In the Hot Springs District of South Dakota, the people who fight wildfires are also the people who show up for car wrecks on their days off. Every person in the office volunteers with the local fire department.

John Haskvitz's twin brother was killed on a fire in 2011. He went back to the job anyway, and the station he works at now was named in his brother’s honor.

After a career spent being tough, a retired fire manager says the best thing he ever did was talk about it.

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In one family, firefighting has passed through three generations — today a father and his twin sons share the same office.

Amanda Sage-Morris does this work for the public, and hears it come back to her from her own kids.

Their public information officer calls them heroes. Not one of them will use the word.

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Seven of them told us what this work asks of them, and what it gives back. These are their words.

(MORE: A look inside the lives of South Dakota's wildland firefighters)

As told to Caroline Aylward for weather.com. Edited and condensed for clarity by Ada Wood.

Riley Stevens

Engine Captain, Hot Springs District, South Dakota Wildland Fire

Twin brother to Seth and son of Alan 

We're not sitting in a cubicle every day. We're out in the woods either doing a cutting project, collecting fuels, training.

My perspective on this work is that I'm young and able to do it, and should be doing it. You're helping out your community. Somebody's got to fill the trucks. 

It's a challenging job, but it's also very rewarding. You’ve got to put yourself 100% into it. Be a student of fire. And it’s rewarding.

Seth is my twin. And our dad, Alan, being a firefighter, was a huge influence growing up for us; watching him come and leave from fires, being gone for weeks at a time.

Our first season, 2016, we had a fire we all got to work together on for the first time. That was a really cool experience to have, something I'll cherish forever.

When you're young, it's exciting. It's an adrenaline-filled job. And then as you get older, there are other things that excite you about it, whether it's working on certain qualifications or learning fire. 

And like we always say, you're a student of fire, so you're always learning. It just evolves as you go throughout your career.

Honestly, for me, I was always interested in it. We joined the volunteer fire department right when we could at 18. At first I didn't think of it as a career choice. And then I fell in love with it and kept going.

I had a kid in January. So I’m just trying to juggle my wife and my son and try to still have family time, but still commit a lot of time to this job.

It’s just more of a balancing act now than when I was single and didn't have anything else to worry about.

When my wife and I first got together and first started dating, we sat down and talked. I told her that I'm going to be gone and busy. I'm not going to answer the phone all the time. 

I just try to make sure I make time for her and Skip when I can.

The teaching element and developing firefighters, especially when they’re as young as 18 years old, is really fun. You feel like you're watching them grow up.

Amanda Sage-Morris

Fire Prevention Specialist, South Dakota Wildland Fire

My kids understand that mom likes what she does, and they're proud of what I do.

We had a fire here a couple of years ago that wasn't far away from where I was living, and my kids looked at me and said, “It's okay, it's okay. We don't have to worry. They're there. They're doing what they need to do. They're doing their job.”

And I was like, “Oh wow, I've really made an impact on my kids.” Which then in turn reminded me why I do what I do.

I was always interested in fire. I really enjoy public safety and making a difference to the community, and knowing that I'm there and making a big impact on them on the worst days of what they face. 

Seth Stevens

Assistant Fire Management Officer, Hot Springs District, South Dakota Wildland Fire

Twin brother to Riley and son of Alan 

Trampus Haskvitz was killed in the Cole Canyon Fire on August 11, 2011.

He was one of our guys out of our office. In a small town, we knew him well. 

We were in eighth grade. His father was our football coach in middle school. John and Trampus would always come and help at practices and things like that too. So, for us, it hits home a little more in particular.

We got the news that there'd been a burn over. I can't remember the exact details, but we all loaded up, and then we went down to Buffalo Gap and met with Trampus’ family, and we sat with them for, I don't know how long.

It’s a reality setter because it tells everyone here, “Hey, this happened in our own backyard, and you can die doing this job.”

At that point, I wasn’t even thinking about what I wanted to do when I grew up. It was just somebody I knew died tragically, and I’ve got to figure out how to process that at a younger age.

(MORE: Into the inferno: What it feels like inside of a wildfire)

Me and my brother Riley both volunteer in the local fire department. Everyone in this office actually volunteers. 

So there are a lot of days on your day off; we’re still responding to fires, car wrecks, all sorts of stuff like that.

Especially in rural areas like this, there's just not the tax base to have a full-time fire department. It's a way to give back to your community. 

Growing up, hearing the old war stories from Dad and grandpa and Jim and all the guys that they hung out with, the older guys in the fire department, it was just exciting to me. It had some appeal.

The first time the three of us left out of state together on a fire assignment, that memory sticks in my head. 

When you’re out working on a fire, you're usually committing for 14 days. That's not including travel on either side. So, 14 working days.

I wouldn't say adrenaline doesn't still hit you the more you do it. But it doesn't hit you as hard as when you’re a brand new guy — your hands aren’t shaking.

Teaching the younger crew members here, you're not just teaching them how to be firefighters. It's really taking young men and women and turning them into adults too. It's not just fire.

They're like little brothers to me. They invite you to birthdays and family barbecues and vice versa.

Alan Stevens

Equipment Operator

Father to Seth and Riley

Being in the field, it's just dirty. It’s burning; it’s not wet out, so the dust is just horrendous, and just everything it touches is dirt. Your lunch is dirt. Everything's dirt.

When you’re out west, you stay in fire camps, which get to be huge. Tent City is what they call ‘em.

They bring in the catering truck. And sometimes these days they have shower trucks. Everybody sleeps on the ground.

It's its own little community in its own sense. And this job is a lifestyle.

I grew up in a family business, so working around family is just normal.

This is a unique office; we’ve got lots of family members working together.

