.
That's not really simple
to explain to someone who hasn't...
experienced that.
And that's just one example.
The amount of energy
that I spend
regulating my emotional response
to my work environment
is ludicrous. [LAUGHS]
I mean, I spend
a lot of mental energy on the work itself.
It's a dynamic,
risky environment
that we're constantly
reassessing and evaluating.
That itself is exhausting.
To add on top of that,
being constantly aware
of the fact
that I'm in an environment
that's... Like,
a cultural environment
that doesn't feel
totally welcoming
and 100% safe.
That's just an added
energy expenditure that I don't...
I don't think
I have the capacity to keep doing that
for the rest of my career.
One of my fears is getting
to the end of my life
and not thinking
I impacted anything.
[BIRDS SQUAWKING]
It scares me to think
that I could live for 90 years,
thinking I'm doing cool stuff,
helping people,
but in reality, my 90 years
could have never existed
and the world would be
exactly the same.
I feel some sort of duty
to like, leave fire culture better than I found it.
For the people who've come
into fire after me.
I mean, given that this is
the only grown-up job I've ever had,
a lot of the people
I care about in in my life are firefighters,
or involved in fire somehow.
So, like, I care about that world,
and I care about that culture,
because I know
how damaging it can be.
And, like, if there's
something I can do
to help make that better,
I want to keep doing that.
[KNIFE SLICING]
So much of culture
is reinforced and perpetuated,
not by active praise
of the things you're doing,
but just by not getting
in trouble for them.
Silent acceptance.
It's really hard to make
a fish recognize water.
[PAN SIZZLING]
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
- You're here!
- Hi, Lacey!
LACEY: Oh, so glad to see you.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah. Come on, let's eat.
MONICA: If you can
pull it away from sexual harassment
and make the point that
it's about people in charge
dominating people
that aren't in charge...
Right. It's not a gender thing.
It's a power thing.
Yes, and you can get every man
in the room to come back.
Because the minute
you stand up there and say sexual harassment,
the men that
aren't inflicting it or don't see it happening,
- just tune out. They're like,
"Well, that's not..." - "That doesn't apply to me."
If you can be like,
"Well, the same guy that's patting you on the ass,
and calling you cupcake,
is also bullying some
soft-spoken dude,"
he's not just picking
on you and me.
He's picking on anybody
he thinks he can get the upper hand on.
Did I tell you? I was
heavy equipment processing,
and I had, like,
nine pieces of equipment,
and I was finishing up my side
and I misspoke.
I said 800 ton
instead of 80 ton.
Mmm-hmm.
And the dude from the Southeast
took my mistake,
and he just magnified it.
- Can't just move on.
- No.
And, um, he was like,
"Whoa, that's like so and so many pounds."
[FAKE LAUGHTER]
And I looked
right at him, and like,
"That's some good math.
You're really good at math-ing, aren't you?
- "Your mom must be proud."
- [LAUGHS]
As soon as I left,
he said to that group of dudes,
he was like,
"Well, she could be a handful."
What does that translate to?
- "What a bitch!"
- Yeah.
God, I hate it.
- I hate that so much.
- And my buddy...
My buddy stood there
and he's like,
"No way. She takes care
of her own.
"You should have
seen her in Alaska.
"She threatened to kick
a bus driver in the balls."
[LACEY LAUGHS]
And he basically
said to that dude,
and to every other dude
in the group that,
"No, she... She's cool."
Mmm-hmm.
"That was
an appropriate response for your shitty comment."
Pretty much is what he said.
And then every dude
in the group, he said, "She's cool."
And... And that's the way
I feel at work.
- I feel so supported and...
- That's awesome.
I'm just another person.
It kind of started for me,
I was talking to one of my supervisors,
and he said he wouldn't
want his daughter
to go into this line of work,
and I was like, "Why? It's been...
"As a woman,
it's been the best thing that's ever happened to me."
- Mmm-hmm.
- It's made me strong and confident.
And best thing that's
ever happened to me, this job.
And it was sad that
he said he didn't want his little girl doing it.
Yeah. I've had men
that I worked with say that too, like,
"If I had a daughter,
I'd never let her be a firefighter."
But what I wonder is like...
How can they...
How can they acknowledge
that on one hand,
that my work environment
is so shitty and toxic
that I don't want
my family in it,
but on the other hand,
not do anything about that?
Like, how can they recognize
that it's awful,
and also not try to change it?
- Yeah, just sit back...
- Just sit back and go,
"Oh, yeah. I just won't let
my daughter in."
Because everybody
wants to fit in.
And they don't want to be
"that dude" that stands up and causes a scene.
- You know?
- I know.
That's why I've just
resorted to being "that woman."
[LAUGHS]
[THUNDER RUMBLING]
[MAN]
What you reading there?
