No Need to Shout
My father Reino R Sarlin (1908–1993) was the agency forester for the Navajo Nation, possessor of the largest Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) forest in the world, running west from the Arizona/New Mexico border to the Grand Canyon and south to the Mogollon Rim. This vast, unbroken expanse covers approximately 2.6 million acres. The agency forester is both a manager and a steward, ensuring that Navajo forests remain productive, economic, ecologically sound, and culturally significant for the foreseeable future. Included was the organisation, training, and operations of specialized wildland firefighting crews.
As an extra duty, he served as the Fire Chief of all fire departments in the towns on the large Navajo Reservation. This came in handy for me as an 11-year-old Boy Scout pursuing my Fire Safety Merit Badge. Not only did I have access to the local fire station as the “Chief’s son”, but on occasion I was riding in his vehicle when a fire call came in.
Thus it was one day in 1955 when a tar paper shack in nearby Fort Defiance, Arizona, caught fire. Tar paper is a tar-impregnated heavy-duty roofing and siding material. It’s inexpensive, durable, and waterproof, and until shortly after World War II wooden frames covered with tar paper were a common form of temporary or low-cost permanent buildings. The material is unexpectedly strong but burns rapidly if set alight.
A few minutes after the call we arrived on scene, but the building, about the size of a one-story Army barracks, was fully involved, with multiple fire trucks and hose crews suppressing the fire with water and stopping its spread to nearby buildings and woods.
Dad pulled up and stopped the vehicle, and his Deputy Chief Ernie Bowman, a Navajo WWII Army veteran who had risen to the rank of Army Captain (the highest rank attained by a Navajo), calmly stepped up and softly tapped on the driver's side window.
Dad rolled the window down and Ernie said quietly: “Excuse me, Chief, but you’re parked on the fire hose. Could you move back a few feet, please?”
I never saw Dad, a genuine man of action, move more promptly and efficiently than in the next few nanoseconds. Those few soft words had enormous strength, much more than yelling or swearing would have had.
I learned a powerful lesson that often came in handy in my later work, whether fighting fires or in law enforcement, combat, construction, mining, or oil & gas around the world.
