Apache 8
- Transcript
or a hanging you never knew what you were going to face and you were with a bunch of women that could handle anything so concert and women was rather tribe in this local area in the society here are heavily depends on the men hoping to have and jobs no but the wildfires in the west at least thirty major wildfires are burning in thirty six thousand acre fire on arizona's fort apache reservation there is really crazy
he'd yell montana and then realize that it was lee's summit is meant and laying out the image campaign we bypassed everybody on that true that matter and down back that until we got the evidence asking who are you who are you and we're like why not about you that she ate it very mad major funding for apache eight was provided by native american public telecommunications to the corporation for public broadcasting additional funding was provided by the french american charitable trust has in film institute of the university of arizona and the national geographic all roads film project set in and now
western wildfires on foreign fighters they are gaining ground on the giant show for some hardcore remarkable team of firefighters battling the middle of the night since nineteen seventy six bones has been crew boss for catching a great extent that means travel often for weeks at a time twenty one states without great powers of me killings by my reservations jobs are scarce we left behind had three kids then they left behind it to unwind
years old when i started he's the pope when my life on the line they were the only womens are fighting criminals out there this all male firefighting would be becoming organized the camps setting up and then all of a sudden there's these ladies that come in to camp and everybody's wondering exactly what's going on here and
all his return to reality a couple crucial montana and they're doing a lot of stuff about how this the companies can outweigh some of these men and why i'm pretty much can their original title was a patchy sex in seventy four seventy five they were looking for dependable in the vigils and they found out that the women were very dependable over the main cruz a bed the gentleman who thought about pulling together a woman's firefighting crew he went ahead and took that dog or two tribal council it was an uphill battle the public was not open to women firefighters we had to fight for for the right to sit in as a roman says else like an outspoken and really aggressive mimi the apache six crew leader
we did not know if you are going to even if you ask the proper equipment like yeah i arrived i don't think so attitude in all this whole concept of having women was rather taboo to this local area in the society here are heavily depends on the menfolk of heaven the jobs could really presented it a potential issue of strife between men and women but it could turn out totally different from what i could tell om the women were fully accepted as a firefighting crew mom they were basically sex segregated from the men the men have the road crews in the women have their own crew they recognize their out there competing in a man's world and they actually can come back and say they've outperformed the men the summer of seventy four of us my sister came it came up and says you want barry ladies were commit been a firefighter you she got very bad join up and i said ok i'll give a try
now the south sort of like scary knowing that the job that she had was going to be getting into was dangerous and there was not a word in the senate where she was getting herself into and i think we got rid of that in teaching mom on that when we were noticing a sure that law that mary and then we get our tours and everything was posted before we went out and playing and today he see where you know just you doing it it's b my supervisor for sonoma and came up to me says well you ready to take on
that attaches six crew you had experience and i said no so nineteen eighty when i took over at apache six when his crew the squad boss of forty five ladies it was still the same thrill but we just change a name to actually so from their catch a felon his crew were smaller we did the same thing a male firefighters a daily work you know they are in a small community in the rain and the snow is behind averages i mean and it is perry's very hard job got there ten to twelve fourteen hours of me being a smile
which was very hard and i really do when i was about twenty one years old and he had two children and i went to the local chain store just down the street saw some lemon zest than portia coughlan and i say well what exactly the deal and they to me were firefighters winter and they were signing up i went down there and i asked if my kid joints and chris kyle as a director at that time abortion and he told me he said you know with all the men on you want to get all the ninety he said that clemens going away more than you and he said your to smile youtube then you can do it you will be able to handle the job
it don't say that to me cannot tell me i can handle a job and so when he said that to me i was more determined than ever to go work for that patty eight i work for voice steve around the time that my daughter was only one years old and tausch he alleges about seven years old and the reason i know that is because her birthday's in july and i was at her very first birthday party and after that when i never made another birthday and how she was seven years old so here we are working in an animal the day we got this viacom we grab our tools and we're walking in the man that was leading as liz in on this this big white man and so i'll walk you walk in after him he's at least arrest him alight which is that i was there to arrest and that you know lets go and so we know is everything are quieter very
respectful least i'm going again we believe the us is again a fire it isn't there's a lone lonely along as my white men resting somewheres they sell says as gold leed bypass everybody on that true that now that that really got the evidence that's who i knew who i you know were like why not if i keep it at a given night they got it down to a year to travel and in recognition of the pope for those in the world if you will and they have been trying to protect our land here on the reservation the treaty
