She grew up in San Diego, became a wildland firefighter in her teens, then came to Sonora and created a training program for high school seniors that to this day helps staff the front lines when devastating fires break out in the Mother Lode.
Wendy Flannery was 18 years old in 1992, when she joined the Laguna Hotshots in the Descanso Ranger District of Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County.
She arrived in Sonora three years later and worked as activity coordinator for Tuolumne County’s recreation department while she studied at Columbia College.
“I was looking at student diversion programs and figured getting kids involved in firefighting would be a great alternative to distractions like drug abuse, alcohol abuse and teen pregnancy,” Flannery said Thursday.
Growing up in San Diego with her own plans in mind, Flannery knew how important it can be for students to have something real and worthwhile to strive for, especially the pursuit of marketable skills in a competitive jobs market.
“We got a lot of training on student diversion back then,” Flannery said. “One stat that stood out is young people with future goals have a greater ability to make choices, to avoid putting their goals at risk. It was a natural fit, firefighter training, with my prior experience in fire.”
The training partnership she set up between Tuolumne County and the Forest Service in 2000 provides young men and women with skills necessary to begin careers in firefighting, including future employment as wildland firefighters.
“Back when we started we had about 30 students, boys and girls,” Flannery said. “We had 70 percent go on to work with the Forest Service, the Park Service, BLM or Cal Fire, all in wildland firefighting.”
Flannery returned to the Forest Service in 2003 and worked several years with the Stanislaus Hotshots based in Sonora. Today she is 42 and she is division chief of dispatch for the Stanislaus National Forest.
Meanwhile the training program she created is in its 16th year. One of the instructors this year is Ryan Harlan, Forest Service captain of Groveland’s wildland handcrew 41, who took part in the county’s firefighting course more than a decade ago.