Have you ever wondered what it’s like working for Texas A&M Forest Service? A week at the agency can cover anything from fighting wildfires to tornado response to managing urban trees and forests – literally. Take a look into just one week of an East Texas Resource Specialist, and you may be surprised to learn how much this employee is doing to serve and protect the people of Texas.

On March 17, 2022, Jason Jones received a call from his boss at 11:30 p.m. informing him assistance was needed at the Eastland Complex wildfire burning across Eastland County. Several of the fires that would later become part of the complex started earlier that day and was quickly growing to what would become an over 54,500-acre wildfire, destroying over 150 structures along its path. 

At 5 a.m. the next morning, after packing a bag with 14 days’ worth of personal protective equipment, a cooler full of groceries and readying and loading dozers, ATVs and equipment, Jones and his crew headed the four hours west from Linden, Texas to Eastland County.

Upon arrival, Jones and his crew tied in with the incident commander and were set on their task of constructing containment lines with dozers along the northeast section of the Kidd Fire. For the next four days, Jones and his crew would work on containing the flames of the quickly growing wildfire, something that years of experience and training had equipped them for.

Jason Jones serves as a Resource Specialist IV for Texas A&M Forest Service in Northeast Texas. He began his career with the agency in 1999 as a seasonal firefighter, and within a year was hired on full-time to work as part of the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. After he finished working for the program in 2004, Jones waited patiently until a position opened in Linden in 2009 as a Resource Specialist I, and over the last 13 years, has worked his way up to a level IV specialist within the agency.

“I grew up with my dad running equipment in the logging and forestry industry,” said Jones. “I had seen and known about the forest service throughout my life, and when that first position came up, I thought ‘hey, I would love to work for them’.” 

After a nearly 20-year career with the agency, the week of March 17 through 24 was typical for Jones.

 

Battling wildfires
On Thursday afternoon and evening, the Eastland Complex was showing extreme fire behavior, which makes any efforts by firefighters an incredible challenge. Firefighters even observed group torching, which is the transition of fire from the ground to a canopy of trees, in oak and juniper timber up to 150 yards away from the active fire - a fire characteristic associated with extreme fire behavior.

With fire behavior such as this, one of the best lines of defense is to put in fireline with heavy equipment on the ground – a barrier around the fire that is scraped or dug down to mineral soil so the fire has no fuels to continue.

Positioned in the dozer Friday afternoon, the wildfire blaze was coming through the woods up to homes and Jones had to move quickly and at moment’s notice to put in strong firelines to protect homes and property.

“We had one section tied in pretty good, so we began heading back to another part of the fire,” said Jones. “Then we turned around and watched the fire blow up behind us through a coastal hay field, so the dozers just took off towards it. I caught one pasture and another dozer that was with me went across the road to a neighboring pasture. In the middle of that, luckily the planes started dropping for us and cooling the fire off.”

After that activity, Jones and his crew went back to work on the head of the fire, which became a substantial challenge due to the rough terrain of the area including rocks, ledges, 30-foot drop-offs and crossing a river. Over the weekend, Jones and his crew continued to fight the fire by putting in firelines, beginning each day at 5 a.m. and attending a fire briefing before getting on dozers.

“Each day starts with a briefing where everyone meets and we talk about everything – the weather, safety, what the fire is doing, the wind for the day, just everything and cover all the bases,” said Jones. “Then they give us our incident action plan, or IAP, paperwork that has everything detailed in it so you can carry it with you to do your work for the day.”

After a long day’s work on the dozer and navigating potential new threats, Jones would shut down around 10 p.m. to find something to eat, get some sleep and do it all again the next day.

On Monday, the wildfire received much needed rain and the Southern Area Gray Team arrived to help manage the fire, releasing Jones and his crew back to their home base. After arriving home at 8 p.m., the crew serviced their equipment and made sure it was ready for a new day’s work if needed, as well as move it out of an incoming rainstorm.

Responding to storms
That very day, 27 tornados were reported to hit Central and East Texas as severe weather pushed through the state.

Jones was excited to sleep in his own bed after days on the fire line. Then, around 11 p.m., he received a call that a tornado had touched down in Cass County and assistance was needed to help clear debris.

“The fire department called telling us that trailer houses were turned upside down, trees were in the road, debris was across major highways,” said Jones. “So, we got a saw crew put together and went out to help clear out the storm damage.”

Local fire departments, county officials and community members were already hard at work upon arrival to the scene, but more help was need in cutting down larger, fallen trees and removing them from roadways.

“There was one woman trapped in her home that had flipped over on her, she wasn’t hurt but just couldn’t get out,” said Jones. “Our job is to clear the way for the fire department to get to victims like that.”

Texas A&M Forest Service is called on for any hazardous event or disaster, including tornados, hurricanes, Covid and more. While Jones and the saw crew stayed out until 5 a.m. Tuesday morning assisting in debris removal from the storm damage, other offices across East Texas were assisting with similar debris clean up and structure damage assessments for counties in need.

Managing forests
Upon return to the office Tuesday morning and the remainder of the week, Jones assisted in setting Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) traps across Linden and Cass counties. EAB is an invasive species that targets ash trees and has killed millions of trees across North America over the past two decades. Ash trees provide shade to many yards in the U.S., and specifically, the wood of ash trees is used in furniture, cabinetry, as tool handles and most famously as the primary wood for most baseball bats and hockey sticks.

The insects were first discovered in Texas in 2016 and since then, Texas A&M Forest Service has been tracking their spread by hanging traps across the state. Each trap uses an oil to attract and lure the beetles in, and when they land on the trap, bugs stick to the adhesive glue that lines the surface.

Each year, Jones assists in setting these traps by finding ash trees and carefully hanging the large, sticky, purple traps.

After a long day of setting EAB traps, Jones received another wildfire request Thursday evening in East Texas and spent 5 hours of the night helping contain the flames. All to wake up on Friday morning, and set more EAB traps.

“It’s just like putting on a different hat every day,” said Jones. “Some days you’re a forester and some days you fight wildfires, and some days you do both.”

From wildfires in Central Texas, to tornados and storm clean-up in East Texas, to forestry work and back to wildfires again – it’s all in a week’s work for Texas A&M Forest Service personnel as they stand ready to conserve, protect and lead Texas.