(FW: )Just got sent to a fire in yosemite. Should be back in 2 weeks

I just got sent to the forks fire, on the inyo national forest. will be back in about 2 weeks.

Marshal Fire

on sunday the 12th, i got up and headed to work at the usual time. sundays are usually looked forward to at work for many reasons, one of those being cause of sunday differential (extra pay for having to work sunday), another being that we usually take it easy compared to a normal day. i arrived at the station and started performing my regular daily station duties. at 0830 we did our 6 minutes for safety and were then told to gear up. this meant we were goin on a hike. our hikes are usually between 3 and five miles long and always involve goin up hill. we have a saying at work, for those who get lost or disoriented- just go up, thats always the right way. no matter how sore or tired you may be, the direction needed to be traveled seems to always be up. about half way up the hike the heat (103) is taking its toll. when we started, there were 4 people behind me, when i turned around i noticed that they were all gone. the pace and the heat were to much for them to keep up with the rest of us, so those of us that were still together, turned around and headed back down the hill to find the rest of the guys, each guy we found on the way down fell in line with the rest of us till we got to the last guy, which is when we turned back around and follow him back up the hill at his pace, with the usual words of encouragement(you suck, lets go, push it out, your gonna get us killed if we are on a fire, and many more that are prob. better if i not mention :) ) being shouted by the rest of the crew. once we make it about 3/4 of the way up, one of the squad bosses yells out "free for all to the top" and we all naturally pick up the pace in an attempt to leave the slower guys behind, and possibly improve our own position by passing up slower guys ahead. after a few minutes of this increased pace i notice that one of the saws ( guy who carries a chainsaw) is starting to gap (get left behind by the group) so i yell at the rookie in front of me to get up there and take the saw and close the gap. and like a good rookie, he does what i tell him to. shortly after, i pass the guy who was carrying the saw before the rookie took it. he is struggling to keep up, so i tell him to fall in behind me and keep up. he does so for a little while and then starts to fall out again, then i notice that he has stopped, and i can hear him puking, so i yell out for him to keep walking, he can puke while he hikes, several others in the back yell out the same. stopping is never an option no matter how short a time it might be. as we reached the last 100 yards, i look behind me to see that the puker has made up some of his lost ground, so i yell at him to keep up me all the way to the top. at this point, i hunch over and start to run ( like you see the soldiers do in all those vietnam movies) the rest of the way to the top. i pass by the rookie, who no longer has the saw(apperently someone else took it from him) he took a couple steps to try and keep up, but decided he didnt like my pace and slowed back down. about 30 yards from the top i start to pace another guy, but he hears me coming and talkes off with everything he has left to successfully keep me from passing him. whe get to the top and catch our breath, while some guys puke, and everyone drinks water. after our P.T. hike they line everyone out for what they are gonna be doin for the day. while everyone else was goin to be working at the station, me and another guy were goin with my captain and squad boss into town to pic up supplies for the station. so we piled into the six pack (crewcab truck, cause they can hold 6 guys) and headed off into town. after several hours of shopping at smart and final, home depot and autozone, we head back to the station. we got back to the station at 1334 (lunchtime) we left all of the supplies in the back of the 6 pack and went inside to join everyone for lunch. after we had been sitting down for about 10 minutes we heard the tones responding us to a fire, so we all hoped in the vehicles and started heading to the fire that was located near MT baldy ( about and hour and a half drive from where we were) after about and hour and fifteen minutes of driving, we were canceled. so we turned around and started heading back to the station. after about 30 minutes, we were responded to another fire, this one on the I-five corridor ( about and hour and a half drive past the station). so off we went. when we had made it about half way we were canceled. so we turned around and started heading back to the station. after about 10 minutes, we were responded to another fire that was in the same area as the first responce. so we jumped on the 14 s. and picked up the 210 east, after about 2 hours we got to the Marshall fire, which was in marshall canyon. this was near a golf course and some big houses. it was actually in county jurisdiction (not on the forest) but since it is a high profile area they had us respond. we unloaded, geared up and thats right, you guessed it, we hiked to our starting point and began cutting line! we started leap frogging with a con crew, and like always we cut alot of underslung line which means lots of trenching. after a couple hours, we were in a pretty hot section, when all of a sudden i felt something cold on my neck. i looked up, only to find that i couldnt see more than a couple feet. in that split second, dread set in. i realized that we had been cought in a drop (aircraft had dropped its water load on top of us), just as the realization hit, i was immediately soaked with water, almost like being in a monsoon on steriods. we kept cuttingline, and were caught in several more drops . eventually we tied in our peice of line. by this time it was dark and all that could be seen was a pile of telephone poles that burning up wind from us. there were also some unmarked barrels just up the drainage from us, so my captian told us to get out of there as fast as we could. when we got to the top, i could hear my captian telling the I.C. (incident comander) that we werent goin back in there no matter what, unless they got some one in there to take care of the hazmat first. after about 2o minutes, they released us to the fire. we hoped in the vehicles and began the long drive home. just another day at the office!


