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!