Wendy Corr:
Well, hey there folks. Welcome to The Roundup. We are a Cowboy State Daily podcast, and our focus is on interesting people in the Cowboy State. There are so many interesting people in the Cowboy State, but our guest today is one of the most interesting that I have personally gotten to know over the years, and I'm so thrilled that she's able to join us today.
First, though, before we start into our conversation with Kristie Thompson, I want to talk about the Wyoming Business Alliance "Business From the Basement" podcast, another great podcast focusing on Wyoming, focusing on businesses in Wyoming, and the resources and the people in the networking that can help you build your Wyoming business.
So after you're done here with the Roundup, check out the Wyoming Business Alliance "Business From the Basement" podcast, and see what they can help you with with your business. But do that after this, because this is going to be way too much fun.
I'm so so tickled to be able to have Kristie Thompson on today. And this is a tough podcast guest to get, because Kristie works for the US Forest Service. She's also on incident management teams all over the country for the wildland fires that have been cropping up, it just becomes so much more of an emergency and a hardship situation in the last decade, even, really. And so Kristie has been able to secure all the approvals saying, Yes, I can talk about my job. And I'm so glad we were able to get her here, because Kristie had lived such an interesting life.
Kristie Thompson, welcome to the Roundup.
Kristie Thompson:
Thank you so much, Wendy. It's really great to be here with you, and it's so nice to see you again. It's been a little bit.
Wendy Corr:
Yeah, we go way back, but that's the fun part. We do go way back because, when I met Kristie, you were at the Shoshone National Forest, Public Information Officer, I was at the radio station in Cody, and so you were my go to for all of that information. And I started to realize how really responsive she was.
And for those of you who work in journalism or may have had to try and get public information out of a public information officer, it's not always that easy, but Kristie, you made it easy, and you're so good at your job. Your job has taken you so many amazing places.
I want to start off with another thing we have in common, though, which is that we're both from Wisconsin and from the same kind of side of the state too, so that's really kind of fun. But Kristie, tell us,
let's start back with the basics. You embarked on a life of adventure, and most people in Wisconsin - I love you all - are not super adventurous. They want to, you know, they're like, Yeah, let's, let's stay here, and our family’s here, and you know, we're happy here.
But there's those of us who say, hmm, let's go explore. And you did that. Tell us about your decision to to leave the home state, to leave Badger land.
Kristie Thompson:
I think it all really started with my grandfather. He spent about 27 years in the US Navy and retired as a Master Chief. I grew up hearing stories that he had from his travels across the world, and he really instilled in both my sister and I a dedication to the United States, to our people of this country, and to service in general.
And I decided early on, I think it was about in eighth grade, that I wanted to try and go to one of our service academies for the US military. I researched all of them. Was able to attend a few different summer seminars and summer week-long programs at both the Coast Guard Academy and the Air Force Academy, and I went through the entire nomination process with a congressman in Wisconsin, ended up narrowing things down myself and went to the Coast Guard Academy.
Wendy Corr:
So the academy - that's so impressive, Kristie!
Kristie Thompson:
Yeah, I decided to, you know, try something completely out of my norm. And believe it or not, when I left Wisconsin for the Coast Guard Academy, I did not even know how to swim.
Wendy Corr:
No, okay, no. Even I knew how to swim.
Kristie Thompson:
Yeah, so I knew how to play around in the pool, but that was it. So when I went to the Academy, I ended up having to take a little bit of extra training to learn actually how to stay afloat. And it got to the point, over those four years, that I then knew how to rescue someone from the water safely, including a friend of mine, who was about 250 pounds.
Just during practice trainings at the Academy, we had to practice with people of different body sizes and I was able to simulate a rescue with him. So went from no skills to being able to do that.
Wendy Corr:
And folks, Kristie is a tiny person here, so that's really, really impressive. So you had to get these incredible skills in a short period of time, but obviously you decided that that keeping with this public service aspect really called to you - tell us about your decisions from the Coast Guard.
Kristie Thompson:
So after I graduated from the Coast Guard Academy, I ended up doing eight years active duty from Port Angeles, Washington, where I was on board one of our one of the cutters, and I went all up and down the West Coast of the United States and into Central America.
