Hours met through firefighting and welding, plus physical training.

Academic

0 hours, not met

Reading

2 hrs reading IRPG and training, not met.

DFS

Hanging out with crew, playing some cards. Hours met.

Reflection

Hours met.

What Happened

It’s been mostly a lot of hours, getting extended a lot lately for thunderstorms rolling through. A big bunch of fires rolled through and we spent a few solid days on them. It’s been a grind. One of those kind that just drags on and on.

We ended up getting an assignment finally, and it happened to be very close to where our station is. Disappointing, but we at least get to go home every night. It’s pretty much been covering for IA starts.

That’s been the tone of the week largely. Enough of that though, the week has been pretty much filled with fighting fire again, and another welding project.

Our initial dispatch happened a few days after the last update, we were sent to a fire along a highway threatening some homes. A Blackhawk and good amount of engines were fighting it. We moved the engine along the highway side of the fire, and mop-up operations took most of the day. Some aspens had caught fire and were holding a lot of heat.

The experience was crazy too when thunderstorm outflow winds came ripping through, and we started getting hailed on for a good 10 minutes.

That night driving back to base we popped a lightning fire, this time driving way out into the sticks to find it. Some local ranchers had already suppressed it, but we were responsible for the mop-up and calling it contained. Really rugged and beautiful country to be stationed in.

Arriving around midnight was going to make it a rough night so we just camped out and did a basic mop-up in the morning

I lost my radio at the last fire so me and another guy had to take our pickup and go find it. It was the classic leaving it on the bumper mistake.

Getting to where I lost it there was no sign.

We thought all was lost, but in a crazy twist of events a woman drove up to the driveway we were at and asked if someone had lost a radio. She took us over to her house and there it was. Totally a stupid mistake, but people can be very kind sometimes..

The others on the engine were busy on another side assignment so we went back to the station and staged. Grabbing some tacos on the way broke up the boredom some.

Another Fire

The other guy I was with in the pickup gunned it down the highway out of the station when we got the dispatch just after refurbishing the truck. Our engine had stumbled across another fire completely randomly and so we ended up heading over there.

It was near a road where a large subdivision was being built, and it was a weird experience trying to find where our engine was actually directing us to. Pulling up to a residence we talked to a couple of cops, and they pointed us in some vague directions of where the engine might be. We eventually spotted the engine trapped in a pretty hot section behind the flames. The guys spraying the nozzles had been hit by a pretty large blast of convective heat and smoke so it was impossible to suppress anything on the edge.

They hit us up over the radio and told us to watch their rear as lookouts while they hunkered down from the heat.

Small Medical

Later, they came out as more resources got on scene. One guy had gone down from light dehydration and exhaustion so I gave him some water and gatorade and he sat in the back of the truck, sort of an opportunity medie

Our captain had taken the Incident Commander position so I ended up driving him on the fire as operations continued. It was a pretty fascinating look into what managing a large fire looks like.

The fire itself just kept running and jumping holding roads, even worse there were no aircraft available so resources were stuck doing structure protection.

We also saw about 9 high-voltage powerlines burn, the H-shaped ones that look like this. It probably caused 1.5 million in infrastructure damage alone including labor and emergency equipment costs.

I also learned that power companies hire their own firefighters.

Several hours passed and we hit evening, a VLAT came in for a drop over a section of the fire and it looked pretty cool against the sunset.

Everyone went off the line for the night once the fire calmed down, and went to sleep.

Next Day

I helped with a mapping mission for the IC, driving around the dozer line on the edge of the fire. It was an interesting side mission, got to learn some stuff about how fires are mapped.

2 Days Later

After two more days of mopping up, we were finally released from the fire and then hit with the great news we had an assignment.

The assignment happened to be maybe half an hour down the road from our station, stuck on a local IA task force. We were all pretty pissed off. Even worse, this means you don’t get paid as much as a large fire.

It was literally the worst possible scenario for going out, especially on an engine which normally only goes out rarely.

One guy on the crew though maintained a positive attitude and said it wasn’t going to get any worse at least. His point helped a lot actually, in diffusing the anger I was feeling. Just a simple lesson that being positive helps.

Welding Job

It turns out being able to weld was one of the weirder twists in this season. I got the third welding task that’s happened so far, this time welding up a cracked rear bumper on a UTV. One of the fire investigators had acquired it from Arizona and it had apparently been pretty abused there.

Another guy and myself took turns because he was practicing some welding as well, and it’s good form to step back sometimes and let other people get some practice as well.

The guy running the shop there showed us how to use the welder and off we went. The welds were kind of hack jobs, but held together.

