Firefighter turns to wood hauling during off-months

WINDOW ROCK

Wildland firefighters make pretty good money. After a bad fire season, many of them survive through the off-season on the cash they earned during the summer, and Lord knows they deserve the break.

But Neil Damon isn’t the kind of guy to just sit around waiting for the next fire. “I like to work,” said the 38-year-old, who is To’Dichíinii born for Tábaahá. “My grandfather used to say, ‘Things don’t get done by themselves,’ and that’s true.”

So, about seven years ago, Damon started looking for a winter gig — hopefully something that would put to work the forest management skills he had learned in his 15 years as a firefighter.

He noticed all the people selling wood along the highway near Tse Bonito, New Mexico. Half the wood was still green, most was too long for the smaller wood stoves some of the elders have, and he was pretty sure that, if he asked them, some sellers would be hard-pressed to produce a wood-cutting permit or a business license.

“I thought, ‘I can do that, I can do it by the book, and I can probably charge less,’” he recalled.

Wanting to start out on the right foot, he went to the Business Regulatory Office and certified his new business, Dineh Fire Chasers. He gathered up his brothers and some of his out-of-work firefighter buddies, fired up his old Stihl chainsaw, and went to work. “I would always check with (Navajo Nation) Forestry and see where they had a tree-thinning project,” Damon said. “We only took dead and downed, and we stacked the limbs. We cleaned up the area and, unlike most wood haulers, packed out our trash.”

‘I love the forest’

Damon and his workers were also careful not to make new roads through the forest, instead hauling the trees out with ATVs when necessary, or even by hand. “I love the forest,” he said. “I’ve been all over the world when I was in the Navy, and seen some nice country. But there are places in our Navajo Nation forest that are more beautiful than anything you’ll ever see. Everybody should take care of the forest, no matter what.”

Doing everything by the book took time, and wasn’t cheap. That first year, Damon often went without a paycheck so he could pay his employees. Then word started to spread: Dineh Fire Chasers would deliver the wood to homebound elders, they would cut it to any prescribed length, and it was always good and dry. Someone needs logs for a traditional pole hogan? Yes. Fence posts? Yes. Fire prevention around a house? Trees cleared to run a water line? Some big junipers pruned? Yes, yes and yes.

“Basically, anything to do with trees that someone wants us to do, we do it,” said Damon. “Customers who hired us once would call back when they were out of firewood or needed some logs.”

After that, the chapters started calling, ordering four or five loads of wood at a time to distribute to needy families. Damon hired some more folks and upgraded his equipment. By the time fire season came around again, he was well established in the wood-hauling business.

Trying not to hurt pockets

With a reputation for quality, he could have raised his prices to the level of the roadside vendors or higher, but “part of the reason I went into business was to help the elders stay warm,” he said. “I try not to hurt people’s pockets. I work with people on their payments.”

For a big job, he divides the payment into thirds: part due up front, part in the middle of the job, and part at the end. He says he rarely gets stiffed, although some people have paid pretty late.

After missing some big contracts a couple of years in a row because he was out on a fire, he decided this year to forego fire season and concentrate on his wood hauling business year-round. “Then COVID hit,” he said.

Orders went down for a while, but people still needed wood. Damon had always insisted his wood-cutters wear chaps, gloves, ear protection and eye protection, but he added masks to the list of required equipment. While he had always enjoyed being invited in by an elder for a soda after he made a delivery, that ground to a halt.

Now he drops off the wood, and the customer pays electronically or leaves the cash in an envelope somewhere outside the house. “Safety always comes first with me,” he said. “If someone forgot their PPE, they can’t work that day.” If Damon’s small company gets in over its head, he’s not afraid to collaborate with others. Most recently woodcutter John Bigwater helped him bring some logs out of a remote location. But he won’t partner with anyone he feels is unethical or does things illegally.

Other benefits

Like most entrepreneurs, Damon has put a lot of love and energy into his small business, and it loves him back. Not only is he starting to reap the monetary rewards, but he gets to spend most of his day in the forest, never has to go to the gym, and it helped him quit drinking.

The gang used to routinely stop for a drink or two after cutting a truckload of wood before dropping it off at a customer’s house. “One day we delivered a load to an elderly lady,” he recalled. “She said, ‘Neil, this is good wood, nice and dry. I like it and I’ll call you again. But if you ever again show up at my house smelling like alcohol, you’ve lost my business.’”

She explained she had lost her son to a drunk driver, and couldn’t live with herself if Damon were driving impaired and crashed on the way to her home. Damon hung his head and promised her it wouldn’t happen again.

“The next time we were heading to her house, one of the guys said, ‘Let’s stop for a drink,’” Damon recalled. “I said, ‘No, we don’t do that any more.’

“After that, a lot of the guys started dropping away,” he said. “But it was good. I saw who wanted to work and who just liked to socialize. The five guys I have right now, I’d trust with anything.”

That was five years ago, and Damon hasn’t had a drink since. He said he now lives every day with a sense of gratitude — for the customer who wasn’t afraid to call him out, for his girlfriend Crystalyne Curley for sticking with him, to the forest for his livelihood, to his father and grandmother, who allow him to run his growing business out of their home.

Next step

What’s next for Dineh Fire Chasers? In the short run, Damon would like to buy a machine to make pellets out of the wood scraps, which he currently chips and sells as mulch. “A lot of people are getting the pellet stoves and T&R (in Gallup) is making a fortune off us (Diné),” he said. “It’s about time we keep that business on the reservation.”

But ultimately — in fact, he has an eight-year plan for this — Damon would like to come full circle and turn his company into a for-hire firefighting crew. “That’s been the plan all along, and that’s why I named my company Dineh Fire Chasers,” he explained.

For now, though, he’s enjoying the ride. “I’m not always out on fires, so I can spend more time with my girlfriend and our kids,” he said. “Sometimes I even bring them along.”

Information: Dineh FireChasers on Facebook.

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