The beginning of the end
Our helibase fox, scampering across the pad
Today brings about my second day off of the month of August, and a certain amount of sadness as well. On Thursday we lost our severity funding, which meant returning to a normal 8-hour workday rather than the 12-hour days we had been working. This was due to the strong cold front that moved through western Montana on Wednesday and Thursday, leaving in its wake roughly an inch of rain, snow on the mountaintops, and a few days of much cooler than normal temps. This pretty much signaled the end of the main fire season for me. Do be sure, there will be more fires this year, but I’d wager that few of them will “go big” and create any control problems.
87Mike and 94Mike beating a storm to the airport
Another look at the stormy exit
The few days at the beginning of the week were pretty exciting. I went to Helena with the crew and 87Mike as the manager on Monday for a fire near Townsend, MT. We ended up staying for two days, and I was pretty much in charge of the 3-person crew and the helicopter and pilot for those two days. At the end of the second day (Tuesday) we flew back to Missoula, and spotted a several acre fire burning on the DNRC’s Garrison Unit protection, and ended up flying a few buckets up to it with 94Mike and 87Mike before getting chased out by hail and thunderstorms from the encroaching cold front.
Missoula engine crewmember Lindsey on 87Mike
The next day (Wednesday) we flew out to check out the Coppper Cliffs area of the Missoula Unit en route to the Goose Gulch fire we’d spotted the previous day. A DNRC engine crew had been looking for a fire in that area for several hours, and had asked us to come in and see if we could find it. It was pretty cloudy, with lots of water dogs and misty strips climbing up the draws, but after a few minutes of searching near the coordinates given to us, we got lucky and spotted the small fire. It was only 1/10th of an acre, but I decided to kick out Steve and Junior, and let them work the fire while we flew in the engine crew. They had the fire under control after we flew in a few blivets, and the helitack crew flew out at about 3pm, and the engine crew had a truck come and pick them up a few hours later. The fire was in a heavily roaded area, but due to the difficulty of finding a way in quickly enough to put out the fire and the poor road condition, we just flew the crew in rather than guiding their engine in. An engine wouldn’t have made it up the old logging roads, but a pickup did just fine.
So, with school starting back up on Monday I’m getting ready, mentally and physically, for my entrance into grad school. I’m not too worried about it, although I am feeling some doubts about what exactly I will be doing for my degree. I’m tempted to switch from the option I’m enrolled in (Cartography & GIS) to the general Geography MA, with no option. I’d take many of the same classes to get the GIS and mapping skills I want, but I’d also take some other courses in planning, and maybe even take a few writing classes to help me along the way to my developing dream of being a writer
August 24th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Just testing the new version WordPress.