Sanibel firefighter deploys to aid other agencies
For the past two summers, Samantha Quinn has been deployed west to serve as a public information officer regarding wildfires.
What was different this time were the conditions she had to endure.
Quinn has been deployed by the National Park Service twice, with she and the Sanibel Fire & Rescue and working it out so she could go. She was first sent to Washington state and then to Oregon.
Quinn said that she has been sent to where fires have not typically occurred.
“The places we’ve been going to in the last two years are areas that have not seen fires, and now they’re seeing historical events there,” Quinn said.
Quinn said that lightning was the cause of the latest fires and that in the wilderness, fires are a natural part of the ecosystem. Many experts are saying global warming is another cause, but Quinn isn’t sure.
“I don’t know the statistics on if it’s being caused by global warming. I know where lightning is striking, it’s able to burn,” Quinn said. ‘There were also burn scars from 2020, so anytime the fire was creeping along, if it got to an area that burned previously, it reignited those dead, dry fuels.”
In Oregon she was able to assist on a Type 2 incident, which is the second-most serious incident a firefighter can work. Quinn was able to get her task book signed off, which means that after having accomplished and worked on several tasks before being named qualified for that particular position.
“The fire was in the wilderness area, so it wasn’t where our command post is typically at. From there we had resources come in and they go assist with the fire, depending on what the objectives are for that day,” Quinn said. “Our goal is to get the information out timely to the public and to interact through social media or getting out into the community.”
Her classification will allow her to respond to other incidents, such as hurricanes, flooding and even blizzards, though the latter are rare.
Having to deal with wildfires is tough enough. What made this time different was that this was when the “heat dome” came over the west coast, sending temperatures well into the triple digits.
“Even with hats and sunscreen we were so burned because of the elevation and how hot it was,” Quinn said. “I had never experienced that kind of heat before and I’m in Florida.”
Quinn went to college for business management and worked for several years as a controller at the Shell Factory before a career change in 2015.
Quinn started with the Florida Forest Service as a mitigation specialist and then deployed with the National Park Service in the summer of 2018 (which holds her public information officer credentials) before coming to Sanibel Fire and Rescue as a PIO and finance specialist in June 2019.
Last September, Quinn went to California in what was then one of the worst fire seasons in history that in San Francisco turned blue daytime skies a bright orange.