Route Complex Pictures

Here is a couple of pictures of some of what we did. The truck you see in the third picture was our next assignment. They used my truck to pump down the hill to the hand crews.

The hose lay we put in earlier had a lateral hose every 200 feet. Each lateral had a 3/4 inch hose and a nozzle at the end of it. We call the 3/4 hose a toy hose. They use it to mop up the fire line.

Neighbor Fire

Kyle on the bubble

New show in town

Auxiliary Diesel Pump

We tried a gravity feed rather then run the pump. For one reason you don't need much pressure going downhill. The other reason is the pump is so noisy. It is hard to hear the radio when you are by the pump.

It was so steep the concern was of blowing hose. I wish I could say that didn't happen, but it did. Several hoses gave there all and died in a blaze of glory.

But after a little trial and error we got the gravity feed to work. All I had to do was open the drain valve. When I started running low on water I called a water tender and he came down the hill and topped me off.

The gravity worked until they completed the hose lay. All the way around the "Chance fire" was a total of four miles of hose. So there were times I had to fire up the pump and pump water all the way around. 

We did this for three days....

For the next installment of this fire I will cover the burn we prepped for and supported.

Big things!

This fire had Big planes trees and hills.The passenger plane you see was dropping retardant. unfortunately he dropped his load out of our view. But one thing we noticed is he was a lot quieter then the C-130 doing drops.

The planes weren't all that was large out there. The trees and the steep hillside we had to hike were large as well. The tree's are Sugar Pine, and there were a few large Fir's as well.

Watch out situation

Steep climb

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Some of these pictures don't do it justice on just how steep it was. In places it was like climbing. The hill was closer then an arms length while you were standing straight up. I am a bit amazed the cat was able to stay on the hill side as he cut the fire line in. Maybe that is why he went straight up and down in those spots.

That's all for now check back I will post more of our fire season soon....

Route Complex Continued

After our first day we moved to a different part of the line on the "Chance Fire". Then we hiked in more hose down the steep cat line.

My guys humped hose for several days. Back and forth. They must have hiked several miles each day. They did this without complaint. They left the hose for the hand crews, and then the hand crews laid out the hose line. My guys were shot. I tried to rest them but every time I did our task force leader would call and say "can you send your guys with more supplies"? So they went. At one point I went myself to give one of my guys a break. For the most part I wasn't able to go because I had to run the pump at the engine.

Inversion

Watch out situation!

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Neighbor fire.

We were surrounded by fires. Every direction there was fires. We had the mildest fire in the area. I believe it was because we were close enough to the coast that the humidity kept things in check. Every night we drove across the top of the ridge our way back to camp and we could see the coast inversion. We really weren't far from it. But the fires near by blew up just about every day.

Fire Cloud

These neighbor fires blew up nearly every day. Maybe they did blow every day, I don't know. Some days we had an inversion and it was like ground fog. The difference is it was smoke. The cloud you see is formed by intense heat that forms a cloud. On extreme occasions they even produce rain. 

The scientific explanation is that as the smoke raises, aka the heat, it cools as it rises and as it does so it cools and condenses and when it reaches its saturation point and reaches above 100% humidity then a cloud forms. It is called a plume dominated fire. These are extremely dangerous. Why? Because once they reach saturation point it collapses. As it collapses it comes straight down. These downdrafts send fire in all directions. An indicator that this is happening is light rain. If you haven't already left it's time to get out!

Check back for he continuation of this fire. Lots more to show you....

Route Complex Six Rivers National Forest

On August 7 we finally got a dispatch to the Route Complex in California. I say finally because after the Leslie Gulch Fire we sat for about another month before we got this call. It was hard to sit and wait when you hear on the news that they are begging for resources when we were not only available. Not to mention that there was a fire in our own backyard. Not to mention the fact that they were calling resources from other parts of the region rather then use the local resources.

It took us parts of two days to get to Mad River fire camp and get checked in. That was an adventure in of itself. We waited in line to get inspected for about an hour. There were rumors going on that the inspector was really hard nosed and was giving the other contractors a hard time. Even one engine crew failed. I think they worked it out and did get approved to stay.

When it came to our turn..... it seemed like everything went wrong that could. We always go through our inventory and make sure that everything is there and running. So the first thing to go wrong was our pump wouldn't start. So we worked on it for a bit and managed to get it to fire but it wouldn't stay running. But they accepted it. Buy then the saw wouldn't run. At this point we just knew we would be going home. So we went through thew saw and finally got it to run. 

We passed we can stay. And stay we did. We were there for three weeks.

The team managing the fire was a Cal-Fire team. I'm just going to say they are a lot different then what we are used to. I will leave it at that.

We were assigned to the Chance fire. It was basically a large spot fire with a hand line around it. Our first assignment was to pack hose down the line and lay it out to use for securing the line and out this fire out. It was steep but we lay'ed out the hose.

After we got all the hose tied together we used my truck to pump water and to supply the hose lay.When we would get low on water we were refilled by a forest service engine.

After shift we went to camp for dinner. You always wonder what cater will be in camp. Some are really good and others are not so much. But when we saw the first menu....

This cater rocked. The food was fabulous. We were a bunch of happy campers.

I am going to do the fire season in segments. There is just to much to cover in only a couple of posts. It was a long season and a lot happened. So I hope you enjoy the journey as much as we did. See ya next time...

Leslie Gulch Fire

On June first we were dispatched out to the Vale district to the Leslie Gulch fire. After we were checked in they sent us to Jordan Valley. That is where fire camp was.

The next morning we went out to the fire.

Sunset in Jordan Valley.

We had to park along the highway

As you can see there was not much fire. however the scenery was pretty cool. Oh and it was HOT! We checked the temperature and it was 116 degrees. Other engine crews said they checked and it was 120 degrees. It was so hot they told us to cold trail the line in the morning hours and then sit in the shade for the rest of the day.

As you can see the fire was mostly out. there was just a few sage brush stumps smoking.By the second day they were cold. Or as cold in the sense of being out.

We were on the line for three days and then we were demobed. The next fire would be in California.....

Hello...Is Anyone Out There?

It has been a while since I have been able to post on this blog. It has been crazy busy after I got home from the fire in Republic Washington. So busy that at night when I have time to work on the blog I am just not mentally wanting to do one more thing.

That being said it looks like things are going to slow down now so I am going to be more active with my blog again. I will have a review of the 2015 Wildfire season and more.  Stay tuned....