Surrendering control is necessary sometimes, especially when you are perceived as a leader. It’s part of your duty to help the people you lead in developing, and giving them opportunities.

2 More Fires Same Day

Our second day of assignment the small task force we were with was sent out to a guard station way east, and then we got a fire dispatch the end of the day, followed by another on our way back to the main station.

On the second fire we mobile attacked a section, then I was pulled back and got to do Incident Commander stuff. This included taking weather, providing a sizeup of the fire, and giving direction on how the fire mopup was to go. Nothing crazy, but it was a weird feeling being the guy people looked to for what to do.

Overall it went well, the sizeup was accurate and I just needed to have it sent to dispatch quicker the next time.

Effectively, I was an incident commander for a couple hours. Good experience.

Final

This has overall been a good week, the most important progress occurred with developing leadership skills in the field. Also, with some firefighting experience.

Please let me know if this could be improved, thanks.

I’ll warn you this will be very long, and if you want a short summary here it is. I’d also recommend reading this on the website, it’s mostly cut off in email clients.

In short, I fought 8 fires, made significant progress on welding, trained, jumped in the river a lot, went to a few concerts, and started working on making some kimchi in mason jars.

I didn’t make any progress on academics or reading. This is a bad habit of mine to just want to decompress after going on fires. The next 3 months I’ll be addressing this.

Anchor: Definitely met, lots of hours worked on fires, welding, and training.

Academics: 0 hours

Reading: 0 hours

DFS: Hours met through swimming, going out, and hanging out with some new friends I made.

Reflection: Mostly not met, getting back on track with updates.

Here’s the long version.

Not too long after the last update, I spent some time working on projects and going out, and we got another fire. It started as a dispatch quite far out to our east, with homes threatened. The fire specifically was started by equipment striking a rock near large power lines.

When we arrived on scene the fire was pushing heavily along the powerlines into a river canyon, towards homes where local volunteer firefighters were doing structure protection. The fire’s main head was pushing towards us and potentially could’ve made a break towards more structures.

We positioned the engine near the homes, received a briefing and moved towards a field near the head. It was safe due to having only stubble grass for hundreds of feet around us. Resources kept pouring in, both federal, municipal wildland engines, and the local Rangeland Fire Protection Association.

I saw probably 20-30 cattle running away from the fire across the canyon from us, sadly they were probably dead as we drove away.

The head was pushing aggressively, so we were held for a moment while dozers began pushing line along the fire. I thought we were going to be doing a burn operation, but the dozer operators clamped refused, saying they didn’t want more fire heading towards them.

About 10 minutes later the engine got pulled to start mobile attacking along the dozer line to begin suppressing it. 2 of our guys and another engine crew were pulled to work with a handcrew in cutting line in the river bottom and along it.

The whole time we had large air tankers roaring by, along with SEATS and were hammering the side of the fire.

A Blackhawk helicopter was assigned to the fire and dropping buckets along the power lines, and once the head was controlled they put a lot of water down and stopped the fire from jumping the canyon.

Interestingly, these helicopters aren’t specifically military Blackhawks, but a firefighting variant called the Firehawk. If you’re from Southern California you probably recognize them, but states like Idaho and Colorado are seeing them used too as fire loads grow.

Once forward progress was stopped we just kept mopping up along the edge going parallel with the power lines. There were also some horses just hanging out, which was funny.

The power lines were so powerful they actually starting lightly shocking one of us through the metal nozzle, so we just dipped and left quickly.

Once evening rolled around we moved the engine back into a field and camped with the rest of the resources. The amount of stars was a sight to see.

The next day we mopped up a lot, then hung out under a large cottonwood for the last few hours of the day. A baby bird fell down so he got a little hiding spot made and kept chirping at us for an hour. The cattle I saw running the day before also turned out to be fine and were hiding in the river bottom shade.

Once the fire was out we left and went back to the station.

The next few days were more projects and regular duty, and I spent some time with family. This included going to a good restaurant and walking along the river. The river looked nice so I decided to maximize the amount of times jumping in there this summer.

Nothing really happened until we got another fire dispatch about 15 minutes before getting off for the day. It was for a fire burning way out in Owyhee County.

If you’ve ever been there you know it’s extremely remote, full of ranches and BLM lands. It is very beautiful though. We took Hwy 51 for multiple hours just to get to the fire, which apprently was blowing up and giving the resources there a hard time.

It was bad enough that they emptied most federal, state engines and multiple crews around the area to send there. Cleared the barn out quite literally.

After hours of driving we finally reached the dirt road turnoff, and after following miles and miles of ranch and federal roads we passed a ranch house. About 30 minutes of slow driving later we hit the fire’s edge, and promptly hit a rock that bent our inner dual wheel so badly the tire simply couldn’t hold a seal for the air. The tire itself ironically was fine.

