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GREEN MOUNTAIN — Anton Baur swings a whirring chainsaw close to the ground, chopping down and leaving young Douglas fir, huckleberry bushes and the occasional Scotch broom in his wake. In dense underbrush near Green Mountain, the state wildland firefighter is opening up swaths of land state officials say will help prevent and limit forest fires.
For Baur, a North Mason High School graduate studying civil engineering at the University of Washington during the fire offseason, the thinning off Jungle Court NW also served as practice. He's coming up on his fourth year fighting wildland fires and he needs to be ready to do similar work to contain a fire.