LACEY: It's called
Trust Exercise.
I'm almost done with it.
I'm still not quite sure
what it's about.
[BOTH LAUGHING]
It's fiction, like,
then the narrator becomes
somebody who is in the first half of the story.
- Mmm-hmm.
- Mmm-hmm.
One of them, just, like,
wakes up, and turns out she was just, like,
bitten by a bat, and had...
- [LAUGHING]
- ...been in a coma.
A bat, huh?
That's how I see this ending.
And she's like, "Whoa!"
All right, babe.
I got ten minutes left.
I don't want to go to work.
Don't. That's what they do.
[LACEY CHUCKLES]
But then how are we gonna
afford a new battery for Karen?
That's true.
We can't deprive her.
Okay.
If I was born as a man,
I think it just would have
been smoother.
I grew up outside,
doing outdoor things.
I enjoy manual labor.
Otherwise, I match
the demographic.
I'm young, I'm white.
I check a lot of the boxes
for, like, standard firefighter,
but my being a woman,
like, puts me in this whole other category.
I see men around me
in fire world
just trash it out
and screw it up all the time
and everyone's like,
"Eh, didn't work. Try it again in a different way."
But if I do the same thing,
if I don't, like, calculate exactly
how I'm going to
play this game,
and I just try stuff
and then it doesn't work,
then they're like,
"Hmm, see, women just,
"like, aren't really
cut out for this."
I just...
I don't think I would be
at this level of tired after only ten seasons.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
KELLY: I can't tell you
how many times I wanted to back out.
You just don't wake up one day
and just go,
"I think I want to go testify
in front of Congress
"about these egregious acts
that have happened to me in the past."
I was just having, you know,
huge reservations, and really consternating
over whether or not
this was something that I should do.
I felt like the mere fact
that I was watching this happen
to, uh, more and more women,
and even to some degree,
some men,
then I think
you have to ask yourself, "Do we all stay silent?"
That, I think,
was the tipping point.
But the day that
I got on the plane,
I sat up close to
where the door was, and I kept thinking,
"I still have a chance
to get off the plane.
"I still have a chance.
Still have a chance."
And as soon as the door shut,
I just kind of closed my eyes
and just had to take
a deep breath,
and as the plane started
pulling back from the gate,
that's when I think this
irreversible journey really began.
Every state I flew over,
you know, was just this flood of memories
about all these people
that have supported me.
The men that have been
super supportive of me over the years
and several women
who continued to support me.
I felt like, "Am I putting
all of this at risk?"
FEMALE REPORTER: Female
Forest Service employees, many of them firefighters,
have complained about
mistreatment for decades.
Numerous park employees
from multiple parks
have contacted the committee
to describe patterns
of misconduct
at the Park Service.
It was a similar report
16 years ago.
The task force concluded,
and I quote,
"It is critical for
the National Park Service to show a sense of urgency
"in ensuring that all employees
are working in an environment
"free from unlawful harassment."
Were any of its
recommendations implemented?
Uh, no, they were not,
as far as I can ever figure out.
So... So we're back here again
16 years later.
Yeah, it's a very
regrettable action that did not occur.
I felt it was really,
really important,
because I've been involved
in this for so long
that, somehow, I...
I had to have not just my voice heard,
but there were so many
other people that were also feeling the same way,
and they flat out said,
"There's just no way I can come forward and say anything."
And so, a lot of people
will continue to ask,
you know, why didn't you
come forward?
How come now you're reporting?
Those are questions
that people constantly ask,
because they don't understand
how difficult it is to speak up,
and speak the truth
about these things that have happened,
because of the dire consequences
most women face
when you do speak up
and are honest about the things
that have happened to you
in the past.
My name is Kelly Martin,
and I am the Chief
of Fire and Aviation Management
at Yosemite National Park.
I've been in my current position
for over ten years.
I am here before you today
to tell you my story,
but more importantly,
to provide testimony
regarding the dark clouds
of misconduct
that remains elusive
from public view.
I felt like I have a voice.
I can use my voice.
This is the United States.
We do have the ability
to use our voice
for the betterment
of this generation and the next generation.
Imagine for one minute,
being 20-something again.
We have an idealistic view
of the world that is equitable and just.
My idealist view
was soon shattered
when I became victim
of sexual harassment not once, but three times.
One of my perpetrators was
repeatedly caught engaging in voyeuristic behavior,
all the while
receiving promotions within the National Park Service
until his recent retirement
as Deputy Superintendent.
This is very difficult
to sit before you today.
I'm not boastful of the history
of my sexual harassment experiences.
As a matter of fact,
this is the first time I have come out publicly
to describe the painful scars
of my past
in a hopeful effort to eliminate
these kinds of experiences
from happening to young women
entering our workforce today.
