Horseshoe Meadow Hotshots History

The “Horseshoe Meadow Crew”, has been proudly serving the U.S. Forest Service for the past 30 years.

1974

The crew was established on the Hume Lake Ranger District of the Sequoia National Forest. Ben Charley was the first superintendent. The crew was stationed at Horseshoe Meadow KV (Knudsen-Vanderbilt) camp. Originally there were 27 crew members, this allowed for seven-day-a-week staffing. In the late 70’s due to budget short falls, manpower programs such as California Indian Manpower Consortium and Young Adult Conservation Corps were used through Native American programs to hire crewmembers. The philosophy behind this was to create diversity and develop a young, strong, workforce. It also provided the district and forest with a multiple-use resource.

1980

The crew earned Hotshot status through a reputation of hard work and safe firefighting becoming the Horseshoe Meadow Interagency Hotshots.

1989

Ben Charley retired, but his famous line of “only two more chains! We’re almost tied in”, is still spoken as a motivational tool on Horseshoe to this day. Robert Bennett “Horseshoe Bob” took over leading Horseshoe as Supt. in August of 1989 and lead the crew until he retired.

2006

In October “Horseshoe Bob”retired, having continued the tradition that Ben started in the early 70’s by providing the Forest Service with a highly respected and hard working Interagency Hotshot Crew.

2017

After spending ten years as the Superintendent, Joe Gonzales promoted to become the District Fire Management Officer for the Hume Lake Ranger District and in 2020 became the Deputy Forest Fire Management Officer for the Sequoia National Forest.

At present, the crew is stationed at Pinehurst Work Center in Pinehurst, Ca., approximately 60 miles east of Fresno, CA.