*if i use a term or something you dont understand, feel free to ask.

apple fire..... tijunga fire

so yesterday at 0830 we started out our day at the station with a couple hours of "competetive sprinting". after returning to the station, we began digging more trenches for a new sprinkler project. at around 1300 we were finishing up the trenches and about to take lunch, when all of a sudden we got a response for a brush fire up on big pines hwy in the apple campground. so we loaded up into the crew buggies and were off. when we got on scene, they were just flagging off the point of origin (place fire was started). we split mods, and had B mod flank the left side of the fire while A mod took the right side. both mods began cutting line around the fires edge and eventually met at the head of the fire. after the fire was out we began mopping up. it was now about 1400. just as we had finished mopping up we were dispatched to another fire near the little tijunga station. as we pulled up to the fire, we could see the whole hillside was on fire. there were several other crews already cutting line. after some recon, we found a place to park the buggies. after we parked the buggies, we had to cut a small scratch line around them since they were in light grass (to keep them from burning up in the event the fire reached them). as we began our scratch line, they warned us that there were a lot of bees in the area. we continued with our scratch line, and just as i was about to tie in, i was stung in the face by one of the bees. once we finished our scratch line, we grouped up and recieved our breifing on our strategy, tactics and hazards for the fire. we were goin to be working on zulu division, cutting line till our division was completely lined. so far the fire had mostly been just a ratty burn ( a burn where the fire goes through very quickly, not burning everything. this is always dangerous since it leaves plenty of fuel for the fire to come back and burn again, when people might not be paying much attention to it. it is also bad since alot of times we use clean black as a safety zone, and a ratty burn is not clean black and will most likely just turn into a death trap if you try and use it as one.) we then began a long hike up to the top of the mountain where we were suppose to start cutting line working our way down the fires edge to tie in with one of the crews working there way up. once we reached the top, i was already completely soaked in sweat. it was in the high 90's and the sun was beating directly down on us. we met up with another crew at the top, and began leap frogging while we were putting in line, till we were tied in. once we had tied in with the crews coming up, we hike back up our line and began cutting line to tie in all the dozer line ( fire line put in by bull dozers) with the line that the crews had cut. by the time we had finished tieing in all the line it had been dark for several hours, and i had already gone through more than a gallon of water. since we had been putting in underslung line ( line that is cut down hill from the fire), we had to trench ( dig trenches in the line to prevent rolling material fomr crossing the line and starting fire below that might make a run back up) most of our line. after we had finished our line construction, all the other crews except a con crew ( crew made up of inmates) went back down the mountain to sleep at the little tijunga station, while we stayed to continue working through the night. since it was now dark, we could easily see where we had gotten several small spot fires that were burning in the green. we broke up into several small squads and began scouting the spot fires and cutting P line into the green in order to get to them and put line around them. this took quite a bit of time, especially trying to get to the spot fires under the directions of our lookouts, since the brush/fuels were well over 10ft tall. it was like trying to walk through a dense tangled forest that had been woven to gether , in the dark. it was alot of fun. once we had caught all of the spot fires (at around 0100) we finaly got our lunch break that we had missed due to the apple fire. nothing quite like eating lunch in the dark well after one might normaly eat dinner. i had a veggie patty with bbq sauce MRE (military rations,meal ready to eat) we were now all freezing cold, since we were all covered in sweat in the now dark cool night, so many of us took the heating agent from the MRE and put them down our shirts to help keep warm. those that had dry shirts changed and put those on as well. once we had completed our meal, we began goin back and checking our spot fires to make sure that they were still out and that we werent getting any flare ups. once we had done that, we pulled our the night vision so that we could search for more hot spots in the green. myself along with 2 others then dropped off the edge of the mountain into the green with the person holding the night vision standing on the ridgeline trying to give us directions on how to get to the hot spots so that we could cool them off before they bacame to dangerous.we continued much of this through the night. it began to get light at around five 37. we monitored the line till around 1000 when we finaly hiked back to the buggies and were released from the fire. we got back to our station around noon. 28 hours straight with hazard pay, not a bad way to spend a day!