And then from there, I was stationed in Seattle, Washington, and then back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ironically, before I decided that I didn't want to keep moving every few years, and I then used the the the VA bill and the GI Bill, and went back to school and got my masters in Georgia for mass communication.
And I decided at that point that I wanted to continue my service to our country, but do it a little bit differently. I had always been passionate about nature, and I just love spending time in nature in general, and I realized that Conservation of Nature is very important to me, so that's why I ended up deciding on a career, a second career, if you will, in the US Forest Service.
Wendy Corr:
And that career took you out here to Wyoming. Did that happen right away, or was it your first choice?
Kristie Thompson:
Yeah, so when I was in grad school, I applied to be a presidential management fellow, and I was accepted. And at that point, I applied for a few different jobs within the Forest Service, all public affairs related, and interviewed for three different jobs several times. The Forest Service decided that they needed me most in Cody Wyoming.
And this is the funniest thing, we had come through here on a family vacation when I was 14, and apparently I made some offhand comment about how it would be really neat to live here one day.
Wendy Corr:
And then your parents remembered that? I love that. 18 years after that, here you were in Cody Wyoming, and you said, This is it. This is the coolest place, and this is where I want to base base out of for the foreseeable future.
Kristie Thompson:
Exactly, I finally felt like I found my home in the mountains around Cody. It fulfills everything that I love about nature, and the people were welcoming and kind. I was doing work that I felt was very beneficial to our country. So I felt like I'd found home.
Wendy Corr:
What is it about working for the Forest Service, and about your work in the forest service that called to you most? What aspect of this land and this work really was important to you?
Kristie Thompson:
So for me, it really was the service to our country, but then also to our Earth, to those natural resources that I find joy in. I'm a hunter, a fisher woman, I backpack, I mountain bike, I do all of the things that we do here in Wyoming, right? So being able to ensure that those resources remain available for future generations, it's really important to me.
Wendy Corr:
And so tell us about when you made the decision to, even though you're already outdoors, you're doing the backpacking, you're doing the hunting, you're doing these things, you said, you know, I need just a little bit more adventure. And you decided to jump on to working with wildland fires. Tell us about that decision.
Kristie Thompson:
Well, it wasn't so much as of a decision as it just kind of happened. When I first came to Wyoming for my job as the public affairs officer for Shoshone National Forest, I think I was here less than a month when we had our first wildfire, and as soon as that started, I was told, Well, you're the new public affairs officer, so you're now our Public Information Officer for fire too.
Luckily, there was somebody else on hand who had the experience in wildland fire to help me along and understand what that meant for that first fire assignment, and then from there, I learned and practiced my techniques and learned what wildland fire really was and what it meant to be a firefighter as a part of that whole process.
Wendy Corr:
And you had to go through all the training to be an actual firefighter, to be on the line there, and all the things that it takes to to fight and to battle these places and protect property and protect people. What were your thoughts when you were going through this training? It's like, Wow, it's amazing what it takes to fight these fires?
Kristie Thompson:
Yes, it was absolutely amazing to understand what the men and women out on the line are actually going through on a daily basis when they're on a wildland fire assignment. You know it's not unusual to be carrying 40-45 pounds or more on your back as your hand digging a line, as you are clearing out brush. If you're a sawyer, then you have the saw that you're also working with.
It is truly amazing work that they're doing to be able to save our natural resources, protect our homes and our communities, and try to secure the future of those natural resources.
Wendy Corr:
And of course, it takes so many people to do that, and they come from all over to be able to help at any particular wildfire. You have had then, to do that as part of the incident management teams, because once you got that first assignment, that then launched you into a larger network. Tell us about where these jobs have taken you.
Kristie Thompson:
So my first job, actually, my first assignment off of the Shoshone National Forest was, I believe, in either 2015 or 2016 over in Dayton. I've been there a few times on fires now, I guess that was the Sheep Creek fire. And I went over and helped out on a type three incident management team there.
And that really connected me with some different folks from around Wyoming that they would then call me the next summer for fires that were on the eastern side of the state, over by the Sundance area, and I became a resource for the state a little bit that summer.
And after that, it just kind of snowballed into working with different incident management teams, perfecting my own skills and improving them, and being asked to join one of the, at that time, type two incident management teams.
