On the second weekend in January, in the dead of winter, Zach Snavely and Corinne Hancock fought their first wildfire. The Littleton couple watched flames rising about twenty feet into the air, eating up snow-covered piles of fuel and radiating heat, as they and their teammates dug a preventative fireline into the dirt on the grounds near Salida’s Colorado Firecamp.
Just days before, Snavely, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard and has been working as an international military consultant, and Hancock, a leadership coach who has devoted much of her career to foreign aid projects, had no professional firefighting experience. But they were moved to change that after COVID-19 hit and several historic wildfires including the Cameron Peak fire and East Troublesome fire near Rocky Mountain National Park, which collectively burned more than 350,000 acres raged through the state in 2020.