Great way to start an assignment…

After about an hour of screwing with it, we managed to get the spare on. On a heavy engine you have to winch the spare down out of it’s compartment. When it’s an inner dual tire that’s popped a sketchy bottle jack is the only thing holding the tens of thousands of pounds above you stable. The tires themselves are also very heavy and require a lot of torque to make sure the lug nuts stay on. Last year when a tire change happened the biggest dude on the crew was near puking when trying to torque it near the specs. This is with a massive torque wrench too.

Once we had the spare on we were able to move the engine again, but left it parked at the black edge because if there was an issue again we’d be screwed. I got some experience cloning radios, which is putting a new set of channels off of one radio onto the others so they all have the same channels.

I also was assigned to brief the crew up on comms, strategy, and fire behavior. Once that was done we started mopping up along our portion of the division which was pretty dead. The fire was a mess and had random patches all over, not a continuous edge which slows things down a lot. It had hit about 11:45 by this point and we were all pretty tired. After 20 minutes of slow, tired mopping up the next crew over calls us with a request for a couple of bladder bags.

It’s always something, and when bladder bags are called for it usually means you’re getting a long walk in. The bags themselves are also terrible and leak a lot.

I volunteered because it’s something I hate doing.

This surprisingly wasn’t too bad, the physical training with weight has helped me be able to hike with the bags and pack on. We hiked about a mile carrying them and made it over. The others on the crew stayed and mopped up.

We’d expected the other crew just wanted the bags delivered, then we would head back to mop our section. Their section was more active though and they roped us in to helping unilaterally. It was annoying at the time for sure.

At the end of the day it wasn’t that bad, but we were all tired and pissed off wanting to get back to our crew.

We’d also been extended to working until 2 am, which didn’t help because it was slow work and a long trudge back to the engine. Once 1:30 am came we hoofed it back over and pretty much fell asleep hard.

The second day was better, we got to leave the annoying section and work on our own near the head of the fire. This area was pretty dead, and mopping up was easy enough.

We took a pickup to get there, and one guy was left as a lookout and to take fire weather. Once we hit a certain point I swapped with him and took a couple of readings, while looking behind us to make sure fire didn’t cross the line.

Very far into the fire there were large pockets of brush burning, which turned into a massive dust tornado when a smaller dust devil spun through and literally stole the entire column. It was kind of surreal to watch it. Especially because the crews working the interior were at a loss of what to do.

I looked it up, and it turns out this is actually a rare meteorological event called an ash devil, that can happen near wildfires or volcanic eruptions.

Starting off this formed as a dust devil, which forms on a clear, sunny day with high ground temps creating hot air near the ground with relatively cooler air hundreds of feet higher. The hot air rises creating a violent thermal updraft into the atmosphere. This is more powerful due to the albedo effect, the black ash spread over miles absorbing massive amounts of heat.

Then horizontal wind shear of small, local opposing breezes begin to collide and spin. Vertical updrafts force the winds to continue spinning tighter and higher into the atmosphere, which is called the ice skater effect. Low pressure at the bottom sucks in replacement air which causes this forcing effect. I think the height ended up hitting in the middle to upper hundreds, maybe even higher.

Once it hit the smoke column it completely stole the entire thing and absorbed it, including the black carbon soot which gives it the deep black coloring.

The devil then turned into an ash devil, and continued to spin through acres and acres of burned material. The burn scar functioned as a massive thermal conveyor belt of superheated air feeding it from all sides, and the massive amount of light ash kept fueling it’s physical form. This led to the ash devil being hundreds of feet wide and very tall.

I found out it was basically approaching the intensity of a weak EF0 tornado. Meaning if it managed to reach structures it could potentially cause minor damage or more if larger. The difference though is it’s mechanisms are different from tornadoes. As soon as it left the burned area the conveyor belt of air and ash material feeding it would vanish, and it would crumble.

This one did crumble shortly before I had to address the flareup, I think it was due to winds picking up, and it probably cooled the ground with it’s shadow or hit a cooler patch of dirt. It lasted for 15-20 minutes which is very rare, only possible due to the thermal engine feeding it.

An interesting experience.

While working on weather someone called on the radio and said there was a smoke column behind us. I looked back and my stomach dropped seeing a large flare up right on the line.

Being the only guy there, that meant picking up a bladder bag and rushing up the hill to put it out. I rushed up the hill and put out as much as possible with the 5 gallons, and then had to start throwing dirt on burning sagebrush to stop it from spotting.

I successfully stopped it, and two guys from the crew came and helped contain it. Everyone else came once they’d completed their mop up and we made sure it was totally out.

