Day 14. 9/14/12

Today is our last day on the fire. However things are happening.  They are rolling crews over. The two engines we are working with are off for two days of R&R. They have a new hand crew here with us today. There is new overhead as well. Today is a show and tell to the new people.
There is talk of doing some left burning below the cliffs. They are concerned that the fire will fall off the cliff and restart the fire. Im not sure when the fire is basically out. There is a couple of stumps burning at most. I think that they want to have a burn to do a management burn. It makes some sense to do that.
This may be the last fire of the year for me and my crew. Not positive but we need to be home this week to get caught up. We will be available to work next week but there may not be any dispatches left. Ill keep you posted.
I would like to thank you all for following along this season. When it is over i will have the final tally and i plan to have a  album of the season in pictures. Keep checking back.........Travis

Final Drops

The K-Max is dropping its final drops on this fire. They have been using a mix of gel and water. They had some left so they decided to use it up rather then have is taken out. So they are using it on interior stumps and logs.
In the picture below you see its blue color.
We are also getting some light rain showers today.

River Rats

People are rafting the Tieton River. They only open the dam two times a year. When they do the river is flooded with rafters.

Not dead yet

Today is the same as the last few days patrol and mopup. In doing so we found a stubborn stump hole that we thought we put to bed but it keeps coming back. Thats our excitement for the day.
The weather is cooler with some t-storm activity in the area. We had a few sprinkles but not enough to even wet the ground. There is a good chance that we could end up chasing new fire starts from lightning. Ill keep you posted....

The feeling that time stopped

This is the part of firefighting we dont enjoy. The sitting. The Wild Rose fire is almost out if it isnt out. They have us sitting here with nothing to do. We may be allowed to go in at 730. The good news is we get paid to do this but it is painfully slow. Hours seem like days, minutes like hours. Soon the snow will fly and we will be home glad we stuck it out......

Fishermen Beware

Hes up a tree

9/20/12 More of the same

Not much happening here. Just patrolling the fire.along Hwy 12.  There is talk of tying in the west portion of the fire. Its possible we could support another burning operation in the coming days.
It looks like the season is winding down. The forcast as of now is for some t-storms this weekend and then cooler damp conditions for next week.

Cold Fire

This morning we mopped up a number of smokes and stumps. Then after lunch we did some foot patrol and found a few more smokes above the line. We put them to rest and it looks good now.
We are waiting for orders to return to camp for the night.
Our portion of the fire is contained. We are on division November.

K-max helicopter

Mopup and Patrol

Today we are doing much of the same as yesterday.  We are putting out the political smokes like the stump in the picture. The public drive on hwy 12 and see it and call in the fire. Yes we are aware there was a fire here. Pun intended.
Once we take out all the smokes we will be in a patrol mode. It makes a slow day but we are all a bit tired and ready for a couple slower days. See you all soon.

Slow day 9/18/12

Today we are working with the hand crews mopping up and securing the line. Its pretty slow. But it is work.

Hot mop

When you mop up with water it boils instantly. What you see is not smoke but steam.

Drafting water

9/17/12 Finally busy

We are busy and have been foe the last few days. Today we are mopping up a slopover that jumped the line during the night. We are also mopping up up the fire line that was burned last night. Looks like we may have a few days will be more of the same. Thats good. The days go faster this way.

Good clean burn

Fire

Bucket drop

9/16/12 update

Yesterday we sat on a ridge as a lookout. We saw the fire make a good run up the hill. Then we came down and watched a helicopter water show. He was dropping water on the fire. I will try to post pictures but may not be able to. Then we supported a burn along Hwy 12. Washington odot closed one lane so we could work the fire edge. They had a pilot car to take the cars through.
Today looks to be the same with our division dropping fire. We will likely support the burn and do some mopup to clean things up.
We are on day 7 and have 7 more to go then we will be home. See you soon.

Quick update

We are doing prep work for a burn. And scouting for a contingency plan. They want to burn to just above the power lines above the hwy and river.
They are still getting our sattelite camp set up

Moved again.