Wendy Corr:
And so for those of us who don't know, what are the levels of these incident management teams, that goes down to four - is it four to one? Is that what it is?
Kristie Thompson:
Sometimes you'll even, you might not see it in the news, but you might hear of something being a five as well, but that's basically just a very small response local unit. But the teams themselves around the state of Wyoming, we have type three incident management teams.
Otherwise, if it's a type four fire, meaning it's a small, localized, couple of acre fire that the local resources are able to do some work on and contain themselves. It might be called a type four fire with a type four incident commander.
Otherwise, around the state of Wyoming, we do have those type three teams. And within the last few years, there has been a shift to go from type three incident management teams up to what's called a complex incident management team. We did away with your type two and type one incident management teams and rolled them into what's called a complex incident management team.
The biggest reason that I can see for that is it allows those teams to scale appropriately for whatever that fire is, as the fire expands and contracts, so too can those complex teams.
Wendy Corr:
And of course, we've got a couple of really major fires happening right now that have had to have these complex management teams on them, just in the state right now. Let's take a moment and go current - Kristie, what can you tell us about the teams that are managing both the fires in the Big Horn Basin down by Thermopolis, Worland and then the fires over on the west side of the state? What kind of teams do we have?
Kristie Thompson:
Well, right now, I believe, from what I've seen from those fire incidents news releases, they were a complex incident management team on the Red Canyon fire - that was one of the Rocky Mountain complex incident management teams.
But the good work that that crew did, all of those firefighters that were on there from the start of that, they've been able to put that back to a type four organization, meaning that they feel very confident that a much smaller organization is able to manage that fire and keep it contained.
Now on the west side of the state, I believe that those fires are currently being managed by type three organizations, so a few different organizations that actually came from outside of Wyoming to assist. And primarily the reason that you'll see resources from outside of Wyoming, as far as a type three incident management team, is because our teams are somewhere else, right? We have type three incident management teams that are assisting in other states right now.
Wendy Corr:
Wow. So where have these fires and this job taken you? What are some of the places that you've gone to assist on these big fires since you started doing this in 2015?
Kristie Thompson:
So let's see. I have been to Washington, Idaho, this summer, now, Arizona, I was on the Dragon Bravo fire. Colorado, of course, Wyoming have been the primary locations for my fire assignments.
Wendy Corr:
Weirdly, we pay attention to what's happening with the dragon Bravo fire. We've got friends down there, and so that really has been something that we've been watching. And so the fact that you were down there - how long at a time, Kristie, are you gone for these? Because I know that it's separate from your duties with the Forest Service. Your current duties with the Forest Service, that is.
Kristie Thompson:
Typically, when I go on a fire assignment, I am prepared to be on that fire assignment doing the Public Information Officer work for 14 days at a time. Of course, that doesn't include the travel to and from on either side of that assignment. So I could be gone anywhere from 14 to 17-18, days.
And for example, my last assignment was kind of a strange one. I was asked to come down to the Dragon Bravo fire in Arizona, that is the fire that has been actively in the area around the Grand Canyon. And it took me a day and a half to travel there.
I did seven days there, and then they actually released me to go to Colorado, to the Lee and Elk fires that were burning near Meeker and Rifle, Colorado. So I spent another week there, and then came home. So I was gone about 16 days for that one.
Wendy Corr:
My goodness, so they can shuffle you where you need. It's all part of the service, right? It's all part of what you sign up for, right?
Kristie Thompson:
And that's one of the great things about these complex incident management teams, is if they see that there isn't necessarily the need for as many folks that are currently assigned in a given specialty, such as public information, they can reassign you to incidents that need more help.
Wendy Corr:
That's great. So let's talk about your specific duties there with the fires - communication. Communication is one of the things that we hear about a lot from the people who are the residents who are being affected by these fires. And sometimes they say, you know, the people that are managing this fire, we're getting all the information. But then we often hear, we aren't hearing a thing. What's going on.
Tell us about what it takes to to successfully run a communication project with these folks on the ground there.
Kristie Thompson:
That really varies, Wendy. So when you have a type three or a rapidly expanding incident like we've seen in this state over the last month, sometimes there is not a public information officer that is a part of that local community, right? We're the smallest state in the United States as far as our people.