After that fiasco we fell asleep in the sun for a couple of hours because there was nothing else to be done.

That night we got back to the camp and were informed there would be food coming, and got way too excited. Whenever you get too excited in fire something bad always happens, and the driver got lost and the food didn’t get there until after midnight. We also had to divide it for all the scattered resources on the fire which was an interesting process.

That night we slept decently, then once the morning rolled around started mopping another area. It was slow, and there was very little heat so we ended up posted up on a ridge acting as lookouts. This meant in reality relaxing under sagebrush trying to catch up on sleep. We had some interesting conversations, for some reason being on fires tends to bring it out.

The day dragged on until we hit 6 pm and left the fire, they gave us a head start because it would take us multiple hours to get back to the station.

We were tired, and even though it was a crappy fire I had a good feeling that we had contributed and survived it.

About a week passed after that fire, and we were in slow times leading up to the 4th of July. Normally for me the 4th is nothing crazy, just a time to see fireworks and get some small fireworks fires.

This one blew our socks off, fitting for the 250th.

The engine was assigned to patrol a different area than normal, and it all went to hell.

We first got a highway fire we happened to be less than a mile from and got on scene quickly. Rolling up to the fire there were a bunch of civilians suppressing it, who happened to have a water tank on a truck. It was chaotic as hell.

We rolled up and immediately I hit one flank with the nozzle, and other crew using hand tools and swatters to smother and dig line around the fire. Another section at the opposite end was getting into some heavy brush so the operator gunned it up the road with me hanging on for dear life running alongside carrying the reel.

We arrived there and quickly knocked down the remaining flames. Had to quickly send one crew guy up to the top to knock down the last burning patch.

Everyone there was surprised we showed up so quickly, which sometimes happens just by chance. It was a fun firefighting experience with the public. When people personally stop fires it can be anything from having full on equipment to slapping it with their shirts like some of the people there were.

Last year I came across a random arson fire being fought by a couple of drivers near a highway, and since I was still in my gear I stopped and we put it out by throwing dirt on it and using one of their extinguishers.

The sheriff who showed up to investigate was a little surprised to see a random dude in gear, it was pretty funny.

Mid-fighting this fire another one somehow started down the road from us. This one was much larger and making an uphill run.

We mopped up quickly while the other resources took off for that fire. Once done we headed towards it too. The scene was really chaotic, with federal and structure department engines and tenders all getting on scene.

The fire started from chains dragging, and hit the hillside nearly trapping a couple of hikers.

We got assigned to dig handline uphill after briefing, and managed to dig a good way up the mountain before the fire hit the line and we had to stop.

I’d hauled a drip torch up to the top of the hill so I followed my captain and started bringing fire down the hill. We hit the edge of the fire where it shifted to horizontal on the hill and kept going and burning. The flame lengths were pretty crazy and the fire was ripping uphill as we lit. I just kept following the first lighter, and eventually we stopped for a second while the flames went crazy.

It all went sideways when an MD-87 VLAT wasn’t told that we were burning, and the pilot thought the fire was going crazy and made a roaring drop pass.

The aircraft was screaming down the mountain right at us and all you could hear was the engines roaring as it flew right over us.

I and the rest of my crew happened to be right in the middle of the drop path so we all got blasted with retardant. It was on everything and basically stopped every flame we’d lit.

It was a little terrifying because retardant can crush cars if dropped close enough. I instinctively just assumed a crouching position to avoid being hurt.

Apparently the pilot dropped high enough that it was just a thick slurry raining down on us. I can’t even lie it was a dream-like feeling getting up and watching the red slurry rain down around me and feeling it on skin and gear.

We looked like a bunch of murder victims. Absolutely wild experience, the first time I’ve had retardant dropped on me. Much less in that circumstance.

You can sort of see the coating covering my pack.

Once that happened we just picked up the burn again, taking it down into a small drainage. We got to the highway about 30 minutes later. It was a crazy experience looking at all the regular people driving by while being covered in dirt and burning off the road as they looked on.

It was like a fishbowl feeling, especially when people were shouting thank you’s and honking as they drove by.

Once we finished the burn we stood on the side of the road and waited for it to burn down. The fire calmed down a lot and we ended up heading to the temporary night camp after this.

We had some dinner that night brought in by one of the agencies, with chicken and some other good food. Nothing tastes better than fire dinners.

After waking up in the morning we did some prep, ate breakfast, and headed back to the fire. Basically the entire day was mopping up, and making sure it was really secure because of the public eye on it.

It was funny to be sitting there on the 250th mopping up a fire, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The feeling was good doing something useful, and way better than a boring office job.

