Onto The Next Level..............

 25 May 2009 04:15:35 am

"Bemidji dispatch," "This is MCC"... "I have smoke.!.!.!"

Let's see there are 8 total words there. Eight wonderful, scary, and curious words. After I said these words today, I was left thinking, what happens now? What do I do next? For all of about the time it took these eight words to make it from my eyes....then to the brain....then to the microphone on our truck radio I was digesting the fact that it was go time.

During the moments after these eight words.....and I thank the Lord.... I reacted, and didn't think....I do so much better when I react, thinking just complicates things. Maybe it’s not reacting, maybe its quick thinking....see I am freaking over thinking this sentence, time to just type.

I want to tell the story of my day now; I may ham it up a little, but today was a very incredible experience. The best experience that I believe I have had since I set out on this journey. So, without further delay these are the events that unfolded on Sunday May 24th.

I believe that I have mentioned in a previous post that we have been staffing for wildfire over the weekend. Let me explain staffing a little bit better for you, to help you understand. When we are requested to staff it is by the local dnr forestry office. We drive to the forestry office and get our shift schedule, and our assignment for the day. There are different areas that we then dispatch to. This weekend we have been helping out down in Guthrie. This is a small town south of the midge. Bill is the name of the head forester there. He is a nice older gentleman who has been with the dnr for 30 some years. I had the pleasure of riding with him all day yesterday....He showed me some good fishing spots and gave me the lay of the land.

Bill usually has us patrol around the lake Plantagenet area. Which is what we were assigned to again today. Along with trucks on the ground in different areas around Bemidji we have an eye in the sky. A small Cessna with a pilot and spotter, call sign "Hawkeye." Hawkeye makes his rounds around the county and calls in when he reaches his check points. If he see's smoke rising from the ground he calls dispatch and dispatch sends someone to check it out. Since fire danger is so high right now, only small campfires that are used for warmth or cooking food are allowed. No other burning is permitted. If you burn your pile of sticks in the yard we will catch you and you will get a ticket, they start at $300 cash.

Today for example there was some smoke that Hawkeye spotted, and sure enough someone was lighting up a pile of yard debris, so an engine had to go out and "burry" the fire. The person that was responsible was issued a citation by a conservation officer.

Ok that is now explained....

We started our patrol around noon today Bill gave us some spots to check, where people sometimes light camp fires at night and don't extinguish them fully. We drove to these spots very early in our patrol, found nothing. These areas are very remote to say the least. There are so many places you could literally fall off the map in Minnesota. 1,000's of places where you are probably the only person for miles. So after our initial patrol we found a forest road to stage at for a while on the north end of Lake Plantagenet. So we sat there for an hour or so. My crew member Aaron was acting as my navigator today, so I told him to locate a spot on the south end of the lake that we could sit for the remainder of our shift. He found an area on the map, and we proceeded around the lake. We reached the south side of the lake and headed west, as we came around the corner at the bottom of the lake the trees ahead opened up to some rolling hills, in-between those hills I saw something...smoke. I said "Uh oh, and Aaron said what did I do?" "I said no, we've got smoke." So we tried to gage as best we could the area it was coming from and proceeded to radio it in. Bemidji dispatched a truck to our area, but they were a good twenty minutes north of where we were. There was another truck on patrol about 10 minutes away, south of the smoke.

So we proceed towards the smoke. Driving down the highway I remembered that I had taken off my nomex (fire proof shirt) earlier and not put it back on. So while driving at an unmentionable rate of speed I proceeded to dress myself. Are not so keen sense of direction led us to the same forest road with the old smoke tower that we were told to check out earlier. We made it about 400 yards into this rutted out poor excuse for a road before we realized that we needed to go farther south. So I did a sort of U turn with big trees on both sides of me, that is probably why are trucks have brush guards. We were starting to realize that we needed to get to this fire soon.

Hawkeye made a few comments on the radio like "it’s under a stand of pines," and "it hasn't candled up yet, but if you don't get there soon it will." I am thinking, oh God a crown fire? Which is not good, and I'm going to be the first one there....Crap.....Bring it on....but mostly CRAP!!!

So U turn, and back down the forest road to the main road at 55mph in a 1 ton truck with 200 gallons of water strapped to her back....Thank the Lord that it's a ford As we pull out onto the main road I notice flashing lights coming are way. Well I guess I'll pull over and let him go first. It was a conservation officer, follow me guys I can get you there, he said calmly over the radio... while doing I don't know, 100mph down the highway. So I gave the ol ford hell and thought sweeeeeeeeeeeet, I am speeding and it's legal 90mph on a curvy county road, hell yes! So we zagged were we should have zigged the first time, and got a little closer to the fire. We pulled off on a gravel road, and the conservation officer made an immediate right, and that was wrong....Hawkeye says, "NO NO turn around you were on the right road". So I thought screw this I want to get there first! So my U turn was quicker, and Hawkeye guided me up to a four-wheeler trail. That was sweet, an air plane telling you 300...200..100 yards....TURN LEFT. There was one more turn and some bumps down an even narrower trail and then we were there. Smoke was rolling out from the fire, thick smoke. At this point my adrenaline was red lined. HAHAHAHA I think I said something over the radio like MCC ON SCENE, I'M STARTING THE ENGINE!!!!!!!!! And I was out of the truck putting on my helmet, line gear, priming the pump, pulling hose in a matter of about I don't know 10 seconds. Once the pump was primed and started I grabbed the hose and ran into the smoke.....HAHAHAHAHA. I couldn't see Aaron; I think he was still getting his gear on... He had disappeared at this point. I wish I had a video. I opened the nozzle and just started shooting anything I saw that was on fire HAHAHAHA. I was crying and choking from the thick thick smoke, but I knew that I had to stay in it, to get it under control.

I should back up for a second, at the point where I first turned the nozzle on I realized that the wind was right in my face, which meant that I was taking this fire head on.... Not what you are supposed to do.... But what the hell, I did it.

Once I had my fill of shooting all the flames I could see through the smoke, I remembered my training...Find and anchor point, work a flank and pinch the fire off....So I did it, I picked a flank and worked it until I had the flank out, as I reached the end of my first flank I noticed that the second engine had arrived and was putting out the other side...The fire was under control.

I was the first one to see the smoke, I was the first one on the scene, and I was the first one to battle the blaze!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am shaking right now retelling this story.

After things had settled down, I asked a couple of the other engine bosses if I could have done anything better, or if I did anything wrong. I got two critiques, that's not bad in my eyes...I could give myself about one hundred after I look back on it.

My critiques were not to wear my hat under my helmet, and to pull through the smoke so the other engines could get to the fire easier...I think subconsciously I wanted to take on the fire by myself

Yup all and all a good day, huh a good day... So rest peacefully people of the north woods... your forests are safe

p.s. sorry if I sound like I’m bragging, this is something that I don't think I will ever forget, something that will probably not happen again, and it is exactly why I took this job!!!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy memorial day

Category : General | Posted By : paul | Comments [9] | Trackbacks [0]