It's almost as it's accepted
that men can be given
the benefit of the doubt,
and women are doubted.
As I walk through
my 32 years of service,
I want to leave here today with
a strong conviction of hope.
Hope for the future generation
of the Park Service conservation leaders
that will not know
what it is like to experience sexual harassment,
gender and racial
discrimination,
sexism and hostile
work environments.
We're going to be watching
the National Park Service,
and the way
Ms. Martin is treated,
and other whistleblowers
are treated
as a consequence of
their bringing these allegations forward.
Uh, it should not
be unaddressed,
and, uh, it has been
inadequately addressed.
We all long for a day
that we don't have to take
these extreme measures
to be heard and believed.
[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]
A hell of a job
for just two people in a few hours,
having to drag trees
quite a ways.
But,
got it done.
We're making a log deck
for the helicopter to land on.
[SAW BUZZING]
Might not be the prettiest.
But it's a log deck.
[INSECTS BUZZING]
The only wildlife we've seen
while we were down here,
are all the mosquitoes.
And other flying pests.
Hopefully pilot
doesn't have a problem with it,
and we won't have to come back
and fix it later.
Some people can't imagine
using the bathroom anywhere but inside a building,
on porcelain.
But come on,
it's way better out here.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER OVER RADIO]
So we were on our way to Helena.
And got diverted
to a fire up in the Bridgers. A lightning strike.
As you can see,
there's the part of the tree that got struck.
You can see it...
kind of exploded into bits.
Not tall anymore.
And there's
pieces of it hanging
up in that other tree.
It's these kind of fires
that really split my mind
about loving my job
and not make me feel conflicted.
On the one hand,
what an awesome place
to hang out.
No people, just hanging out
in the woods.
Super pretty.
Gonna camp for a night or two.
Can't complain about that.
On the other hand,
this was a naturally ignited fire,
it's a lightning strike.
And it wasn't really
doing much, skunking around.
[EMBERS CRACKLING]
Hard to tell how steep it is.
Uh, this is basically
a 45-degree angle here.
So it's not a very big spot,
should be pretty easy
to put out,
except that the duff
is super thick,
and even digging down, like,
couldn't get to dirt yet,
this is still mostly duff...
So this is going to be
a slow mop-up show.
Basically... [CLEARS THROAT]
picking everything up by hand.
Making sure it's cold.
Should I be out here
putting this fire out?
[CHUCKLES SOFTLY]
You know, um...
As I learn more about fire
and fire science and fire ecology,
and how important fire is to,
you know, the well being of an ecosystem.
I feel less like I'm taking
appropriate actions
as a steward of the land.
Sometimes, I feel like
I'm getting paid to do things
that aren't in
the best interest of the ecosystem in question.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
I don't know.
So I just sit here
and eat my Snickers and think about it.
Nothing better than a Snickers
that has melted
and resolidified
a handful of times in your backpack.
[CHUCKLES]
KELLY: Do you guys, uh,
do you guys want a pancake?
Ready for a pancake?
[ALL LAUGHING]
[TAPPING ON COUNTER]
[CUTLERY CLATTERING]
KELLY: David, do you want one?
Are you sure?
- No, no. Yeah, I'm done.
- Okay.
[MAN COUGHING]
MAN: You're anti-pancake?
- WOMAN: You a huge fan
of pancakes? - Yeah.
So you're not biased.
You don't have any implicit bias
- against pancakes.
- No implicit bias.
Copy that.
[LAUGHTER]
We've been talking
a lot about implicit bias.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Just want to make sure.
There's one thing,
you know, that we can do
is kind of, you know,
there's a little bit of humor here.
We can laugh about ourselves.
WOMAN: [OVER RADIO]
Yosemite conditions for today.
Sunny, maximum 64 to 69,
8,000 feet, 53 to 58.
KELLY: The thing
for me was, um,
with you getting here
this weekend was
thinking about the success
that we've had for the last three events.
That third WTREX
really felt like...
- It really solidified
a lot of things. - Yeah.
And there was
new people there from
reaches of
the Nature Conservancy,
National Park Service,
Forest Service,
uh, NGOs that are like,
"I'm kind of really interested
in attending and helping."
And then, like I think,
for me, that was, like, the tipping point for...
We're on to something that
that I don't believe
anybody else is really doing.
- Mmm-hmm.
- And so...
Now what does that look like?
You know,
for the next three years or the next five years.
And this could go any...
Any number of places.
That's really exciting.
Like, it feels like we've taken
kind of a slow road with WTREX
and just doing
one event per year...
I think our pace has been
perfect actually,
because we kind of needed
to have that success.
- Mmm-hmm.
- And to show that we could do it,
and to build out our team
and feel smooth,
like a smooth machine together.