A contract crew was hiking the mountain mopping the edge, and was staged near us as well.

The engine moved and later in the day my group was staged near a campground just having conversations. We were all having an interesting conversation about serial killers. About an hour into this, we saw smoke in the distance. It became a scramble, and resources staged closer caught it first. Once we got on scene we helped them mop it up and returned to staging.

The fire investigator found a firework that started it.

The rest of the day we went back to staging and then back to sleep at the temporary camp.

The next day we just had a quick mop up check, and it was all fine.

We sat at the engine for a while and did a familiarization quiz. Just making sure we knew where everything was.

I spotted some smoke in the distance and when we got there it was a flareup along the highway potentially threatening containment.

Several of us went to traffic control, while me and another guy started suppressing it.

The fire was blocked by a fence, so he went around and I did a little bit of spraying to contain it while he crossed over. Once he got there I passed the nozzle through and he started working on putting it out.

Once he had it knocked down I went over as well and started using a hand tool to mop it up. It had started at the bottom of a drainage in an erosion barrier filled with hay probably still holding heat.

The smoke from it was really nasty, and we had to break apart the entire length of it to stop the fire.

We were both feeling sick, and he apparently found out later he had bronchitis. So it was overall a miserable experience despite not being difficult. The terrain was also difficult to walk in and just taking a step you’d slide a few feet down.

Once that cluster was finally out we returned to the engine, and not too long after left the fire, returned to base, and refurbished then left for the day.

I went swimming a lot in the river to decompress after that one. Mostly jumping off a river bridge, and did that several times before the 4th and after.

Once we got off the 4th I decided to say screw it and go to an alternative music event in town. It was a lot of fun and I got some good dances in, even though I’d never been to one.

That proved to be a really bad decision once I got back to the station, because not 15 minutes after getting inside I got a call from my captain that we had a fire. This was nearly 2 am and I was heavily regretting my actions.

I went to the engine and prepped it while the others on the crew showed up. A couple guys were smart and just didn’t answer the phone. Duty calls though and you aren’t really a firefighter if you refuse the call.

We drove out once we were ready, and heard news that the fire was pushing a lot of structures and going crazy despite it being incredibly late at night.

I looked out the window as we drove on the backroads, and it was highly visible even in the distance. Being the navigator I gave directions to the driver, and ran radio comms with the incident commander and dispatch.

Once on scene it was like something out of a feverish nightmare. There were tons of engines on scene doing structure protection, the head of the fire was rapidly pushing homes along an entire stretch of road. Probably dozens threatened. We were seeing people evacuating quickly in cars as fire pushed not 50 feet away.

A structure protection engine even left a property because it got too dangerous to be close.

The flames were near engulfing a house in hellish totality, you could barely see it through the smoke. Another surreal moment at 3 am dead tired.

We were expecting to protect structures, but ended up assigned to support a burnout operation along another road to stop the fire.

Our job was pretty much following the burner, and spraying out power poles and electrical boxes before they caught. At one point we gave him another drip torch because he ran out of fuel. The flames were super aggressive and fast-moving for so late at night. They moved so fast it almost had a liquid quality in the way they moved. Winds were high too which made it really eerie.

Getting out of the truck it was so hot we had to shield our faces with our arms while spraying. Even the paint on the outside was nearly too hot to touch just from a few minutes.

Eventually the burnout concluded, and we started patrolling an empty edge of the fire.

I was dead tired and we just stopped and mopped up occasional smokes.

That patrol continued until a spot near where a structure had been lost.

At this point things had really calmed down. So we positioned for a bit, then mopped one more time. A couple guys who hadn’t made it initially came out around 8:30 am in a pickup, and went over to help the farmers deal with the burned structure. Later we moved the engine over and began helping the farmers mop up the area. It was running all 3 nozzles on the engine as a backhoe would pick up loads, drop them, and we’d extinguish them.

It was about a half acre of deep manure and hay burning. The piles took equipment breaking them apart and several tanks of water to finally put out. Sometimes things like this seem pointless and stupid, but for people at their worst hour being willing to lend a hand shoulder-to-shoulder means a lot.

Being in the literal shit with them is I think a finer example of community service than most of the flashier things we do.

When we concluded that operation we smelled terrible, and the captain parked the engine, then we all crashed. I’d been up 24 hours straight at this point and went right to sleep. It almost felt like being drunk at that peak point of exhaustion.

Once we slept a couple of hours mop up continued, and the fire was out.

The next few days passed in a blur of project work, swimming after work, and making a couple of new friends at the river. I also started experimenting with making kimchi.

