Pack Test Day

As promised here is the pack test. I have to say as one of the administrators it was a real challenge to get good pictures. The pictures aren't as good as I wanted but they will give you a idea of what is involved.

Getting ready

In the picture above everyone is putting on weight vests. Remember they weigh 45 lbs

Ready.....Set

GO!

There they Go

Here they come

Almost to the finish line

So as they cross the finish line, we record their times. Then we send it in along with their certifications for inspection. Once they pass the inspection then we print off their qualification card. It's like a driver licence. When we check into a fire they need to see them to let us on the fire. That is part of the inspection/check in process.

So anyone want to do a arduous pack test? I didn't think so...

The west is going to warm up so it likely wont be long until we are dispatched to a fire. In the mean time, and as I can I will continue to post the last fire of the 2016. 

I forgot to mention the name of that fire. But it was called the North Star fire. Stay tuned.....

Arduous Pack Test Day

I thought that since today we have scheduled a pack test for fire personnel I would show you what it is all about. Hence this post. We will be doing the pack test today at 6 pm, or as the ICS would call it at 1800.

Every firefighter who wants to qualify to fight fires has to pass this test. So here is what is involved in taking a pack test: You have to cover three miles in 45 minutes or less. You say no problem! Well here is the catch, you have to do it with 45 lbs on your back. Also you are not allowed to run. So its not as easy as it may sound. That's why they call it an arduous test. Because it is not that easy.

We are now required to have a EMT there in case of an emergency. Two years ago one of the firefighters died during the test, and because the EMT was there the were able to revive him back to life.

Most people score around 41-43;00 minutes. The faster firefighters are done in 35-37:00 minutes. Today we have six participants. One of my crew and five from one of the other contractors.

So I will take pictures and post them for you to see some of what is done.

Dragging the line

Local Support

This was a slow fire as fare as flames go. That's not to say that we weren't busy. We were doing a variety of things. We patrolled the fire line, did a few days of mop up. We did some rehab work and in the pictures below you will see the other assignment we were given.

Unfortunately these pictures don't do it justice. In places it is really steep.

Dragging out the hose

There was two engine crews assigned to do this job. We dropped off four of our crew and they walked the line down pulling the hose with them. We took the two engines down to the other end of the fire line. Down to where it tied into the main road.

Each hose is an inch and a half size around and is 100" long. We pulled out over 4000' of hose in just a couple of hours. The crew did really well.

After we had it all down we butterflied each hose and loaded it into our trucks and transported it to a pickup location. Buterflying a hose is a different way of rolling up the hose. Hard to explain what it looks like but it is a quick way of rolling it up. In the end the hose looks like a figure 8.

In my next post I will show you the preparation we did for a burn.There is maps and some planning involved.

The last fire

We were dispatched to what would be our last fire of 2015. We were sent up to Omak Washington.The main fire camp was in Omak. After we checked in and went through all of our inspections, they sent us up to Republic. It was up to the northeast. We were about 30 miles from the Canadian border.

The town of republic was small but they have some neat old style buildings.

 We didn't see much fire but we did have work. We also saw some nice country, and wildlife.

We were there for two weeks and then we went home for good. In the following posts I will show what we did while there.

It's been really busy but I will try to keep posting right up to this years fire season.See you soon.

Still here

It's been a long time since I posted here on my blog. But believe it or not I'm still here. It's been a real busy winter spring and early summer.
Last weekend's rain delayed the start of fire season in region six. But it is picking up all over the West Coast. Likely we will be working by the end of the month.

As always I will keep you updated on this blog of all the happenings.

Just to give you an update I have a crew the engine is ready and we are just waiting for dispatch. In the meantime I have been working cutting and selling firewood.

My buddy and I did some alterations to the engine. We added a cage on top of the toolboxes that will store water gatorade and handtools.

I am sorry I haven't kept up-to-date with this blog and I know many of you enjoy it, but it has been a very busy year. I will do my best to keep it a little more regular as I can. See you soon bye

Goodbye Route Complex

After three weeks we were demobed from the Route Complex. That was my first 21 day run, and whew, I hope we don't do that anytime soon. We did fine but we were mentally tired and we were ready for a break.

It took two days to get home. We had our own layover in Bend and hit the hot tub and the Beer and Pizza! 

Neighboring fire making a run.

 These next two pictures are....well how can I say this....We came back to camp and weren't allowed to park where we had been for almost three weeks. We were moved to another parking lot......A half mile away. As you see the cars in the lot are overhead. Need I say any more? I'll Shut up now.

off into the sunset

After we made it home we had two days rest, and then..................

Green on Fire?

As we move around with a new Division supervisor and also some new ground we get the opportunity  to see something new. And remember we are in northern California. On this day they wanted us to check a few homes that had fire around them. What we saw is self explanatory. And for those of you who guessed it was Mary-J-U-Wanna, you were right.

Greenhouse full of plants

Empty greenhouses

Large water tanks

Harvested crop

Harvested

Solar power.

We were noticing how there was a number of civilian trucks that had water tanks in the back. We  wondered how they were blowing past the road closed signs. As you see we found out. They needed to water the plants.The danger level isn't as high for us as it used to be.Now many of the farmers were legal. So different from just a few years ago. Also not something we see every day on a wildfire.