So not every county has a public information officer within either their fire district or within their police or Sheriff's Department, and there may not be national forest or BLM public information officers in that area. So it may be that there is not someone there that knows how to do that information and get it out to the public in really good formats. So it may take time.
Something that has evolved over the last few years are, there are a couple of different apps that are privately run that actually pull data that incident management teams and incident commanders on these emerging fires put up to our next chain of command, if you will, and go all the way up to our national fire information.
And they can pull it from like, say, a cloud, and that's how you have new apps like Watch Duty that are able to provide information when there isn't a public information officer and public information team not yet able to respond to an incident.
Now that app, as well as some others, are private. Sometimes there are issues with the information that they put out, but they've been really, really good at making corrections over the last year when we as public information officers ask them to, and here in Wyoming, if there isn't a public information officer or anyone that's able to give that information, they can be useful tools at the onset of an incident.
Wendy Corr:
That is really great information. So those are some things that local communities and counties can maybe rely on. And is this something that residents can then get the app as well, and they can keep themselves updated?
Kristie Thompson:
It is - the one thing I would caution there, is that once there is a complex or incident management team, or other, say, a type three incident management team, that becomes your primary source of information on that incident, they're the ones that are going to have that information first, and should be the most trusted source.
But again, here in Wyoming, sometimes that can't happen for that first day, and if we're needing to ensure that we're getting people safely out of the way of an expanding wildfire, between a sheriff's office Facebook page and and those other applications, those might be your best places for information that first day.
Wendy Corr:
You know, that is something that social media has really been a boon and a help for so many people in that way. I mean, that's one of the good things about social media. We can't say, it's not a blanket thing, but that one is good, and we are grateful to have those resources.
So Kristie, let's go back to the idea that you have these two different parts of what you do. You've got the incident management teams, and you're part of the Rocky Mountain incident management team. Is that right?
Kristie Thompson:
So right now, I am a single resource, what we call. I go out with whoever needs assistance.
Wendy Corr:
You're a freelancer.
Kristie Thompson:
So I'm a freelancer. Exactly, okay. You're familiar with that as a journalist? But prior to me taking my new role with the Forest Service, I had been one of the lead public information officers on a Rocky Mountain incident management team, and I still go out primarily with Rocky Mountain complex incident management teams.
Wendy Corr:
And of course, we've got all of these people who are out there on the fires that are living with these fires, the people who are in the firefighting camps. How many people are in these camps, and what are the roles that they have?
Kristie Thompson:
Right? So when people think of wildland fire, they often think of the men and women, as we say, the boots on the ground, right? The people that are your true firefighters. They are the backbone of any firefighting efforts, whether that be a small lightning strike, 1/10 of an acre fire, all the way up to these very large 100, 200,000 acre fires.
Those men and women are the true heroes and the true backbone, the rest of us that are at camp, we play roles to support those firefighters. And you asked how many people may be in camp? And that, again, varies. You'll see on some fires, you'll have 300 people in one camp. And then I'll go back to when I was on the Dragon Bravo fire, there were 1200 to 1300 people fighting that fire at any time, and we had two spike camps away from our incident command post.
Even within our incident command post, we had somewhere between 700-800 people within that one camp, and you had people like me that are part of the incident management team doing roles like public information, finance, logistics.
We have folks that are, of course, our safety officers. Some of those folks are developing plans that are then implemented on the line. And then we have additional safety officers that are actually out with the men and women on the line ensuring that they are safe. There's a whole variety of work that goes into an incident management team that is far beyond just the men and women that we see actively engaged with the fire line.
And one of the biggest ones that I have to give a shout out to are our camp crews. These are often young men and women from across the country that come to us for 14 or 21 days at a time, and they ensure the sanitation of the camp. And when you have 800 people in a camp, that is a daunting task, to ensure that everyone gets the food that they need, that they have the water they need, and that everything is safe and clean for those firefighters to come back at night to get a meal and go to sleep.
Wendy Corr:
Wow, my goodness. And of course, then you still have the communication with the communities, and you hold the regular meetings and say, Come on out. Here's when we're going to have a town meeting. This is when we're going to tell you what we know. And that's where I know a lot of your work comes in, is communicating with the communities and with the residents.
