This was according to Forest Program Manager Anthony Babauta who accompanied the team of 20 volunteers.
“Being a volunteer firefighter was a real experience for all of us. We had to get up very early in the mornings, hike several miles of terrain, and engage in an intense fight with the fires, but we did good,” Babauta said.
He added that most of the Hot Shots firefighters they worked with had more months of training compared to them who only trained for a week last April.
“If we had more training we would have been better prepared for all that we had been through. It was not an easy job but we pulled through,” Babauta said.
Babauta and his team left Saipan on July 1 to join the national team combat forest fires.
He and nine others from the team arrived on Thursday night while the rest of the team stayed in on the mainland U.S. to pursue employment opportunities.
For first time firefighting volunteer Frank Mafnas, being in the front line to combat fire was scary.
“It took a little time but when we started off fighting actual fires, we got the hang of it,” Mafnas said.
He added that it was not easy to leave their families behind but they had been called to serve in a good cause.
“It was not an easy experience but I learned a lot from it, and if there’s a need for me to go again I will do so anytime,” Mafnas said.
Fire volunteer Calisto Reyes said he learned the value of teamwork.
“It was a matter of thinking and working together as a team that helped the firemen succeed in putting out the fire,” Reyes said.
The other fire volunteers were Angelo Tudela, Jesus Santos, Jonathan Kapile, Eugene Borja, Glenn Garde and Karl Litulumar.
This year’s Hot Shots crew is not the first team to be sent to the U.S. to help combat fires. In 2004, 14 volunteers were deployed to help curb forest fires on the mainland.
The CNMI team was joined by volunteers from Guam, Hawaii and American Samoa.
Then-Department of Public Safety commissioner Clyde K. Norita said that civilians filled in the slots for fire volunteers because the DPS lacked personnel.
The call for firefighting volunteers came after President Bush issued an emergency declaration for California and ordered federal agencies to assist the state’s firefighters on June 28, 2008.
