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Show 66 Chapter Four. Firebase Firebase was all set to viork, providing information about wildland fires to anyone who asked for it. The system was now located in the Boise Interagency Fire Center - Karen would work not only for the Forest Service, but in addition for the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Fish and Wildlife Service. These agencies cooperated to suppress wildfires all over the United States. Karen says, "I thought that in Boise I was going to do pretty much the same kinds of things I'd done in Missoula. When I got there I found out that the program manager didn't have any technical knowledge about Firebase, and the responsibility fell to me." Karen knew a lot about viriting abstracts, but she knevi next to nothing about operating a computer terminal. What saved her vias her complete knowledge of the information stored in the computer, and her familiarity with the key-word vocabulary vihich she'd put together. "If I punched some key words into the computer terminal, and the right information didn't come out and I knew it was in there, I could go back and redo it or figure out vihat I'd done wrong." Karen had a very short time to learn to operate the computer, though; only a week after she began work in Boise, she vias sent to a large professional meeting to demonstrate Firebase. It was then that Karen was grateful for her varied college background. The Firebase job required writing skills to prepare abstracts - Karen had been an English major for a year. It required a forestry |