reservation has one point six million acres we have fourteen thousand tribal members me my job is to protect our land from buyers call to my eyes two things many say there has been every three years we were first it we didn't have any
cells we have doubled it acts and we just cut trees when they are surprises came out with four songs and says okay i'm sure you want to get out of that sunset light put the blade and put the chain hand had a feel of the gas and oil a way to choke wasn't how does it therefore as we look at it as ok i can do this and we don't we help that state he narrowly county mo stop we were very disciplined we had to get up and be at work on time you were allowed to come at seven no one is aol i will probably there was no such thing you learned of that discipline and determination to get things
done to get it done right the first time and you never you never got a second chance to go back and redo a fire in me we're in a state of readiness and between fires they are are really doing sitting in fire protection and they also do a thing called wild lands as the reductions they're producing niger village within the force the pain it
was nice to get away from everything i hear lord nice and quiet and just like working outdoors notices only felt very half the size that in others nodded off on the reservation to have a lot of unemployment is high in june now this is planning to do work that we are actually waiting for for a coastal whenever week it called amplify recall the reviews given our state and social scene because that found the value of the vehicle with the flavor i've done it may be that good night at three and editor and sarah with us in boston there's a sky cause i
really wanna fire pants at ease in you know what patsy a year off the cup you guys don't talk to anybody uses oh in a line in all organizing everything was like you will go to talk to guys in the guys who are the only thing we had our mind was to fight fire that's how we were trained by searle i can't turn around behind waiting for her to die our crew boss of the year all the time now because he worked us know and we'll cut some whites and do our jobs so we had to work again and we made her a little bit because we were the labors that she was she was like a drill sergeant when she walked through that friendly in the morning i would look at that in the concrete pad and i'd just look the look on her face and i said ok we're not going to have a good day today he was really hip he could also though is pretense because i
wanted things done right the first time i got my crew in line still paying very polite i think true and at nike trail in as they begin their new legally legally louisiana's that may be reburied even i know they didn't like it the way the bone a new show worked at it and believe me she's been getting into a lot of times and there's no easy money that has formally announced forty three and it still works harder than these younger and it goes through shelves leadership that we need to recognize the united states on iran is off the reservation act so i
just went over that the qualifications and the current rules which in the past has intended for those individuals in arduous do you really do a fast walk no running so both feet on the ground and not been off the ground we're going through a really good wit there isn't a risk huge impacts on and get rid of it deval patrick at forty five pounds or her twenty ten minute three mile and you can't run you have to walk fast paced a nightingale disqualify you have to do your physical first and then once that spirit media packed at don't be lenient that fires one that actually did
it and police did not fire and what they are it's been in the past gonzalez
and we have a lot of tools tools and they can swim horse largest as well as the strong man good and they can climb the highest mountain care the heaviest burden on their back and still put out the fire and were still problems and we have recognition because of that ended monday or an ugly awful dr porter ranch tradition course first place that's where i've come
from to walk and we're very strong strong spiritually strong emotionally and we have we're human condition when everybody is clambering at you know everybody have their own for my family if anything to happen where own get together we all support each other when they need them they're there for me were very very close a lot of the old their path to families have big family my mind and my bad hand eleven girls when i was a little girl we didn't have
any water we didn't have electricity we were raised in a three room house not three bedroom three room house might gather he never sell my diet i have eleven world of la until you know he never said that he hears you is as i got it i have eleven girls you as an alert that hadn't yet as a learned how to face you will go camping i spoke nothing but apache as a wild apache i mean if my dad wanted a boy i was a boy that he never had you know i get up early in the morning i'm always six seven years all and off i go my mom would be so mad because she no i was mr ryan why some are writing new crossing the river all by myself my dad was like well maybe a letter b and a and because my dad had been off the reservation and you will come back and he would say it is so important you learn to speak english it's good they do as has become patchy but you've got to learn english you have
got to get an education you've got to be able to walk in both worlds back then different charges would come in on the reservation what are the charges that came on the reservation was the lds church the church of jesus christ of latter day saints the mormons all us girls returned eight years old not only will be baptized but that summer this big old bus came into account and off we went somewhere to utah some went to colorado so we went to california we were given to other white people lds people and then there we were lu is possible is gone so i was like i don't know you know and i mean it stayed done done me and eight years old and i'm going on this bus and get to go to california and literally with the family i don't even know it and i ny