This is a simple 4 ingredient kimchi, only requiring gochugaru powder, a head of napa cabbage, a bundle of green onions, and some kosher salt. So far it’s developing well, the kimchi flavor is starting to appear.

The day after making the kimchi, we were called into the shop early to respond to a structure fire that spread to wildland. These kind of fires are always strange given they occur closer to people’s lives than we are used to.

A house had burned down and burned about half an acre of wildland behind. The local department was on scene, and the wildland fire resources were called in to help mop up while the structure firefighters sprayed the house out.

Mop-up took 2 hours, and some wildland guys even helped with mopping up the burning structure remnants.

Once done we returned to base and had a normal day of projects, nothing crazy.

Several days later, a fire popped off near a highway, we responded in the initial attack along with RFPA engines and another agency engine.

It was ripping hard so at first I was assigned to burnout, when a spot suddenly blew across the road. Burning in thick brush it needed to get knocked down, I pulled the side nozzle and began hitting the left flank, the other crew members put out a hoselay along the right side. It was hot and for a second we had some bad sage smoke hit, a helicopter then dropped and knocked the last bit out.

Air tankers were slamming drops on the edge the whole time, it was really cool to see as usual.

Once it was knocked down more mop up ensued, then we started walking interior to dig handline. A private dozer had lined the whole fire though so it was unnecessary. About that point another spot occurred and we had to run down.

The RFPA trucks caught it, but we were able to help a bit.

About an hour later a handcrew assigned needed water to mop up an aspen patch, so we laid out about 1,000 feet of hose to it and worked to the end of the day.

Spending the night on the fire was pleasant, except mosquitoes swarmed so badly we were covered in deet. A bunch of coyotes started yipping at us very late from probably 50 feet away. The stars were also brilliant and everywhere.

The next day we worked on the same aspen patch near the line, and extended the hoselay to another patch which was thoroughly mopped up. Eventually, we just sat down and relaxed after a while and rain started to pour down, so we left and stayed in the trucks.

We were released not long after, and picked up the hose from the spot and left for the station.

It has been a crazy few weeks, we are potentially going up for assignment soon so it may get even more interesting.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading.

Thinking on this cycle back in mid-April I decided that it would be too much of a hassle to run a different type of cycle like welder or fighter, while in the midst of a big fire year. Pursuing any kind of course becomes really difficult when you can be gone at any time on a fire, for potentially days or weeks.

So I will be taking the work cycle layout and applying it to the remainder of the wildland season, going from June 15th to November 15th when I’m laid off. 3 weeks have passed in it already and have been crazy with initial attacks so good progress being made.

The ultimate intent here is to make money, and practice what I’ve learned operationally.

That being said, let’s define this cycle.

Anchor

This will be pretty much the same as the Wildland Firefighter cycle, except more of a focus on fighting fire and readiness. The main side duty will be finishing the welding project.

Since it’s just a shifting of normal duties, I’ll be filling the slow time with being prepared and working on reading/courses.

160 hours at least, completed during workday/assignments.

Academics

The work cycle has a number of argumentation, writing, and financial courses listed as the core of the cycle. It is undeniably valuable, though I have decided to make a deeper journey into the subject matters I’ve been exploring.

This could be called sticking too long with the same set of subjects, but I have a unique opportunity to pursue it given the season’s going until November. The operational experience will be reinforcing what I learn in a way that’s hard to replicate. It’s also very useful for the season.

I’m going to turn the focus into weather, cooking, and further firefighting courses.

The mindset behind all of this is it should directly relate to the operational experience in some way. Wildland firefighting has a lot of side skills that make the profession more enjoyable, like cooking, understanding weather, plant and animal identification, knot tying, knowing some card games, some basic fermentation projects, and making decent coffee even.

If I can pursue these skills it deepens the connection to the profession and also puts a lot of work towards skills which come in handy during later cycles.

Courses

• Cooking Basics: What Everyone Should Know (Great Courses) 12-13

• The Everyday Gourmet: How to Master Outdoor Cooking (Great Courses) 6

• The Science of Extreme Weather (Great Courses) 12

• IS-230 Fundamentals of Emergency Management 3 hrs

• IS-235 Emergency Planning 3 hrs

• IS-240 Leadership and Influence 3hrs

• IS-241 Decision Making and Problem Solving 2hrs

• IS-242 Effective Communication 2 hrs

• IS-520 Introduction to Continuity of Operations Planning 2hrs

• Mechanical and Fire Fatality Study 20 hours

• Learning cooking in the kitchen and on the grill 35 hours

Since the cooking courses are interactive and have you making recipes, I’ll count those cooking hours as no different than an academic lab as an example.

This totals the required 100 hours. 6.25 hours a week.

