chasingfire.com - A Blog…

Not a whole lot going on this week. Monday got it started right with a small IA near Florence, MT, and Friday closed it off with another IA just outside of Missoula, burning off of Highway 93 near Blue Mountain. Both fires were easily contained by the ground crews working with the water drops from 87Mike. The Lolo Scales fire (today’s) was pretty cool for me, as it was the first active fire that I worked as a helicopter manager. Basically, being a manager is all about operating radios, watching for things the pilot doesn’t see, and helping size up the fire, spot any landing areas (helispots), and give the crew directions. On this crew, there’s usually another manager-qualified person on board, and some very experienced helitack folks, so my job is pretty much reduced to running the radios and watching for any hazards.

Overall, it’s been a good week, and fire season is really not happening yet here in Montana, so we’re all still waiting for it to get real busy sometime soon. The lower elevation (valley bottom) areas are pretty much primed and ready to go if we get any ignition sources. Right now there’s been very little for lightning, so the only fires we’ve responded to have been human-caused, or “stupid human tricks” as some would say.

Sometimes people just don’t understand that a burn pile isn’t a good idea when it’s hot, dry, and windy, or that flipping a cigarette butt out a window could start a fire. And then there are always the accidental arsonists, like the kids playing with a lighter who started the Mount Sentinel fire a few weeks ago.

So I made it back to Missoula today after 16 days in Quincy, CA. The Canyon Complex was the fire I was assigned to. Initially, I was without a helicopter at the helibase, as there were 2 exclusive-use crews and about 10 other HECM’s and managers to manage 2 exclusive-use helicopters. There were way more people than were needed for the number of aircraft we had.

The Wenatchee Valley Rappellers were at the helibase with their type II helicopter, which I had worked with back in 2005. There were also 4 folks from the Frazier rappel crew, making for a total of about 20 rappellers at the helibase. Add in the mix the Black Hills Helitack crew of about 10, plus the random other folks, and you have a lot of people.

Fortunately, we eventually got more helicopters to work with. We ended up getting a CWN Bell 206L3 that sucked up about 5 folks, and a CWN Bell UH-1H with a belly tank that I got to work with as a helicopter manager trainee.

It was a long and overall pretty boring assignment, but I did get to work about half of the assignment as a manager trainee, and got some good overtime out of the deal. I also got to see California for the first time, and Quincy was a great place to be for two weeks.

Quincy itself was not really like I expected it to be. The town itself has around 5500 people living in it, and is pretty well stocked for hippie/natural/eco-conscious amenities. There are several really good coffee shops, a health food store, and even a bike shop. The whole town is pretty well laid out for bikers and walkers, with everything you need being within a short distance from everything else.

Anyway, time for bed. More to follow tomorrow.

I’m back safely from California. More posts to follow…