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Minnesota Bound!

Headed to a large fire in the boundary waters. We fly out of mesa gateway in the morning on a charter jet. Looking forward to this last roll as it should be one hell of a fire.

Northward bound

We are headed to Douglas, Wyoming for pre positioning which is good since it has been pretty slow lately. Since the las conchas fire in NM we had a grass fire by Roswell, NM and a fire on the south west rim of the grand canyon by the sky bridge. We also had a small fire 2 days ago by sunset point that was hotter than hell.

Hello all,

We just demobed from the Las Conchas fire near Santa Fe. Sorry that I haven't been able to update the blog lately since I have been out of cell service for the past 2 weeks. I will do my best to do a few posts on what we did on the fire as well as get some pics uploaded.

Here I am holding up the july 16th article of the Albuquerque Journal that has a segment about the burnout we did the night before. We had no idea we made a smoke column so large.

After spending 3 glorious days off hanging out with friends and family we came back to work on Saturday. We spent the day getting ready to roll out again, and late in the day we got an order to the Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos, NM. Since it was so late when the order came se were able to spend another night at home and we left early this morning. We just made it to fire camp, and I still don't know what we will be doing on this fire but I will try to keep everyone updated.

The last 3 shifts we pulled on the Wallow fire turned out to be hotter than hell. The hike in each day was pretty grueling as well. With temperatures exceeding 100 degrees and very steep terrain around 7 people off of the various crews working that line had to be flown out due to heat illness or leg injuries. Our crew and 6 or so others worked to tie in the last uncontrolled part of the Wallow fire. The line ran from the 91 road down to the Blue River.

Stick a fork in the Monument Fire because it is done. My last 3 shifts there we just monitored the fire (fire lingo for kick back, relax, sleep maybe, and just watch the fire to make certain it doesn't escape the containment lines) though one if the nights did involve a hell of a hike, and about 5 cups of coffee too many. 4 crews were sent way up into the mountains a few days ago to go direct and it worked. We were able to burnout the north side of the fire at night while those crews went direct during the day.

As for now we have been reassigned to the Wallow fire again so we are enroute to Reserve New Mexico right now. None if us are sure how many days we are working this roll as there have been talks of extending to 21 days. We all would like to be home for the 4th though.

The pic above is all of the thank you cards kids drew all of us working the Monument Fire. One greeted the reader as "dear fighter fighters" and another said "thank you for stopping the fire because my grandma almost had to move." Well thank you to all of the kids who took the time to make the cards. Alot of people really enjoyed reading them.

#Monument fire #Arizona #wildfire #fire season #2011 #Wallow fire

It was pretty much a repeat of last night. We burned another block surrounded by dozer lines. So now there are only a few more blocks to complete before the North West side of the Monument fire is buttoned up. It is a big deal to get the Northwest side sealed up since the winds are out of the Southwest and have been pushing the fire towards the Northwest into town.

Also just like last night we had a few hours to kill before we were released from night shift. We spend alot of time just talking to kill the time. We play games like bang, kill, marry, green glass doors, a trip around the world, and we have riddles for each other. We also just get to know each other quite well. That is the thing with this job, one shift can be the hardest you have ever worked in your life, while the next shift can be spent waiting around. We definitely work more shifts working our asses off then sitting around, but when we do get to sit around we cherish it.

I have been spending alot of time lately thinking about the future lately. For those of you that don’t know Amy and I are planning on moving out to San Diego this winter to go to go to grad school at SDSU. I get excited every time I think about our new beginning. Only have to get through 3 more months of fire season…

#Monument Fire #Sierra Vista #wildfire

We burned off a dozer line last night to try and button up the north east side of the fire. We wanted to burn around the structures in Ramsey Canyon last night though the day shift crews had not finished doing the little bit of prep left to do around a couple of structures. We thought for certain they were going to pull us off of the burn to finish the prep but thankfully we didn’t have to do that. Hopefully this day shift they will finish the prep so we can contain the north east side of the fire and then start sealing the fire on the west side.

The burn, even though it was only a short distance, produced alot of smoke for us to eat, so it was a welcome sight to see the smoke die down early this morning.

#2011 #Arizona #Fire Season #Monument Fire #Sierra Vista #Wildland #firefighting

I almost forgot! We saw this whip scorpion last night while prepping around a house up in Ramsey Canyon.

We spent all last night prepping around structures in Ramsey Canyon. We are hoping that the fire won't be as active today so we can burn off around the structures on our own terms tonight. They brought fire up into Kar Canyon (I may have misspelled that) which is the canyon just to the East of Ramsey Canyon last night as well.