Kristie Thompson:
Yes, and that can be, I'm sure people who are watching this have seen that in a variety of ways, good and bad, maybe, but it can be something as simple as having a fire specific Facebook, and that is where people go and get their information.
Then we have what we call trap lines, just like trappers still here in Wyoming do. We will start information places within a community that we will take our Fire Map, any fire closures because of areas or fire restrictions, and our daily updates, and we will go to those same places every single day, and they act as a conduit of information from the incident to the public.
And those are vitally important, especially here in Wyoming, where not everyone is going to want to do social media, or where everyone is going to even have internet. So we find places that can be those conduits, and then we also, of course, have our public meetings that we’ll hold depending on the incident. It may be once throughout two weeks and maybe three, four times in a variety of different locations.
Wendy Corr:
That is awesome. That's such good information. The behind the scenes look at what it takes to manage and to communicate with people who are affected by fires.
So now let's talk about what you're currently doing with the Forest Service. You were PIO at the Shoshone National Forest for many years, and it's only been recently that you reassigned. Were you reassigned? Or did you get offered an opportunity to do something just a little bit different?
Kristie Thompson:
You know, it was an opening that I took just over two years ago, to shift to a different role within the US Forest Service. I now do Congressional Relations for two of our research and development units.
Wendy Corr:
And so tell me, why is that an important role? Because that just seems to me to be, you know, okay, more more red tape. But it's not red tape. This is important work that you're doing. Tell us.
Kristie Thompson:
It is. So the two research and development units that I currently work for work on a variety of things, from finding ways for changing genetics within trees to make them less susceptible to a variety of insects and diseases, to help us repopulate areas that have been decimated by those insects and diseases over the years.
And then all the way to, one of the units that I worked for, that's where OSB was created. So if you have a house, you can thank the Forest Products Laboratory for that.
Wendy Corr:
That's so cool. Oh my goodness.
Kristie Thompson:
So right now my role is to take the science that's being done, these really cool, innovative ways of creating safer homes, creating spaces within our natural resources that can continue to sustain, and connecting them with our congressional members.
Sometimes they have so much going on within a senator's office or a congresswoman's office that having their staffers understand what science is being undertaken by the US Forest Service to improve the land that we manage, and the forest products industry, can help them decide whether or not additional funding is important for a certain bill or appropriations during the year.
Wendy Corr:
So you are now getting to explore, going from exploring the great outdoors, to getting to the minutia and the science and what's behind the nature that you love so much.
Kristie Thompson:
Yes, and I can't tell you how cool that has been over the last few years, and getting to see the faces of those congressional staff members, when they get this ‘aha’ moment of something that they have seen.
What we do is we take the science, with our partners that have put it into practice, and really try and get them hands-on experiences so they can understand why this is important to the American people. And it's been really gratifying to see for those, primarily younger staffers than I am, getting to see that connection made for them, and that they'll carry forward into the future, whatever their careers may be.
Wendy Corr:
That's fantastic. I love how you love it. I mean, genuinely, I love how you light up when you start talking about the science, and that is fabulous.
But it does take you away from the work that you were doing before. Are you getting outside as much as you were when you were working for Shoshone Forest Service, or for the Shoshone District?
Kristie Thompson:
Actually, yes, I still get outside just as much. You know, sometimes it means that it's just more on my personal time, and that's fine with me, but I have been able to travel to different areas within the Northern Research Station area to be able to connect people with science.
And I've been able to broaden my understanding of what the Forest Service does, and how we interact with our public, how we interact with the natural resources to make things better.
Wendy Corr:
Absolutely, that's fabulous. So what are these challenges, really, that the Forest Service is facing right now, from the perspective of what's new? What are ways that the Forest Service and the public can interact more and understand each other more?
Kristie Thompson:
You know, just being open to understanding what's happening. Let's take Wyoming, for example. Here in Wyoming, we know that it's the end of August, and people are starting to focus on school and hunting seasons that are coming up.
So really understanding that your local national forest may have different things that are in place right now, whether that be fire restrictions because of how darn dry it's been this this year here in most of Wyoming, just trying to make sure that you keep up to date with what your local national forests have going on so that you can be a part of making decisions for the future of the land that you love.