and then i change my mind and i was promising things i promise i'll be good i promise i will run away from othello across the river all water on child the word out that all these things just don't send me that don't send me is a katy you are my wild one is that nobody can break you you know it didn't go because i need to learn it i need to speak english i need you to come back here and be the voice of the people you get on that bus you will not cry or you're not cause a scene when i got to california and i tried to run away it is an lds temple built when temple and i ran away in the temple and how they found me and then they dragged me to my foster family now is the time i graduated
when my daughter jade eight years although i had no idea that their strength and that carries it from my mama bad especially my dad to foresee that that education was that important i have to get an education and the wildfires in the west at least thirty major wildfires are burning today six thousand acre fire in arizona as fort apache reservation and there's no wait players modify a turnaround thank you falling down until now
this week and i think now and then after that fire started it used to be three days later another fire was started by another individual and with the fuel conditions the location of the fire he's been on staff because both of those allies when all your that's a portion of the fire that actually burnt down the reservation as far as a lot of the fort apache cruise along with the apache personnel a lot of us were working on the western side of the rodeo fire and those are local resources we have lost half of the reservation and it was a sad to lose all that timber and
everything and all the wild animals who is privy to that area a lot of people were just heard by what happened and we all knew shirt come back to do and want the swerve issue on this mr palmer's vision of the real florida week we get along if we turned up there were other way only one senator and moon fire burned five hundred thousand acres of land and destroyed over four hundred homes fortunately due to the efforts of apache firefighter ripped loopy the towns of yolo time top white river another's narrowly escaped the same fate as those ear by the radio telescope fire ring was pretty harsh on it hot shots were know worldwide as
the world's elite firefighters he was the one that led the true on all the fires so he was doing the same job as cheryl must run and i'm glad i was oh yeah two thousand and three the supreme court and we heard that and he says ok i heard it in anaheim with a director i saw him as a fast and then friday nights low rate came out and his vases has actually look and
and it's the winds were so strong the blow away his emergency shelter that was burned over forty percent of his body he says is this i thought you were locked out of the air because after charlotte telling me what he went through i thought if you got out of this one that you will walk out of the house thanks again and that's just in one of the latini
more they say hey here after it happened and if it meant that and this past season and i mean i'm a self that ok if this is my job i need to go back and face to face by mit the hole for sharif has the resignation so as an effect it really gave her support firefighters were alive people are a very strong people get tired very proud people when theres an illness when there's a death and you can see their families unite friends unite people come out of the woodwork to help lot of respect because they care because they were these people because they're one of them and duty army and you nasty
attitude that they have any of it we have a lot of ceremonies culture one of the biggest ceremonies that is open to the public as the sunrise death ceremony would be when your daughter becomes of age she goes as he tells her parents and that then they're taught that from a very young age and how do we need to know as soon as that happens a catalyst like it there's no privacy year old ama today it's seventy six conversation is that food you know it's a mystical clear that the theorem that point the last time a little acoustic piano and cyclists team badly needed almost comical so what's going on mr
siegel's even it began to us so we're going to get through this ceremony this girl to be blessed with a long life so that one day knowledge understanding and prayers they began to notice that you know me my that tell them and got to come see wolves you have to do it you have to do it for us can't say no no i was in high school and i was athletic that one and in turns them bill harris and often less than a dozen guys analysts in dc was cecile for what it says
in some updates as they yell at duke some critters out there and do like it he told me as much as people in their state geographically want to see in person in an indian person tomorrow says unlike in baltimore i don't practice so one a playing sports and it's a walk home and i can go back and dolly she was there on time to the most important person to me my life and support that goal but she said i don't know thank you don't want to get out isn't going on their faith in the reagan who wanted to call the found that i thought ok then and though he's gonna go then i'll go so not to pitch it to washington dc said thats how does the article came about in a national geographic
thank you in an indians do assimilate into believing in nineteen seventy was another sign except
me and clearly needs to be done on wait for phone calls every day not that we're seeing really how they're not so modern times says alastair to help me out even bill says never been a twenty billion dollar firefighting anything like that so i do see from all of this fine fine five years something would be going on out there now turn on this stuff and im from their suits you just know that i am doing my own went out and you know go on the car loan and firefighting so i do what i can tell for sure you know but she's gonna sky and she still has a little ways to go you know to be cool right now thats what were