And now
we're at a perfect point
to broaden it out, and...
I think any of us
coming up through the ranks,
think about, like,
what kind of opportunities
- do we really have
to build our competency? - Yeah.
Right, there's confidence
in what we love and what we wanna do,
but where are the opportunities
to actually really build
- our physical skill set?
- Yeah.
Yeah, the way I think
about WTREX moving forward
is that we do diversify
and think about
where are those bottlenecks
for women in fire,
and how can we create
those opportunities.
Leadership training, um,
you know, the diversity and inclusion training...
We could even do short modules
on burn planning,
and, you know, some of
the ecological concepts.
I don't know. I think the sky
is the limit, kind of...
We think about women
in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s,
as they're moving
through their career,
we're not interested
in just getting more women in fire,
but we're interested
in what does it take to...
To keep them in fire,
if that's where they want to be,
and to advance them
and give them power
and leadership capabilities
and stuff.
We really need to...
You know, we understand
what some of those obstacles are in WTREX,
but as federal agencies,
we really, we've got a lot of work to do still.
You know, both from
scaling up the good fire
as well as how do
we empower women
in leadership positions
in wildland fire?
And there's just...
There's nothing else, like, out there like this.
And so that, for me,
is really exciting to think about,
how I can put
my two loves and passion
about gender equity
and more good fire
on the landscape.
- This is just like
the perfect combination. - Yeah.
I'm grateful that we met.
- Yeah, well...
- I'm glad you came up.
I'm so glad.
I think we have a really
strong future ahead of us.
Oh, yeah, with a tremendous
amount of, you know, work.
And so I think...
Thinking about that, too,
- is, it's like, "Ooh,
I'm sort of kind of retired." - [LAUGHS]
So I'm excited about
that type of work on the outside
in retirement as well.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
WOMAN 1: You're good.
Don't worry.
WOMAN 2: Oh, okay, okay.
- That's just the beginning.
- Got you there.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Yeah, yeah.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER CONTINUES]
Coffee, friends.
What else could you ask for?
My hubby.
[MAN CLEARS THROAT]
This'll last about one hour.
I was telling her,
this is really...
Nobody waters
the grass around here.
This place is really dusty
and dirty...
It kind of goes back
to the "opposites attract."
I'm Mr. Clean.
I met Kelly in Moab, Utah.
She knew one of
the people on the team,
and he called her up
and said, "Hey, we're gonna go down and have a beer."
So that's where
I first met her.
From then on,
teams that went together,
and we became
part of a fire team,
and from there on,
it's just kind of like,
you know, good people
attract good people.
I just remember this one time
we were on a fire out at Battle Mountain,
and this was before
we were together,
and we... She had a broken arm.
Fell off a horse.
A Forest Service horse.
She... [LAUGHS] She says,
"You sure you want me on team?
"I've got...
My arm's in a cast."
I go, "Well, can you push
the mic on a radio?
"And can you walk up a hill
and look at what's going on and keep track of stuff?"
And she goes, "Yeah."
I says, "Well, come to the fire."
She's a tough woman.
In the agencies, all of them,
the tough women
tend to survive it,
um, because
it's not an easy road.
One of the worst things
that ever happened was, um...
And I didn't hear about this
for like two months...
One of the women
on the fire crew,
she used one of
the BLM bathrooms
and the fire crew decided
they were gonna tape her in there with duct tape.
And so, Kelly told me one day
she's going to go to Congress
and she was working with
staffers from both sides.
You know,
she's always the hero.
When she decided
to retire early,
an individual
sent a note that said that, "Thank God she's gone,
"and now we can get to
a higher level of management for that agency."
And I'm going,
"You got to be kidding me."
You can't believe
what she went through.
It would take three hours
to tell you all the crap that she had to go through.
Drugs on the crew,
fights and people getting hurt,
and they're covering it up
and car wrecks
and smoking dope
and driving
government vehicles.
You cannot believe
what she went through.
KELLY: So, tonight
is a celebration.
We've got lots and lots of food,
So let's go ahead and eat,
but there are a couple of people
I really want to introduce.
My mom, Mickey Martin.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
- Mom!
- WOMAN: From Illinois.
KELLY: Yep,
she flew in from... from Illinois.
It's just really
a neat opportunity to be with all of you here tonight.
- So...
- WOMAN: Whoo-hoo!
And I bet you there's gonna be
people kind of showing up from time to time.
So please introduce yourself
to each other, and let's eat.
- Okay!
- MAN: Let's do it!
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
LACEY: I met Kelly
at the first WTREX, 2016.
And I had no idea
who she was before that.
But I read through
her testimony and watched the video.
And then I was like,
"Hoy shit, I'm gonna meet this woman.
"That's pretty cool."