Wendy Corr:
Absolutely. I want to switch back. This has been such a fun conversation, but before we wrap up, I want to switch back to the wildland firefighting and the fires that are happening here, because I neglected to ask, one of the things that I know so many of us are curious about, is, the fires that happen in Wyoming, especially lately, have just exploded.
And what makes a Wyoming wildfire so hard to fight? What makes it so hard to contain? I mean, is it the wide open spaces? Is the lack of people? What?
Kristie Thompson:
You know, it varies from fire to fire, as we saw with the Red Canyon fire. That one, it was in very fine, flashy fuels. So it was in your grasses and your sage, a lot of that area. So it can expand, those sorts of fires can expand very rapidly.
Now, as we talked about before this, the Elk fire last October, over once again, near Dayton. I was on that fire as well, and it was on a public meeting that one of our operations section chiefs said he had been doing fire for 30 years, and he had never seen fire do some of the things that the Elk fire did - meaning we actually had our largest expansions of fire activity at night.
Which is not normal, especially not in October In Wyoming, when you'd expect there to be cooler nights, higher relative humidity recovery, and we just were not seeing those things. So it really, again, varies from incident to incident as to why fires can expand rapidly.
Here in Wyoming, it can sometimes be because of the fuel type, so that the type of vegetation that things are burning in can often play a role in that.
Wendy Corr:
And of course, we've got all the beetle kill, but the Forest Service is working on finding ways to make our trees more resistant to beetle kill, which is the science that you're doing, and telling people about exactly, some of the genetic research that's happening with trees.
Kristie Thompson:
It's really neat to see how far along they've gotten to the point of specifically, some of the trees that I've gotten to see is more along the work that's being done in the eastern area of the United States, but that same work is being done in the Rocky Mountain region and here in Wyoming. So they are finding different ways to combat those pests.
Wendy Corr:
Kristie, this has just been such an interesting and fun conversation. You're an amazing interview, and I'm so grateful that we were able to get you on today to tell us, not just about what it's like to be a firefighter, but about your personal choices that took you to being a vital and valuable member of the United States Forest Service and to be a valuable member of our community here in Park County.
So Kristie, thank you for being our guest today, and good luck with all the amazing things that you're learning. Thanks for providing the services that you do.
Kristie Thompson:
Thank you very much for having me, Wendy - and for everyone that's watching this, you know, one of the biggest things that I didn't touch on is the fact that with any incident response, it's the communities that play a very important role.
Whether you're accepting of the information or not, helping share that true, accurate information to your neighbors is very important to us. Just like members of the media, we need the public's help to ensure that their neighbors stay safe.
Wendy Corr:
Absolutely - very, very good. Is there any place that you would suggest people go to if they've got questions about what an incident management team does, if they are undergoing or suffering through right now a fire, or if they are at some point in the future they find that their area is threatened? What's your best advice to people who are going through this or who might go through this?
Kristie Thompson:
I would say a couple of pieces here, Wendy. Number one is, know what your county does as far as any evacuation stuff, so can you sign up ahead of time with your sheriff's department or with the county emergency management and be part of a reverse 911, or Code Red system that you would get a notification if your area of the county or of the city needs to be evacuated.
That's the number one important thing for people, especially in rural Wyoming, we need to be proactive instead of reactive. So get signed up if you can with anything that your county has.
And then next would be also, whether you like social media or not, find a trusted, good source of information within your county, whether that be a national forest, your Bureau of Land Management, perhaps it's Cowboy State Daily - whatever it may be that you trust as a source of information when it comes to those wildfire responses, especially for that first day.
After that, hopefully, if there's a complex or type three instant management team responding to a wildfire, they'll be able to point you in direction of where you can find that trusted information, whether that be somewhere online or in person.
Wendy Corr:
Kristie, this has just been so awesome. Thank you so much for your information. You're such a great public information officer, that you're giving us all the stuff that we need to know! Thanks for your time today.
And folks, thank you for tuning in. I hope you have gotten as much out of this conversation today as I have, because I've just found it fascinating. And you know, the Roundup is all about the interesting people and the fascinating characters that make up our state.
So if you have not been on all of our Cowboy State Daily Roundup conversations, go back into our archives and research and check out who might just have that spark that piques your interest as well. So thanks for tuning in today. Kristie, thank you for your time. Folks, have a great week.