looking for a couple years now scientists see as my boss at a large boston home but i do have lost their family and well bubbling been togethers fifteen years this past april and fifty tsunami raise my daughter my daughter was only three at the time we got to know her so i had an epa just always asking the money that they don't qualify or at least we have first it has this intense sense what's important to us and the next will
be going to texas to come from the candidates a man hello faces on that very well anders thank you have to take in air agency helicopter training you have to take that before he can actually be a helicopter crew member after our contact is over we go wow needy to oregon montana and we support that the fires they're working with the health care they know that there's a lot of people when they get into the system he's been the main concern and safety first
and the goal isn't to get water mcconnell says before it out to where ever drops and they will let them know if there's anything they let people know on the ground and he worked with the hatch act a i started here first the habitat we did have a heart attack in the pan and when american troops to stay in business for them and says you know we from your family and kids can still
hardly being away from them there's time when people have ever get pregnant and you know i worked with them every day but no i don't think i'm glad that he's working with the terrible now hanging up this is big and my wife was on the fire and to do just that to call or wasn't close to the word that women with meticulous welna was with employer most attention and dante get you know get really true
to me at a very young age how to make it less to a family i look back on our life together and i think how fortunate we were to have met i was in the army i had come down from officer training school song where's and i had to go back to school i came back and the money i have i got paid wasn't enough we have babysitters we had to pay back we had bill so we had to catch up on how we had all these things that we had to do when i when i i i told me i said you know what i i had to go back to school tomorrow and we have no money ellen mckinney do and he said i'll be back in an hour lunches clinical think in the us for eighty and i used so you're at and then he came back about eight o'clock but he just walked in the back door and wesson would you try and
and it and i thought it broke down somewhere and many he handed over all this money and he said to some if you go back to school on and then the pain dallas has only nine then you would be on what so i could go back to school with the kids we were yelling at you knew investing into his family and very happily i am et i grew up without a father but he is an excellent when i come home knowing the votes it implemented from programs and starred different things in change different things because a lot of the things that are here don't work and trying to change things scares look everybody here late teens they can't have an almost an un to work that into just going to write that and you know we just everyone here within the culture it's going to take
time and how it would set know what i'm doing and how to do it and you're right but i still come home and i still participate in our institutions ceremonies and it all the different things than you know that my parents have taught me to cycle you just think that shouting get to see her daughter might that become just like her like there was murdered by drug dealers in the dodgers named london yes
michael is pretty bad injury remember you so that every day we tried training costs a home but it's ok maybe some team uses this is automatic them are as a nation and my son got involved and on that you know that my son was into that i had no idea when you see somebody doing something wrong somebody must have you know this sends to say that's enough we did enough are at and can do anymore but their intent was just a killer that's what they did my son not have done that the child he got life with no
pearl and he got in it to anyone and he just turned twenty five and july cheryl and i go way back and you know be on fire as we we've become family slightly all what she says is back we watch each other's kids this summer he's out of town though you know looked at each other and on i went in to show up and i try to top ten was like no no they no know and i as far as like you know that i'm sorry and i'm glad it's all over with ice london know that you're my prayers your family and especially saddening really when the complete circle reading for me and then make it was so i started from the top again and ego the full circle and this is that they'd even finish one circle and they start in a matter one and says this is important the hatred and the
plane and this man i still stuck and the heating and the plain bed and suppose to go around full circle to have my life back and complete mr tradition when somebody passes this is like a family would get their start talking about well he was unknown that this was going to happen and in our case tom we feel them are the must have known something was going to happen because she had wanted her voice to be with the case before a lot of things that's going on around here on the reservation one day i was sitting standing in the service station and i've seen some people call in now
maybe about like ten fifteen cases of beer and they were just talking laughing saying that hey in on that down there on the rest they'll bootleggers have some meaningful lakers and about two hundred something drug dealers and there is just making fun of them at that road that standing here and here they were selling then you know they were making money but then among the sticky that this is how they see us from beirut that all of us are are alcoholics and all of us are empty trucks i lost <unk> is my oldest one we asked her when she just got accepted into ian law school in new mexico she was coming home and should i had had on by john piper and she died instantly and then about maybe ten years later i lost my third sister to a drunk driver that read her older in the military and so needless