You know... Here she is,
talking about the hard things
in front of a huge audience,
then met her at WTREX.
And... And it was awesome.
You know, and she's been...
She's been great to work with.
Branches over there
can help build.
And it was... You know,
she's just so passionate
about fire and what it means
and how
we should be treating it
and how it should be
used on the land.
And you know, it feels...
It feels good to be
around somebody who is so...
sure of what they believe.
You know, like...
She's had people
telling her not to believe what she believes
for the past 35 years,
and she's like,
"Well, fuck it. This is still
what I believe, because it's that important to me."
And, like, that feels
good to know
that there are
people like that.
Um... Yeah,
I think she's awesome. She's really wonderful.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
PAUL: She gave her life
and her heart to that place.
And I'll never support
that program again
just because I know
exactly the depths of that.
She was working
at 10:30 at night.
Sometimes she'd work
till 2:00 in the morning,
to get the fire plans done.
And, um, she was,
I would say, 90% successful.
But there was a lot of people
that didn't like her
because she tried
to clean up the shop.
- [INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Yeah. I have to tell you
that seeing her testify
was the most awesome experience,
and to know that she did that
in September '16, 2016.
She led the pack
and wound up onTime magazine
as one of the silence breakers,
which was just absolutely amazing.
I must have run
to every gas station,
every grocery store, and bought
every Timemagazine
I could get my hands on
that night, because I thought
"They're gonna be gone
if I wait till tomorrow."
[WOMAN EXCLAIMS]
- Thanks, Mom.
- Thank you, honey.
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
Somebody...
Somebody had to speak up.
And I think our agency,
the National Park Service,
is a better agency
because some of the things that we've been able to address.
I feel like things are
starting to change.
I know a lot of you don't...
Some people really, uh,
have really resented
what I've done.
Um, I would have never chosen
to do anything like this,
but I really, honestly felt like
our agency deserves way better.
And I know we have really,
really good people here.
So, for all of you
that are here with me tonight,
I do know that I've done
the right thing, I hope,
and that I'm still...
[ALL CHEERING AND APPLAUDING]
PAUL: She was never respected.
Because she was an outsider,
and I feel because
she was a woman.
Because they'd never
had a woman FMO.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
WOMAN: I see a lot.
So, I love it. It was Kelly that...
We were sitting here
at Christmas time...
Oh, boy, 2013,
and she just said to me,
she goes,
"What are you waiting for?"
And I said, like, "You're right, you know."
- "Let's do it."
- And in the next month,
- I was enrolled in TREX,
so, yeah. - Yeah, awesome.
Love Kelly. She's a little
special person to me. I love her to death.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
LACEY: And you...
You started this.
MAN: No, you're the one
with the stick. You started it.
- I was fixing it
and then you undid my work. - Ah! Ah!
No, I was working with you.
No, you undid it.
You need to learn to work
with other people.
You need to learn
to mind your own business.
The fire is my business,
I split all that wood.
Only after you
messed up whatever...
Nah, I split the wood.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[CHUCKLES] Do you have
this look on camera?
WOMAN: I do.
[LAUGHS]
Oh, and there's ice
in his whiskey. That's why.
No, it's not me.
I'm sure you can find
more things to dislike about me.
I can. How long do we have?
- Probably a couple of hours.
- [LAUGHS] Okay, great.
- We'll work on it.
- Yeah. No rush.
We'll work on... No, I'm...
- Take your time.
- I'll let it marinate.
Take your time.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER CONTINUES]
WOMAN: I could turn on my light,
but there's enough around...
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
KELLY: There's no one out.
So, we're it.
There's no one here
and it's incredibly powerful.
Uh, there's just nothing
like it.
There's very, very few people
that actually experience the park like this.
So, to me,
it's a lot more intense and a lot more fulfilling
than to be out here
when there's a thousand people on this trail.
So, let's go have a good time,
and we will drink some whiskey
when we get to the beach.
- Okay, whiskey over here.
- [MAN WHOOPS]
Whiskey over here.
And there's tobacco here
if anybody wants to start with their own little offering.
I actually want to throw it
in the river.
I'm gonna honor my dad tonight.
Do you remember...
You remember when I was reading your son
- Goodnight Moon?
- WOMAN: Yes. Oh, my gosh!
- KELLY: I know, huh?
- [LAUGHING]
WOMAN: Goodnight Moon.
Goodnight Moon.
He was just, like, a little kid, little shaver.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you were like,
"Yes, you can read to my son."
WOMAN: Moon in my room.
KELLY: Anybody else
want some tobacco?
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
KELLY: Here we go.
Wow, this is a
bonding experience.
[LAUGHTER]
- How are you feeling?
- Great.
Connections, and...
This is half the fun
of having a big party like this.
- It's like...
