Re: Lipp, are you fighting wild fires?
3 days in a row, got demobed last night and put on standby today, I have class tomorrow and back to work at the SO Sunday so this week I got Friday off and that's it!
I can still get activated at any time but they want our team to get some down time, class tomorrow is optional but its a pretty important upgrade from Firefighter II to Firefighter I so I am going provided we don't get activated tomorrow.
Tuesday when the Black Forest fire blew up we knew we were going to get activated, went to work as normal 1100 hrs, in briefing SORT was activated for an inmate cell extraction in my pod so we went into the jail with a very quick briefing and did the extraction, as the SORT team was escorting the inmate out I got the activation page(yeah we still use pagers LOL) we were dispatched to a small fire in our county rather then the Big fire but someone has to hit the small fires, anyway we killed that one by about 1800 and ran to another one that took us about 3 hours to find in the mountains but it was dark and it would take us a couple hours to hike in during daylight so we decided to wait until morning, I got home at midnight.
Day 2 Wednesday, we got activated at 0900 and went to the Black Forest fire, the northern flank was very active and running within a couple miles of our county line as well as our neighbors that we help out a lot so we "overlooked" the county line and went direct line attack, the smoke plume was moving over us and the winds kept the smoke low so we had no air support, we made several attempts to hold the fire but we lost it, and many homes, they had cut a two lane road into a 6 lane wide cut and the fire didn't even blink, it blew right over the break and we were right in the middle of it in our trucks, smoke was so thick we were tail lighting, you couldn't see the truck in front of you, so we pulled out and jumped on a spot fire back in our county, that fire never had a chance 6 brush trucks 2 engines and a helicopter, probably the most "Real" day I have ever been involved in, fire brands reigning down on us inside the trucks.
Day 3 Thursday Feds take complete control, we assembled our task force at a remote fire station near the county line, 50 man strong so much equipment I lost track, it was impressive, we went out to scout and talked to our neighboring counties strike force, they are not as set up as we are they fight fires using road graders and bull dozers which is old school but in all reality its like a worst case scenario and it does work pretty effectively, right now the fire is in the trees and that can be impossible to fight unless you are prepared to remove the trees, the grass will not carry the fire with much heat and there isn't much ladder fuels to speak of, this is forest area but those that live in this area do very well to keep ladder fuels to a minimum via livestock or other means but once the fire is in the trees its a crap shoot, plus as you move north towards our county the trees are more patchy and there are more meadows then trees and we can kill the fire in the meadows, so most of the day we waited for the fire but instead the fire ran south and west, which was right into the hands of the air attack, no smoke and winds in the right direction to make aerial attack work, again the amount of equipment was impressive, several C-130 MAFS a DC-10 Super Tanker and at last count 10 type 1 and 2 Helo's, only problem was that we were on the other side of the fire and couldn't watch the show.
Last night at 1900 we were demobed and today we are on standby in case the fire decides to run north and north west again, no telling what it will do were just waiting while the Feds decide which way to go, we were told to stay close though if the fire does make a run north or north west we will be activated and mobilized quickly, so today I am recovering and spending time with my wife, A/C is on full blast and I have taken three showers since I got home last night about 2000 hrs, its amazing how hard it is to get the smell off of you and the eye buggers suck.
Only thing I hate is this is the first time I have been involved in a direct attack in the urban interface and our failed efforts lost peoples homes, that freaking bites, I can't get it out of my head, its not overbearing, I know those homes were gone regardless of our efforts but I can't stop thinking about what we could have done to be more effective.
On the other side of the coin, I couldn't pay for anything this week in my Nomex, I went to get water, "take whatever you need, your money is no good here", went to get breakfast or dinner for my team "make a list of what you want, whatever you want, anytime you want it, and let us know where you want us to deliver it, and don't even try to pay for it" I heard it over and over again, People are amazing.
I'm done, Thanks for listening, wish I had more pics but I need more hands to carry a camera, I have been carrying a Rhino and a Pulasky the last couple days, and I don't think were even close to being done.
