He coughs as the smoke fills his lungs, and burns his eyes. The fire scratches at his skin through his uniform, but the only thing in his mind is to save the houses and the trees, the mothers, fathers, and children.
      CJ Center has been a firefighter for seven years. He is now 31, and lives in Anchorage, Alaska. CJ works for the State Forestry, based out of Palmer. His structured firefighting background includes working as a volunteer firefighter, and he has also worked as an EMT, forestry technician - which involves doing engine work and helotech - and has been a member of three different hand crews. CJ chose to be a firefighter because he knew people who did it and enjoyed it, and he felt he would, too. “ I wanted to try it, and here I am,” stated CJ.
      The firefighters have been working down at the recent forest fire south of Fairbanks. They have been doing structure protection for the last week and a half, checking to make structures and trees are dependable, and, if not, making them dependable. They have also been getting water supplies so that if the fire comes out of the swamp area they can stop it. They don’t know when the fire will stop, but CJ does know there will be hand crews and air resources on it for a very long time. So far the fire has burnt 71,267 acres.
      CJ has come back up to the exact same spot for the past two years during the same two weeks of summer. So maybe next year we’ll see him again. Until then CJ will spend his free time fishing and fighting fires his two favorite things.