island fire

Every year, we go through a review board where they test our line construction skills, and basic fire knowledge. in order for us to be able to leave for off forest ( go to another forest to fight fire) assignment. yesterday was our review. we got to the station in the morning, most of us showed up early so that we could make sure that all of our stuff was ready for our review. For some reason our review board was late arriving, which gave us time to go over some last minute training. when our review board showed up, they took us up into the forest to give them a line cutting demonstration. In order for them to get an acurate idea of our capabilities, they give us a paper (fake fire scenario) fire, which we treat like a real fire, and act accordingly. we started cutting (real) line on the paper fire through heavy brush that was approx 12-18 ft tall. after about an hour, we were almost tied in (connect our line to some one elses line, or back into our own line to fully contain the fire) when they threw a spot fire into the drill, several of us reversed back down the line to search out the spot fire and put line around it. once that was done, we noticed that one of our crew members was missing, so we backed out of our line and into our safety zone ( a place were you can safely watch the fire go by in the event of an emergency, without having to deploy your fire shelter) and set up a search and rescue plan. after we had located our missing crew member, they ended the drill and had us return down the mountain and back to the station. we got back to the station at around 1400, which is well after lunch. while we were grabbing a quick bite to eat, they set up several gps courses for us to test our gps and navigational skills. this turned into several hours of racing through the hills behind the station in full gear in 100+ degree heat. as soon as we finished the exercise, we heard the 3 tones come over the radio which signals that we have been dispatched to a fire. we load up into the buggies and off we go! the fire was located in the I five corridor (known for intense fire behavior every year) when we arrived at the fire it was around 1730, there were several engines, water tenders , a bulldozer and a few inmate crews already there along with several helicopters and air tankers to help with the air support. we jumped out of our crew buggies, and began hiking up above the inmates and engines guys. we then began cutting line along the black ( already burned) in an attempt to flank it and then cut ut off. during this process, several spot fires broke out across the line in the thick brush, and had to be chased after and put out. once we had line around the spot fires, we went back to putting in line around the fire. this took many hours, and much eye rubbing ( the sweat runs off your head and into your eyes, and the salt from the sweat makes your eyes sting and you cant see till you rub them clean) it was around 0100 when they pulled us off the hill. it is always quite the sight to see everyone coming down the mountain in the dark when all you can see is 20 headlamps bobbing up and down. once we were off the hill and loaded into the buggies, they took us over to the oak flat station were we slept the next 4 hours on the lawn. we then got up at five thirty had a quick bite and then returned to the fire line to finish mopping up ( make sure all the hot spots and smokes are out) the fire. we spent the day griding the fire and putting out all smokes that we found. they released us from the fire at 1800, so we piled back into the buggies and went back to the station. was a fun evening of line construction!