John Cataldo, Fire Management Officer
Description
View definitions and links discussed in this episode at go.nps.gov/WhatWeDoPodcast
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TRANSCRIPT:
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Miles: From Yellowstone National Park, this is what we do. I'm Miles Barger.
Ashton: And I'm Ashton Hooker.
Miles: Hey, Ashton.
Ashton: Hey, Miles.
Miles: How's it going?
Ashton: Pretty good. How are you doing?
Miles: I'm doing pretty well. Are you ready to record a fire podcast today?
Ashton: Yes, straight fire podcast coming your way.
Miles: Because today we're going to talk to John Cataldo, Yellowstone's Fire Management Officer and before we get started I have to do a little fire trivia, it's it's going to be a trite one, but I think it's still interesting. So Yellowstone record fire in 1988. How many acres of the park burned? during those fires.
Ashton: I know it was massive. I know it was a lot.
Miles: It was a lot.
Ashton: I mean, in.
Miles: Round to the nearest 100,000 if you want.
Ashton: Okay. I was going to say a few hundred thousand. I'll say 600,000 figures. Okay. I'm getting the motion a little more. 800,000.
Miles: That would be the right rounding.
Ashton: nice.
Miles: 793,880 is the official number I found.
Ashton: You know, like if we were to compare.
Miles: And that's. That's not the full fire.
Ashton: Like what's, like, 800,000 acres compared to.
Miles: Gosh, that's a good question. Yellowstone, 2.2 ish million. Okay. Which is what states combined Rhode Island.
John: To roll out.
Miles: To Rhode Island.
John: And.
Miles: So not so maybe two thirds of Rhode Island is 36% of the park. Pretty big.
Ashton: That's a pretty big fire.
Miles: Yeah, pretty big. And that's just inside of Yellowstone. Anyway, there's our trivia. But today, like I said, we're talking to John Cataldo, fire management officer here, ready to dive in. I'm ready. All right, good. So in your career, have you always worked for the National Park Service in your career? Did you start with a different agency in terms of fire?
John: I started with the National Park Service and 1992, and I've kind of oscillated back and forth between the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, but always a federal agent.
Miles: Okay. Yep. What was your first job in fire?
John: My first job in or in general or. Well, in general, It was actually part of my financial aid package when I was an undergrad at Humboldt State University. I was offered a work study opportunity as part of my financial aid, and I was studying wildlife management at Humboldt State University in Northern California. And my my advisor and a department chair was married to the branch chief of Wildlife at Redwood National Park, and I was on academic scholarship as well at Humboldt and he kind of passed my name along to his wife and said, We've got a potential work study student, if, you know, interested in picking them up for some work and they
John: gave me a key to the office for Redwood National Park and a pile of wildlife observation cards that visitors and employees had filled out. And there was a pile pretty much up to the ceiling, and they gave me a key to the office and let me go in there 10 to 15 hours a week, all during the school year.
John: And just at my own pace, whenever I could fit in, in between classes and whatnot. And that was kind of my yeah, my my very first park service job.
Miles: Interesting. Yeah. So how long after that was it when you first got into fire of some kind?
John: The very next summer, I was working up in Alaska for the Forest Service and Cordova. Which is the last place I ever moved to without checking the Farmer's Farmer's Almanac. Like, how much rain or Sonic gets or doesn't get. And it turns out that Alaska gets 169 inches of rain a year. And I was working in fisheries at the time, so I studied wildlife and fisheries in college and so that was how I got my start in the service was those sorts of positions.
John: And so working in fisheries, we were outside every day in Cordova, you know, wearing rain gear. And I mean, honestly, after a couple of months of that, I was basically pruning like it just been like you know, you just had been in the shower for two months and they said, hey, do you want to go to a fire school?
John: And I just said, Is it indoors? And they're like, Yeah, it's it's down here. And the the district office was an old courthouse of some kind, and it was like, yeah, fire school is in the judge's chambers or something in the courthouse. And it was in fact indoors. And I said, Yeah, I'm your man. And so I took a took fire school.