In some summers, you're just gone. You get home for a couple of days, and you’re right back out. You miss a lot of stuff, like the boys' birthdays. I missed a lot of their birthdays.

When John's brother Trampus passed, that hit pretty close to home. I had worked with his kids for a couple of years. Got to know him real well. 

(MORE: How to decode a fire: Inside the world of wildfire investigations)

That took a toll on the boys, Riley and Seth, too. They were young, and they were looking up to the guys here, and all of a sudden one's gone. It's heartbreaking.

It could happen to any one of us any time, but that's just what you accept. You try to train and do everything in your power not to be in that position. But it does happen. It does happen.

But if you're going to worry about that, that's all you're going to do. It's going to consume you.

My wife doesn't worry about our sons. She says if something happens, it happens. It's out of our control. You just got to deal with the aftermath. I get goosebumps talking about it.

There's been times when you hear of something — you know they’re out, and you hear of something blowing up — your hair stands up a little bit. And you don't ignore it, but you just don't let it consume you.

John Haskvitz

Fire Management Officer, Hot Springs District, South Dakota Wildland Fire

Twin brother to Trampus, married to Alan’s daughter 

Trampus was my twin brother. Reality hits hardest when it's local, and even harder when it's your brother. 

I try to take this job seriously because ultimately this is your life and this job can kill you. 

There was a smoke report, and the engine he was on was the one they sent to check it out. He called me and wanted me to look on a map to figure out where it was. So I helped, and shortly after that, it happened. I was in the station at our old shop, hearing it on the radio.

Right after my brother's incident out there, passing away, they kind of said, “You're not going to come back to fire.” And I said, “Nah, I'm going back to fire.”

It takes a whole nation to try to put out these fires sometimes. We rely heavily on our VFD; that’s the volunteer fire department.

It’s tough work; it makes you test yourself every day. It gives you the ability to go places that a lot of people won't ever even imagine going.

You've got to try to stay calm with this job. You might be nervous underneath. There are times when I gotta just stop, not answer phones and radios, and just take a deep breath. 

I've been doing it 18 years now, and it actually started with my older brother, and then my twin, Trampus, joined the year after.

I didn't know what fire was. I didn't even know lightning could start fires. But now I'm running the office that I started in. 

I got to know the Stevens family when Alan, their dad, the local plumber in town, asked if I wanted a job. 

And I met my wife that way too — I fell in love with the plumber's daughter, Laree. She grew up with her dad gone all the time as a firefighter too, and so she knew what she was getting into.

This work takes a toll on families. You see a lot of firefighters that get divorced just because they're gone all the time. You've got to find the right woman, as I did. Make sure she knows what comes with the comes with the territory.

Mike Reed

Fire District Manager, South Dakota Wildland Fire

My truck is always packed. At the spur of the moment, I could be gone for two weeks, next thing you know.

I’ve got a tent, clothing, even food and water. I can't quite support myself for two weeks, but I can at least get through 72 hours.

Sleeping in the dirt sometimes really sucks.

Especially when it gets really cold — sleeping outside in 16 degrees is not fun. And sometimes if you're in an area and it's 100 degrees during the day, it's impossible to sleep in a tent. Sometimes you decide whether you're going to eat dinner or shower.

But I really like my job. It's exciting. We're all a little bit of adrenaline junkies. Don't let anybody lie to you. That's the truth.

From the age of five, I knew what I was going to do for a living, and I've never deviated from that. I've done it my whole life, since I was 18 years old, so I don't know anything else.

My dad was a firefighter too. As a little kid, it was always just the coolest thing in the world to me. Every time a fire truck drove by, I just knew, “Yeah, I'm going to be a firefighter.” 

There’s a mental health piece to this, and it's real.

As I was coming up on a job, when I was young, it was always just “we’re tough, we can deal with it.” 

But you don't know how it's going to affect you until later on in life; for me, that was when I retired. You start shedding it, and you realize how much it affects you. I like to think that it's cumulative. It’s a lot of stress; you could be watching somebody’s house burn down, and that really adds up on you.

And it's funny. Now the emotions are starting to come back. I like to refer to myself as a little kid emotionally. 

I could sit at home now, and watch some commercial, and the next thing I know, I'm crying. I'm like, “What the hell is the matter with me?”

I struggled a little bit after retirement. And then I realized that the best thing for me was to talk about it. That's why I'm more comfortable with it now.

In the firehouse — we dealt with stress in very peculiar ways. Some of it's very dark humor. 

But I think for a younger firefighter, the best way is to know themselves — and not only themselves, but to know each other. You have to be able to recognize when stress is affecting somebody, but also not be afraid to talk about it.

You've got to make sure you're taking care of your folks.

Steve Long

Public Information Officer & Fire Prevention Program Manager, South Dakota Wildland Fire

Everybody pulls together, no matter what color your truck is, no matter what your logo is, no matter what color shirt or what your hat says on it, you're all on one team in the wildland firefighting world. 

It's really old school, neighbor helping neighbor. Even if neighbor helping neighbor means the neighbor is four states away.

When I first got an opportunity to introduce myself to the South Dakota Wildland Fire Group, I said that I considered them heroes. And that kind of got some chuckles from them because they don't see themselves as heroes.

They don't do this to be heroes. They don't want to be on camera. They really don't want people to see them.

And since I do social media posts about the stuff that they do, one of the most common words I hear and read on there is heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes. To me, they are heroes — it's just a fact. 

When there’s a fire, everyone else is leaving and going out, because it's not safe. But our folks — who are trained and have their PPE on — are going in. To me, that kind of defines a hero.

Content writer Ada Wood enjoys exploring the stories that science and climate teach us about our natural world and how it influences the way we live in it.