Reading

I’m going to keep it simple and carry over the books I didn’t finish in the last cycle. It keeps with pursuing fire-related topics.

Books

• On the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It

  by Kyle Dickman 4 hrs

• Fireseason: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout

  by Philip Connors 4 hrs

• Fire on the Rim: A Firefighter’s Season at the Grand Canyon

  Book by Stephen J. Pyne 2 hr

• High-Mountain Two-manner: A Montana smokejumper recalls hitting the silk and the books in his college years

  By Frank Fowler 3 hrs

• River of Fire: The Rattlesnake Fire and the Mission Boys

  By John N. Maclean 3.5 hrs

• Deadfall: Generations of Logging in the Pacific Northwest

  By James Lemonds 2 hrs

• Man and Nature

  By George Perkins Marsh 3 hrs (Completed)

• The Mountains of California

  By John Muir 2 hrs

• Big Timber Big Men: A History of Loggers in a New Land

  1 hr

• American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation

  By John F. Reiger 3 hrs

• Lochsa Story: Land Ethics in the Bitterroot Mountains

  By Bud Moore 2.5 hrs

• The Cloudspotter’s Guide

  By Gavin Pretor-Pinney 1.5 hr

• NWCG Fire Weather Guide 1 hr

• Study of IRPG, NWCG operations manuals 25 hours.

I’m estimating the books will all take longer to read when doing it for comprehension around 50 hours, and the remaining time I’ll just fill with IRPG and operational manual study. It is similar to academics, but it’ll serve fine for this.

Total hours come up to 72-75. 4.5 hours a week

DFS

The DFS portion will be the same, just focusing on cooking, swimming, social stuff, going out to events, hiking, exploring new types of music, life documentation with photos and keeping a journal, and dancing.

Simple and easy. Stuff that’s enjoyable and good for decompression.

Only thing I change will be doing more of it more often.

For time on fires it will be stuff like photographing the assignment, cards, chess practice on phone, plant/animal identification and eating local edible stuff, journaling, knots, identifying celestial bodies, identifying clouds, eating together with crew, exploring local area if possible, etc. Big time focus on bonding with crew.

Total 80 hours. 5 hours a week.

Reflection

Reflection will be the same as before as well, I’ll release the update for the last 3 weeks soon. Then will go into a cycle of posting weekly, unless fires get in the way. In that case, some will be delayed.

Around 50 hours. 3 hrs a week.

End

Simple ideas for direct action.

The goal is to make money, deepen operational capability, and really expand on the enjoyable pursuits I’ve been working on.

Total costs will be about $100 for the 3 courses, and probably $100 for all of the reading material I will need. There will be a lot of books that can be checked out from the library or bought for cheap. Driving down cost is important to maximize the earning in the cycle. $200 dollars expected cost.

If anyone sees a typo or has an improvement idea please let me know. Thanks.

Looking back in review I’d say the cycle was pretty successful.

My accomplishments included completing 5 wildland classes, completing a week long burning assignment in Utah, felling with large hazard trees, taking on a welding project, 5 initial attack fires, reading 15 books, learning country swing dancing, and improving my understanding of medical first aid and weather.

Notable firsts were my first time controlled burning, first time seeing scoopers in action, getting to see fire whirls and 100 foot flames, first time doing any helicopter training, and my first time fighting a fire in Utah.

Even my cooking minorly advanced this cycle, through learning a basic chili recipe which allows you to make a week’s worth of portions in one pot.

Physical conditioning was also very important and it has improved greatly mostly through simple consistency.

For reading it covered firefighting, conservation, and western history. A good overall picture of much of what a wildland firefighter should understand.

Lessons

A lot of my time unfortunately was wasted by just being idle online, and not doing enough fun stuff and reading. I probably could’ve read another a few books pretty easily, and fit in some side stuff.

The second biggest lesson I learned was that simple consistency is what really matters. Things don’t need to be good, they need to get done.

Third, having some simple positivity and realizing you can’t completely stop negative behaviors instantly. Just cutting their number in half per day is a success over time.

The Spiritual Change

This cycle was both enjoyable and had me wondering if I was a retard at many points. It also hit something of that transcendental flow state you occasionally experience doing dangerous stuff. It’s different from regular flow state, I really can’t explain it, just that it has has something to do with how on the edge it puts you and the effects of adrenaline blasting your system.

I also became a lot closer to the base “soul” of what wildland fire and being a firefighter is. The fundamental drive to take action, and serve others instead of yourself. It’s uniquely spiritual in a way, but goes deeper.

Experiencing this I frankly think takes at least 3 seasons before it starts to become intuitive and natural. It’s as basic as feeling that natural pull to take action, and taking initiative on duties.