John: And of course the place where it rains that much, you don't get off fires. But it was an exceptionally dry summer there. The next year when I returned, and we had a couple of, like, little fires out on the Copper River Delta fireworks, something. And I got to go to those. And then the 1994 fire season in the lower 48, which is kind of another benchmark fire season in the lower 48, it really kicked off in August.
John: And I spent the last six or eight weeks deployed down here on fire crews. I kind of went to each each little team on the district up in Alaska, and everyone had to volunteer, somebody to go be a firefighter. And I was good at hiking and carrying a big pack and stuff. Yeah.
John: They said, Why don't you go and let's go?
Ashton: Well, so what did you. You said you were studying wildlife. Starting out? Yeah. Did you ever envision yourself being in fire? Like, what did you. What were you kind of working toward before you got you know, you got the offer of like, hey, you can come indoors and. Yeah.
Miles: Well.
John: I was just working towards, you know, a career as a wildlife biologist or a fisheries biologist. You know, I studied both and I, I grew up loving it and, you know, loving the outdoors and whatnot. I'm a kid from suburban Long Island, New York, like 20 miles outside city. And that was my big escape, was going to the woods and, you know, even if that was running around catching garter snakes under garbage on the side of some parkway on Long Island, which is honestly how you start in wildlife management.
Ashton: Areas.
John: And a little suburban Long Island kid, there's not a lot of open wild spaces or places to get away from, from the crowds. so yeah, now the woods kind of became my, my retreat when I was young and just got out the book of colleges, You know, when you're in high school and it's like the size of a phone book and it's every, every college in the country and, and all the programs they offer and take three or four of the top wildlife management programs.
John: And one of them happened to be 4 hours from where my brother lived in Oregon, and I ended up at Humboldt.
Ashton: cool.
John: Yeah.
Miles: So when you finally did get into fire, what was it that kept you there?
John: I've always been into a lot of sports growing up, so just like, being really physical. And honestly, probably statistics and organic chemistry pushed me towards firefighting because to kind of take the next step in wildlife and fisheries, it was going to be really heavy. And, you know, you kind of get to that point in your education where it's like, I don't know if I'm good at I don't know if I'm ready to take the next step.
Miles: I think organic chemistry is that line for quite a few people.
Ashton: Yeah, Yeah. Kind of weak people out.
John: Yeah. So just working on a team and being outside and it was just a good fit. it was like I was kind of made to do it, you know? I just. Just felt right. Yeah, it just felt right. It was just right off the bat. It was. It was a good fit. I just fell right into it.
John: I You're lucky if that happens to you. Yes, whatever. Good. Whatever you do.
Miles: Yeah. Yeah, I feel the same way. I'm like, How did I get to where I am today? And I feel lucky. I don't think I would have planned it. Like you're saying. Sometimes these things just happen.
John: Yeah, I had some apprehension, you know, in the beginning, and just talking to other folks who've done it previously and they're like, No, it's great. It's like camping for dollars. Like you're going to yeah, we're going to go camp for four weeks and we're going to work hard all day, and then you go sleep in a tent and we're going to get up and do it again.
John: I was like, That sounds great.
Miles: So what was the I think I'm guessing I don't know yet, but I'm guessing a theme in these podcasts that will come up is, is the career progression can be interesting. So like, what are the steps to go from that where you're like actively out camping, fighting fire.
John: Yeah.
Miles: To where someday you're spending most, if not all of your time in an office and dealing with budgets and hiring in the big picture. Like what did that look like for you? Timeline wise? Yeah, that's kind.
John: Of one of the hazards of the job, is someday someone's going to hand you a radio to talk on. That's the first hazard of the job, right? They kind of leave you alone for a few years because it's dangerous to let you be in charge of anything. And then at some point they're like, like your you seem pretty squared away and they hand your radio and that's a big fork in the road.
John: So you're going to let me talk on the radio while I'm on a fire and actually, you know, help coordinate what's going on and yeah, I've held a lot of position
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