We move to another part of the complex. We are now in branch 3. We are planning to support the lower end of the fire. We may dig line may not but we were told long shifts and a lot of sitting. But when its time to burn we will be busy supporting the ground support.  If we burn. Ill keep you posted. Iwill try to uplaod pictures and but my service is scetchy. Stay tuned.

Just a quick update

Today we finished mopping up our 3-7acre fire. We did a grid in both directions to make sure the fire is not just out but also cold.

Not sure what we will be doing tomorrow.  We could be part of a new initial attack group. If we are not then who knows. Today was our 3rd shift and we could have 14 more before we time our.
Well thats all for tonight.  Time for my beauti rest.
Later....

A little action

The fires have been slow. They are so spread out that it takes time and energy from many to hike in and scout these 95+ fires. Most we cant reach with the engines.
A little after the noontime we got a call and went to fire #$&* sorry I cant remember the number of the fire. They are numbering each fire. We went up to a 3 acre fire and we did some mopup. Not real glorious but hey its better then sitting around. Im not sure what tomorrow will bring but we may be back at that fire to finish the mopup, or we may go to a different fire. We will see tomorrow what happens. Ill keep you posted.

Staging

We are waiting for an assignment.  All 10 or so of us engines. There are 95 fires in locations that are tough to access. They also dont have all of the fires staffed. However they now have a bunch of resources.  Hand crews and engines. We hope to hit and destroy some fire this week. So far it is starting slow.
So far the phone signal has been pretty good. I should be able to keep you up to date. It may not be until next each evening but i will do my best to keep you up to speed.

Check in

We made it to Ellensburg and we are in the check in prossess. Soon we may find out our assignment.

Change of destination

We are now going to the Yakima Complex. We will be at the Ellensburg fair grounds.

Unending Summer

Well here we go again. All the engines have been called out.Washington State was hammered by lightning. So just when we thought the season is over it's going again.

The name of the fire I am going to is called the Manila Fire. It is a complex of fires. You can look here at it:http://www.nwccweb.us/information/fire_info.aspx

For Daily updates you can check these sites:

http://www.nwccweb.us/index.aspx

This one you can look at the INCI web for hourly updates on all fires  and if you look at the situation report it has all of the fires in the nation as a daily report, updated each morning.
http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_main.html


As usual I will try to update our status with pictures etc. By now you know the drill.

One thing of note: when I update with my phone I don't post onto Twitter or Facebook. So you will have to check back every now and then.

We will be leaving around 4 am so I need to finish getting ready and hit the hay. Gnight and see you soon.......

Fort Rock

While looking for new camp we were close enough th visit Fort Rock. That is pretty cool. Check out the pics below.

Reality show update

We are going to Bend to do some filming of the reality show "Treasure Hunters". We will be on location and if we are fortunate we will film enough to finish the first episode.

I am sorry we had a delay in the shows release but life get in the way sometimes. I had planned to finish it this spring early summer.

I have started the editing on the show but as I quickly realized we needed more to be able to finish. So hopefully we will have enough film to finish the show by the end of the weekend.

The show will have a little history, and some things to help you to be successfull treasure hunter. We will show how to scout, research and find good locations. We will also teach proper etiquite of metal detecting.

In case you are new to the blog, some of what you will see in the show is in a trailer on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA0e0RWhx40&feature=plcp

If you see it and like it please tell a friend.

Wish us the best an hopefully soon we will have our first episode!

Fire season over?

That is the question. And the answer is yes and no. Some will go out and others will not. As you have likely heard there is a new fire near White Salmon. That will call out some resources  for a few days. But things have really wound down.

We are still ready to go at a moments notice. The summer is lasting a while longer then normal so we await for a dispatch. It does appear unlikely that the contractors will get out again. The agencies have the first priority and then if needed the contractors go out. That being said with the warming of the temperature and the lowering humidity's and the hunters out there it is still a real possibility. A lot of people hit the outdoors this time of the year and like the White Salmon fire humans could cause new fires.

We had a good season and a lot happened. As promised I will recap the season in pictures when I know we are done for sure. Stay tuned.....

I want to thank those of you who checked in and who followed this blog. I also want to thank you for telling your friends about the blog. I really appreciate your support.

Thanks Travis