- Yeah, bringing together everyone.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
WOMAN: This park's going to be
so different without you.
- Oh, stop.
- No.
This woman was like,
"Do you know that Kelly has changed the park
"and she really speaks up
for what's right even if people don't want her to?"
And I was like, "Yes."
[LAUGHTER]
KELLY: You just never know.
I mean, you're all gonna
find yourself in a position someday to just go,
"This is my moment. I don't know
if it's right or wrong."
You're gonna step into it
and you just...
You can change the world.
WOMAN 2: We are gonna
miss you though.
I'm gonna miss you guys very,
very much.
We're like, yeah,
we know you're amazing
and a rockstar and also,
never leave us.
[ALL LAUGHING]
We know you have bigger
and better things to move on to,
but we're gonna miss you.
KELLY: You know,
the fun thing is just knowing that...
"Okay, so I'm in my 50s
and you guys are in your 30s and 20s."
And so it's just
this cross-generational, like, empowerment.
Women empowerment
is, like, really cool.
Just, like, embrace it,
take it on,
and, you know,
just, like, own it.
[WOMAN] I wanna live
in a matriarchal society.
- I'm serious.
- I mean, the United States is gonna be that soon.
- Soon.
- Well, it's all gonna be up to all of you, right? And me.
I mean,
we're all part of it, right?
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- [HELICOPTER APPROACHING]
- [LACEY SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]
- MAN: I haven't
seen that before. - Me either.
I made a friend.
Here we are in my last
operational shift as a firefighter.
We've been here
on the Horsefly Fire for couple of weeks.
For sure,
I will be hiking again and backpacking
and doing the kinds of things
that I've done in this job,
but not for this job.
Not as a firefighter and that
will be strange and exciting.
It only took about a week
into this season
for me to feel affirmed
in my decision to leave.
[CHUCKLES]
It was very clear very early that it's a good decision
for me to make this
my last season, so that felt good.
Knowing that I was making
the right choice for me.
But because it's been
so slow, there's been lots of time for me
to keep thinking about that
and wondering
what would it look like and what could I do?
Is it worth staying in it
so I can keep
trying to make
the culture better
and keep influencing
people's perspectives
and maybe changing their mind
and helping them learn,
and there's been some
back and forth.
But it's definitely...
It's time to go, it's time to move on.
Crazy how much stuff
you accumulate over the years.
[BIRDS CHIRPING]
KELLY: I think the one thing
I really didn't expect
in retirement, when you leave,
it really is a hard stop.
You're done with phone calls,
you're done with your computer,
you're done with your keys.
Everything gets turned in
on a Friday afternoon.
And Sunday, I find myself
going over Tioga Pass
really early in the morning.
Watching the full moon set
and the sun rise.
And that's a moment
I am never gonna forget.
'Cause that was another
huge transition in my life.
I think there's
some kind of endorphins that keep firefighters going,
because that's what we do.
And then when you come
to the abrupt stop of a retirement,
you feel both elated, relieved,
but you really begin
to feel the exhaustion has really caught up to you.
This little tarragon
is a cutting from a friend of mine.
She's got goats
and a cute little garden and...
I just like plants
that are given to me.
It reminds me of them,
of friends.
PAUL: It's hard to explain
the subtle
and sometimes blatant way
that the agency was treating women.
And not just in fire
and not just in law enforcement,
but in the whole area.
And when you see an indicator,
you know, in fire,
the indicator is low humidity
and high temperature
and some wind.
Well, when you see
a lot of people leaving the agency
and most of them are women,
there's a big indicator
there's something not right.
So this is kinda sour,
but it complements the maple syrup.
Oops!
KELLY: The trigger point
in '16 happened when
reading the story about
the sexual harassment at Grand Canyon.
And to be honest with you,
it was that trigger point
that I immediately just
closed my eyes
and threw my head in my hands
and I'm like,
I can't believe
this is still going on.
I just can't believe
that women are asking
and describing situations,
horrific situations.
And nobody did anything.
And I thought to myself,
these are young women
just like I was at their age
at Grand Canyon
just starting their careers.
And they've had
this horrific thing that's happening to them.
And they're reporting
to senior level officials
who are basically sweeping it
under the rug.
And it was that moment
that through remembering
my own experience
with the peeping Tom,
who continued to promote
for another 25 years within the Park service,
uh, arrested several times
by the way.
And still kept promoting,
so there's this... How can this be?
So this lifetime of experiences
of things that, you know, have happened to me,
and now I'm in a position
at Yosemite, a very powerful position,
and a very high level position,
where I just
never felt validated.
After 30-some odd years
of working very, very hard
to some of these assignments
being given away
to subordinate men
or being oppressed and dismissed.
I just felt like
this can't continue to happen.
