On their instructor's count, the group of new recruits sprinted to the small orange packs that contain the potentially life-saving fire shelters they would attempt to deploy in a worst case scenario.
This was just one of the many skills wildland firefighters would learn and practice during a 10-day course conducted by the state in the town of Rainier.
"This is where they learn to do a job that's not the most glamorous, but the most important job in wildland firefighting," said Allen McGuire, who has 32-years of experience, including many assignments as an incident commander with the state Department of Natural Resources.
He said the 20-member teams, called line crews, perform the grunt work of digging fire lines.
"You're cutting the brush, you're removing the grass, you're scraping the organic material, you're getting down to organic soil that doesn't burn to provide that line to keep the fire contained," he explained.
The state is in the process of training about 1,100 firefighters of all experience levels in preparation for this fire season.