As for the big picture we might be bringing fire eventually into Fort Huachuca, and then start to hook towards the south west to start to ring the mountain range.

We we are off to get some food and then bed down for a few hours.

We burned out around a camp/orchard deep in Miller Canyon last night. We had held the burn all night even through some pretty fierce winds so we were optimistic that it would hold today, though we got woken up early today at 4:30pm to some guy saying “it has crossed the 92, double lunches.” So we have woke to chaos pretty much. There are people running around everywhere. It is sad to see that we lost some more homes and businesses today.

That is the game we play though. Sometimes you are one step ahead of the fire and at other times you are a half mile behind. Some people had thought 2 days ago we had this fire beat since the smoke had really died down. Well the fire activity had died way down but when the winds pick up like they did last night and today, the fire can be off to the races again. We have seen this on every fire we have been to this year. The fire dies down, and then it rears back up again even bigger and badder than before. As Amy’s dad told me “You picked one hell of a year to get back into fire.”

Here is the hole one of the embers made from last night. It is right in the middle of my lower back.

Ring of Fire

Us and 2 other shot crews, Baker River and Payson Hotshots, burned about 3 miles last night and the line held today so we managed to save the subdivision. I didn't get any pics because I didn't bring my phone (I guess I am a little gun shy after losing my last one) but it was a hell of a show. We started burning around 2 am last night, and the winds were still a bit chaotic. We had a huge ember whorl light a wind row on fire and I was right in the middle of it with my piss pump trying to put it out until it just got too hot. The house next to the wind row started smoking a little and I thought for sure we had lost the house, but somehow the house made it. We managed to contain the spot fire by using one of the house's driveways and by putting a little check line around the rest. The winds fought us the entire time and we ate alot of smoke last night but it was worth it. My pack has 4 new burn holes and my nomex shirt has 1 burn hole on my back from that crazy ember whorl. The crazy thing is I walked away from that whole situation without a single burn, the people who saw it happen still don't believe it.

So far for tonight's shift we are just waiting to see what we have to do. Hopefully it will be slower tonight so we can relax a bit since the last 2 shifts have been doozies.

This is a pic i snapped this morning as the sun was rising above Sierra Vista. We worked from 7 pm last night to 9 am this morning cutting in a 60' saw line around some houses on the monument fire. We we don't know if it worked yet or what we are doing tonight, wish us luck!

An update, we are just getting into Sierra Vista as the Monument fire is by there and not Douglas. I also heard that around 60 homes have now been lost. It is hard to imagine losing all that you own. I wish the best for those families that have been affected by this fire season.

Monument Bound

We are headed to the Monument fire by Douglas, AZ. All I know is that around 600 homes have been evacuated and the fire is still going strong. If I have cell coverage I will try to get some pics uploaded.

Back in the game

So I lost my phone on the last shift of the last roll. Not my finest moment haha. To sum up what we did the last few days of the wallo fire: we spiked out south of the fire and cut line for most of the days. One of the days we went to cut some line down a ridge and we had to leave quickly since the fire really got some momentum and came up at us pretty quickly. We witnessed some intense fire behavior, which I did have pics of but since I lost my phone they are now gone, sorry I would have loved to share all of the pics and videos with you all.

We have been sitting at the station for the past few days since being back and we have been going a little stir crazy. Today we played some volleyball for pt which was loads of fun and it must have also been good luck because we just got ordered up to preposition and we are now enroute to Safford. I'll keep you updated when we get moved to a fire. I hope everyone has been well!

The Wallow Continues

We have been pulling night shifts after our 30 hour shift so our sleep schedules are all mixed up. I honestly don't even know what day it is.

Our first night shift we cut in handline around a few houses in south Alpine and then we prepped behind a dozer as he pushed in another mile of line or so. We saved those houses so that was a fullfilling shift.

Last night we burned off 2 miles of roads around a lookout tower. During that burn we ran into a chemical plant of somekind that no one knew about. It had huge fuels tanks, canisters of chlorine gas, and other not so healthy stuff to breathe in if it caught on fire. We ringed it and got out of there. We never heard a big boom so that was good. Also that same shift we were digging line around a big, dead aspen tree and the damn thing decided to fall over. It was a close call for myself and another guy but that was all it was, a close call. Mom and Amy, no need to worry I am fine, I swear.

The fire is still getting bigger and so far we have just been trying to save the structures in its path. Last I heard it was over 110000 acres.

We are heading to the south end of the fire and spiking out, so I probably won't have cell service. Update you all next when I can!

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