For those battling the deadly wildfires ravaging the state, shifts can be 48 hours of back-breaking work in daunting conditions

Steep, 12-mile hikes up rocky, arduous terrains with 50lb of gear on your back. Endless, sometimes 48-hour-long shifts of back-breaking work, cutting and clearing away vegetation. No showers for days as the sweat soaks through and hardens your fire-resistant suit, your bodily musk adding yet another layer to the smell of smoke hanging heavy overhead.

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For a wildland firefighter, this is just a typical workday. And with the Camp fire still blazing strong in northern California together with the Woolsey fire in southern California, calling in a total of 9,402 fire personnel statewide, such work is expected to continue for some time.

Taking down a wildfire is a labor-intensive endeavor that could take months before authorities can safely declare a blaze contained. But California is a state that ecologically was meant to burn, and over the last half-century, wildland and municipal firefighters have undergone training in how to handle these disasters.

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While most would expect firefighters to deploy the sort of direct assault they would on a house fire, a wildfire differs from a house fire in breadth and scope, and firefighters must respond to each accordingly.

Some may order a direct attack by having aircraft drop powder flame retardant and water scooped from nearby waterways on to the fire, but much of the work falls to the “hot-shot” crews, whose role is to cut a perimeter around the fire and create a defensible line where the flames cannot cross.

Brian Fennessy, chief for the Orange county fire authority, spent 12 years working on hot-shot crews for the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. He described the tactical strategy as “anchor, flank and pinch. We get to the fire and anchor it at the bottom, and then you want to flank it and suppress it as it spreads,” he said.

“It’s all about digging fire lines,” he said. “You got chainsaws and shovels and axes. You’re removing the fuel in advance of the fire.”

By fuel, Fennessy is referring to vegetation, the removal of which can include cutting down trees, burning up grass, or removing plants. If the location is accessible, the crews sometimes bring in bulldozers to help with this work. Other times, if the fire sparks in locations that are too isolated to reach on foot or by vehicle, some crews will parachute in with their equipment to start creating the perimeter.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Firefighters clear a fallen tree from a roadway after it just hit a passing car during the Camp fire, as it burned out of control through Paradise. Photograph: Peter Dasilva/EPA

Planning is everything when it comes to wildfires, and depending on weather patterns, wind direction and natural barriers such as cliffs, roads, canyons or rivers, firefighters can save themselves a lot of work, said Stephen Pyne, a wildfire expert at Arizona State University.

Where the perimeter begins varies, Fennessy said. “It can be hundreds of feet away [from the fire], it can be 50ft, it can be several miles,” he said. “The width of the line can be a foot, it can be 100ft wide. It varies based on the size and type of the fuel that’s adjacent to the fire line.”

“With these larger fires, now we have management teams that set up objectives,” he said. “‘We want to keep the fire east of Main Street, west of Sycamore Ridge.’ So when people arrive through mutual aid, they understand what the plan is.”

With the fire somewhat surrounded, firefighters can better manage the actual flames – and in some cases, allow them to take their natural course. “There is almost no place in California that doesn’t burn and doesn’t need to to burn,” Pyne said. “In some ways, we need fire.”

Firefighters will also set controlled burns in certain areas to eliminate fuel before the wildfire reaches it and reacts in an unpredictable way.

The most secure kind of containment line is called a black line, meaning there is nothing left to burn, but even with some sections contained, the wind can reverse. A smoldering log will roll down a steep hillside. And days of hard work will suddenly be for naught.

One tough job for firefighters is keeping an eye out for wildlife fleeing the flames. The sweet woodland critters may just be trying to survive, but many of them will have unknowingly caught flame as well, and it’s the firefighters job to not just put them out of their misery with a swift whack with a shovel, but to make sure they won’t spread the flames elsewhere.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Fire camp crews work on the Woolsey fire in southern California. Photograph: Gene Blevins/Zuma Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Containment percentages can fluctuate as the flames grow away from the hot shot crews. As of Thursday morning, the Camp fire had scorched through 140,000 acres and was 40% contained. The Woolsey fire had burned through 98,362 acres and was 57% contained. In total, 58 people died because of these fires.

The Camp fire had 5,473 personnel dedicated to battling the flames, while the Woolsey fire had 3,929 – 1,527 of them came from a volunteer prisoner program run by the California department of corrections and rehabilitation.

For both fires, firefighters responded from all over the state, as well as from neighboring states – California has a mutual aid system in place that allows different agencies from around the state to send in resources, equipment and personnel in times of crisis. When circumstances call for more, the governor can call for aid from surrounding states, as well as from other countries.

According to CalFire, firefighters from Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota and New Mexico are at the Camp fire.

After 40 years as a firefighter, Fennessy is no longer trudging through the wilderness with 50lb of equipment on his back, working 48-hour shifts, and surviving on beef jerky and one-hour naps.

Some things have changed since he moved into municipal firefighting. “When I started 40 years ago, you did one or the other,” he said. “Now, everybody, doesn’t matter where you are, we got communities that don’t have any wildland exposures but have wildland engines and are trained the same as my people because they are part of that mutual aid.”

And some things have definitely not.

“It’s a challenging career, but there isn’t one person out there I know who wouldn’t tell you it’s the best job in the world,” Fennessy said.