So, in my testimony,
I do talk about creating
gender parity
at the highest levels.
You can't just relegate women
to non-authoritative type of positions.
They need to be responsible
in positions of authority, in positions of power.
And we just have not
gotten there.
So, knowing that
that power disparity exists,
that's a place where
we should recognize
that there's still work
to be done to try to reduce that disparity.
And on my way home.
And I'm going to take
the not very direct route home.
Um, but while I'm on the road,
figured it'd be a great time
to stop by and see Kelly.
Talk about fire.
Catch up on things, see how
retirement is going for her.
Talk about my next chapter,
you know, it'll be good.
KELLY: Hi!
- Hello!
- It's so good to see you.
Aw, look at you.
Oh, you look so good.
LACEY: I'll be on campus
starting August 17th.
Well, it'll be like three days
a week on campus
and two days a week
doing rotations in the hospital.
We won't be working
with patients that require, like...
More involved precautions
than just standard gloves.
So, they really
try to limit that then?
Yeah, you know, I don't.
I don't know what it usually
looks like outside of a pandemic situation,
but that's what
they've told us to expect
going into this semester.
And other than that,
I don't have a whole lot of information.
Obviously, I'm not a nurse yet.
But it's kind of like fire,
everything...
Everything
that's worth learning, you learn on the job.
[HUMMING]
I... I hope, I'm pretty sure
that I changed some
people's minds over the past ten years
when it comes to attitudes about
who's supposed to be in fire,
who's good at fire.
And I don't think
I would have been successful changing their minds
if I had picked
every single fight with them that I could have.
You know, if fire is something
that you really wanna do,
which is a legit choice,
a valid choice,
you gotta pick your battles
so that you can move towards the final goal.
And you know...[SIGHS]
I fucking hate saying this,
but shit's gonna happen,
you know.
You're gonna work
with assholes.
There's gonna be some
sexist shit going down.
Some misogynistic stuff.
And no one else is gonna say
anything about it.
Eventually I got to the point
where I didn't feel like I had a choice anymore.
It was, like, leave
or this is going to destroy you kind of thing.
And if fire culture
was not what it was,
maybe it would have felt more
like a choice.
I read something recently about
kind of the trauma that communities go through
of having to evacuate
all the time and I'm thinking to myself,
imagine what that's like
as a career firefighter.
You know,
year after year after year
that they're being exposed
to hundreds of houses being destroyed
and people's lives being lost.
We know that that's
the business that we're in,
but I don't think we've really
elevated it to the status of...
- Well, in knowing...
- This is trauma.
Knowing that
it's part of your job doesn't make it easier.
You know, that's a
"routine" part of your job.
Like, it's still a thing
you're going through.
It's still, you know,
they can still be a traumatic event.
But I think the conversations
are starting to happen.
But I'm really hoping that...
I would like to see that expand
to a more holistic understanding
of who we are as people, you know?
The fighting fire,
the putting fire out part is one aspect.
You know, and then there's
the mental health thing.
And then there's
the leadership development
and the interpersonal
communication and the relationship building.
You know, those are all
separate things and it seems like,
most of those
just get sidelined
to focus on the putting
fire out part, you know.
I would love to know
from some of the men
I've worked with in the past, like,
"What do you remember me
saying to you?"
You know,
maybe it's a conversation I don't even remember,
but I said something
that took that person back
and they were,
like, "Holy shit."
There is one experience
that stands out very strong in my memory.
There was a person
I was working with
who was new to the crew,
a crew that I had previously been on.
And this person came in
and decided that
I was not going to be
a good firefighter.
This person who had never
worked with me before.
You know, I was too small.
I wasn't strong enough,
you know, obviously,
I wasn't going to be able to pull my own weight or whatever.
Whether he was trying to
or not, it was clear to me.
And it got to the point
where the rest of the crew
was being impacted
by, like, us not getting along.
The crew boss
pulled us aside and said,
"Give me your version of events.
Give me your version of events."
You hear it from each other,
so we can figure out where the mismatch is, you know?
It all boiled down to,
at the very end, I was like, "Okay, look,
"there's one thing I need
from you that would help me
"feel like the situation
is resolved."
I said, "I don't need you
to be my friend
"or to want to work with me,
"or to even think that,
you know, like, I'm a great firefighter.
"I simply need you to say
that I'm competent, you know.
"Not great, not the best,
not you wanna work with me all the time.
"Simply, I am competent
at my job."
Pretty low bar, pretty low bar,
what I thought.
And he looked at me and said,
"Well, I'd be lying
if I said that."
I didn't know
what the fuck to say.
My crew boss was standing
right there and he didn't say a fucking thing.
Here's the man who hired me
in the first place,
then hired me back
because apparently he thought I could do the job,
and was competent.