to say and i know i'm not big on alcohol the police when i retire i would like to be a judge and the reason i would like to be a jazz age is as a social worker i have seen a lot of children that have been placed back into homes that they shouldn't have been i've seen a lot of children that have been neglected by the system and i don't like that so it could avoid a way of elementary school or completely over four star in those two schools i was in a foster home and i want to come home and i wasn't allowed to come home and i hated that hated that knowing that i had a family on the reservation and i can come home and see them a long long time ago the army was in charge of this here desiree have fort
apache but the army and couldn't keep track of all the health problems that we were having that they brought with them visit the navy said ok we'll take care of them and so then the navy came in and asked west caught the commission corps the commission what people wear this uniform for all medical in the medical field you have to have a degree twenty five when an almond eyes glaze i was commissioned a second lieutenant i don't advise my dad and my has been in the us army and then when i got my master's it was i went over and i was in the army and served during desert storm i got my captain's life and then acted as a storm is over then i came home and now a commander in the navy which is equivalent to a montana crowd in the army but when the army tried to
teach me about loyalty i was like no way this isn't a tribe as tommy says the day i was born integrity something they'd hardly since the day i was born legally it no that that's who we are that's what made us if we're going to succeed as a try and it try to say we're a sovereign nation if they really mean that the sovereign nations we stand on our own education is the only way the future is truly our children and i want to make sure that they are around to be able to succeed so that we can have a tribe three hundred years from now and still be able to move forward and hold our own and be proud of who we are it takes to succeed in
doing in the army they have sergeant joe is one of those high ranking surrogates or nearly all of it due to see back then if we had joined the army the armed forces had made it you know it she's going to become a real strong over here on the reservation child has a lot of stature sharon lazy eye no secrets are secrets can only you know only bigger than i see you call it it is now the
political and awkward when a college it immediately gave it to aa back at the other side oh boy ceo my name and said david outlets gain share all firefighters in low fi writers as i said it's the pitcher chris time of cement and the band elaine korry reporting
there's no distinction between and then when it comes time to work a less fortunate mommy there a history of these ladies a few of them actually prior some are still working some maybe have changed to different professions but this firefight bin and it gave the us that they needed to further evidence themselves the fugitive operations the pay is
better we are major funding for apache
eight was provided by native american public telecommunications to the corporation for public broadcasting additional funding was provided by french american charitable trust has in film institute of the university of arizona and the national geographic all roads film project and i am at and for more information including a free download of the retired and educational guide visit dilly dallied dot com toward or how to help educate please call one eight seven seven eight six eight two to fido or visit vision maker dot org where
- Title
- Apache 8
- Producing Organization
- Native American Public Telecommunications
- Apache 8, LLC
- Contributing Organization
- Vision Maker Media (Lincoln, Nebraska)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/508-125q815826
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/508-125q815826).
- Description
- Program Description
- Apache 8 tells the story of an all-women wildland firefighter crew from the White Mountain Apache Tribe, who have been fighting fires in Arizona and throughout the U.S. for over 30 years. The film delves into the challenging lives of these Native firefighters. Four extraordinary women from different generations of the Apache 8 crew share their personal narratives with humor and tenderness. They speak of hardship and loss, family and community, and pride in being a firefighter from Fort Apache. Apache 8 weaves together a compelling tale of these remarkable firefighters, revealed for the first time.
- Broadcast Date
- 2011-00-00
- Asset type
- Program
- Genres
- Documentary
- Rights
- Copyright 2011 Apache 8, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Duration
- 00:56:43
- Credits
-
-
Director: Zeig, Sande
Producer: Zeig, Sande
Producer: Hall, Dolly
Producer: Westover, Victoria
Producing Organization: Native American Public Telecommunications
Producing Organization: Apache 8, LLC
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Vision Maker Media
Identifier: 2013-00808 (VMM Inventory #)
Format: HDCAM
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
- Citations
- Chicago: “Apache 8,” 2011-00-00, Vision Maker Media, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed November 21, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-508-125q815826.
- MLA: “Apache 8.” 2011-00-00. Vision Maker Media, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. November 21, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-508-125q815826>.
- APA: Apache 8. Boston, MA: Vision Maker Media, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-508-125q815826