By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Buhler High graduate Riley Dreher spent his summer as a Hot Shot firefighter working for the federal government fighting wildfires.
"We're typically going direct," Dreher said. "We're removing fuel from the fire. Going direct, next to the flames, cutting down trees, scraping it down to bare earth. As you're seeing in these fires in California the flame lengths that are being put off in this high timber country is quite immense, so we have to make, basically a big box."
The job is very physically demanding.
"To be safe is to be physically fit," Dreher said. "We do two weeks of training for the summer. The first day we show up. It's like a fifteen mile run. Then we're hiking with 45 pounds of gear, trying to climb like two to three thousand vertical feet. We do that five times a week, try to push 40 to 50 miles, try to get ourselves ready to go and in shape."
Dreher does 15,000 to 22,000 steps a day and at the height of fire season, he and the 22 person crew he works with are on 16 hour days for two straight weeks.
"I was in a training position in California this summer," Dreher said. "Part of my task was to go ahead of my crew and scout. Work with a ship, cool it down and flag a line for us that would be efficient and we could corral this fire quickly. That day I walked over 30,000 steps and my watch said 22 miles hiked and that was with all my gear, working with a ship, tying in with my crew. I kind of sat down at the end of my shift, took my boots off and I was like, man, this is definitely one for the books and I definitely want to use my brain, not my back, pretty soon."
Dreher plans to do one more summer of firefighting before heading off to chiropractic school. He has already graduated from Wichita State.