And here's this other person,
new to the crew,
who's barely worked with me
for a season
saying, "I don't even think
you are baseline competent,"
and nobody else fucking
said anything.
And I was like,
"Okay, well, I... This is it."
And then the conversation
was over and nobody ever fucking addressed it again.
I was like,
"Okay, well, I guess, I guess I'm on my own."
You know, I didn't...
Goddamn it, that happened...
[SNIFFLES]
Happened a long time ago
and it still makes me... [CHUCKLES]
Still makes me cry.
Oh, and it made me so mad.
I think I probably cried
then, too.
And it's that like,
I'm so mad I don't know what else to do but cry.
But that very often
gets interpreted
as like, "Oh, my God.
Look at her. She's crying again. She's so emotional."
But it's like,
you don't understand.
I'm crying because I wanna rip
your head off.
Not because I am sad, you know.
And after that, I was like,
well, I guess it doesn't fucking matter.
That situation I had tried
to talk to people,
I had tried to say,
this is happening. I need support.
And it didn't matter.
The situation didn't change for better or for worse.
I don't regret leaving at all.
I'm so glad I did not... [SIGHS]
It was just time.
You know, and I don't...
I don't say that to, like,
shit on anyone who's still doing it and loving it,
or doing it and not loving it
and they're just choosing to keep doing it, like...
You do you,
but for me, it was just...
It was time to be done, move on.
And I don't regret it at all.
I don't regret spending
ten years doing it.
But I'm very happy
to have made the decision to not do it anymore.
It was time.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
Kelly's cafe, Kelly's car wash.
Kelly's BnB.
[LAUGHING]
Yeah, that's all good.
Thank you so much for hosting.
Thank you for coming by
and putting me on your path.
And thanks for the time
that you spent in fire.
You made a difference
Yeah, I hope so.
You did. You absolutely did.
I changed at least
one person's mind maybe somewhere along the road.
I think you should
put your standards a little higher than that.
I think you had a big impact
on a lot of young women.
So, myself personally,
I appreciate that.
Aw, thanks.
Well, I'll definitely...
Whenever we're allowed to have a WTREX in person again,
- I'll see you there.
- Please.
- [CHUCKLES]
- Okay, good. So you're not giving up on that?
- No, I think WTREX
is the one thing I'll stay. - Good, good.
You know,
'cause that's the part I care about.
Making fire better
for the next firefighters
and I can do that
without being a firefighter.
You know? So I can still be
a part of that.
Good. Well,
I'm glad to know that.
- Good.
- I'll be around.
Okay, dear.
Oh, take care. I love you.
- I love you, too.
- All right. Best wishes.
- Gotta hit the road.
- Text me when you...
- When I make it?
- When you make it.
- Nine hours is a long time.
- Okay. Yeah, it's gonna be a long drive.
I got snacks.
- Good. Cookies?
- All right.
I got cookies.
Yay!
[ENGINE STARTS]
KELLY: Good woman.
I wish she was still
working with us.
I feel so empowered by people
that are so different
from one another and I think
that's probably the key.
Everybody has a different
journey and a different path.
You know, the time
that I spent working
in the fire environment,
I would never give up.
I just knew as a young kid even
that this was what I wanted to do.
I learned a lot,
but made a lot of mistakes.
But I also, I think it was
an incredible journey.
The only reason I could have
a career in fire
that went as well as it did
is because of the women 40 years ago who fixed stuff.
You know, Kelly put up
with a lot of bullshit over her 35 years.
I have no doubt
that if I had met her earlier in my fire career,
you know, things might
have been different.
Yeah, I know things
would have been different for sure.
As the new Deputy Director,
I'm personally committed
to providing
a culture of transparency,
inclusion, respect,
and accountability
and making this a safe place
for employees to work.
We want to become
a model agency.
We will become a model agency.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You can hold my hand
When you need to let go
I can be your mountain
When you're feeling
Valley-low
I can be your streetlight
Showing you the way home
You can hold my hand
When you need to let go
I want a house
With a crowded table
And a place by the fire
For everyone
Let us take on the world
While we're young and able
And bring us back together
When the day is done
If we want a garden
We're gonna have to sow
The seed
Plant a little happiness
Let the roots run deep
If it's love that we give
Then it's love that we reap
If we want a garden
We're gonna have to sow
The seed
Yeah, I want a house
With a crowded table
And a place by the fire
For everyone
Let us take on the world
While we're young and able
And bring us back together
When the day is done
The door is always open
Your picture's on my wall
Everyone's a little broken
And everyone belongs
Yeah, everyone belongs
I want a house
With a crowded table
And a place by the fire
For everyone
Let us take on the world
While we're young and able
And bring us back together
When the day is done
And bring us back together
When the day is done
[MUSIC ENDS]