Angora Fire -- academy grads

Unedited version of what was in 08-07 Tahoe Mountain News

By Kathryn Reed

Firefighter Cameron Nuslein does not hesitate to admit he was scared during the Angora Fire.
One day he was part of the first class to graduate from Lake Tahoe Community College Fire Academy and the next day the worst fire to hit the basin erupted.
“You really don’t calm your nerves. You just think about stopping the fire. You focus on the job,” Nuslein said of the 200-foot flames that shot up around him. His strike team protected structures on Heather Circle in the Tahoe Mountain area.
The Lake Valley firefighter who turns 22 this month was born and raised in South Lake. He started with the department on the year-old Angora Peak Hand Crew before graduating from the academy on June 23.
The hand crew, which has a dozen members, was established last year to work on fuels reduction. Two people run a chipper every day. Residents haul slash to the curb and the crew reduces it to mulch. The other members are doing fuel reduction projects.
Martin Goldberg, forestry supervisor with Lake Valley, said the Forest Service contacted him in late July about having the hand crew work on rehabilitation efforts in the burn area.
Most of the 20 cadets who graduated this summer did not have their wildland certificate so they couldn’t be on the front lines during the weeklong ordeal. Now they all have the extra training to fight the next blaze.
Several of them have stayed locally or are still hoping to get on with an agency.
Academy grad Garret Kuenzi helped evacuate people from Gardner Mountain and coordinated the food efforts for crews.
He works full time for Lake Valley and as a reserve for South Lake Tahoe. At Lake Valley, Kuenzi is part of the hand crew.
“We cut a lot of dead stuff. We do a 30-foot clear cut around houses,” said the 24-year-old who has lived here since he was 9.