This is a bunch of half-formed jabberings at the moment, so I’ll leave it at that.

Where I Failed

This is broken down on the basis of Anchor hours, Academics, Reading, DFS, and Reflection.

Anchor

For anchor hours I more than met them through firefighting, training, learning, and generally just being a firefighter. I’ve been told things are doing good by multiple people I work with which is a good sign. This was the most successful part of the cycle by far, meeting the intent of being a good firefighter.

Academics

Academics was also pretty much a success. My failure points were not completing the last few hours of a mechanical course, not watching one of the movies listed, and having to rush a bit at the end in early June to finish. I completed pretty much every class, and solved a major issue of classes not being offered by replacing them with ones already scheduled by work and taking advantage of opportunities to do further training. Overall successful.

Reading

Reading was where I failed the worst. Only half the books read wasn’t good, but there was one big problem that didn’t help.

In looking I found many of the books weren’t available online or required you to order them through Amazon. The main method being used was just finding free pdf’s online of books, which worked well until I ran into a bunch that were impossible to find free.

In the future I’ll just buy the kindle versions or check them out from the library if I have to.

15 books read is still a good amount.

DFS

For this I’d say my only failure was not doing more of it. This part of the cycle was filled with a lot of dancing, swimming, exploring, hiking, learning cooking skills, and on the job fun.

Probably the highlight would be either the swimming or learning to cook a couple basic meals.

Reflection

I kept up posting consistently the entire cycle, so it went really well. No regrets here.

End

With that all out of the way, this was a really awesome cycle.

It’s a good thing I made the jump into it.

The update for the last 3 weeks will be out soon, here’s a sneak peek.

We had another training Monday. It started with preparing our engine for it.

Once that was finished we did a quick truck familiarization with a new guy who came off one of the other crews, and is filling in with us for the summer. He has a CDL which means we now have two drivers and it makes using the engine a lot easier.

Our first training scenario was a fire at the top of a nearby hill. It was hike-in only and we needed to hike a saw, fuel, and a 2.5 gallon water container. We positioned our engine at the base of a nearby hill, got out quickly and put our gear on, I picked up the water container.

We received a briefing from our captain and made our way up to the mountain in a crew line. It got steep very quickly, but surprisingly it felt pretty easy. We were hiking close to a fire pace. The regular physical training has been paying off.

When we reached the top, one of the fire leaders gave us a rapid scenario of a crew member having heart attack. One guy got the medical report out while another collected coordinates.

Further training was about what to carry on our person including incident paperwork, a lighter, and other gear.

We concluded the exercise by taking a crew picture.

Mobile attack exercises were next. After that we went and had lunch and a barbecue, cooked by a couple of crew members and everyone pitched in to buy the food. It’s a good feeling sitting talking fire stories and sharing food together. I got to sit in one of the fire helicopters too which was awesome.

The rest of the week was slow with project work, and some minor welding work.

Sunday rolled around and large fire dispatch hit right when I was in the middle of making a protein shake. Total adrenaline jump.

The fire was a pretty routine mop up, then it all went sideways.

A small flareup occurred and then right at the last moment when it was looking good, an engine decided to let some flames burn out a pocket of brush.

A dust devil blew right into the pocket a couple minutes later and sent fire over the dozer line.

That sucker started running fast and we had to quickly start mobile attacking it. Our driver bumped the engine ahead of the first engine and I was running front nozzle knocking flames down, we went probably a quarter mile and the fire just kept running like crazy.

The smoke kept getting blown into our faces for a long time, with large burning sections of sage.

The gusts were 25+ mph and even the dozer was having trouble keeping up with it. I found out later it took out over 500 acres in just the one spot.

Resources finally caught up to it when it hit a road, our engine had to hit mobile attack and had no water pressure for a second which was sketchy. I suppressed several large spots, then our operator did a burnout to clean up the fire edge which finally stopped the fire. This probably took 3 hours to fully catch.

We had local municipal, federal, military and state fire resources on it, and got to watch a lot of air drops from SEAT’s, large air tankers, and saw scoopers in action for the first time.

We stayed the night on the fireline, and it was super cool looking at the night sky. In true firefighter fashion I was called back to another fire an hour after getting off the next day, we got there late and mopped up the dead line with water.

Camping out again on this one was cool too.

We worked a few hours the next day mopping up, then went and got breakfast burritos.

With that the Wildland Firefighter Cycle is complete…

I think that overall it was a success, and my understanding of wildland firefighting improved greatly.

There will be a reflection writeup, and I’ll define the next cycle soon.

Anchor

Hours were met by fighting fires, training, working out, and routine duties.

Worked out 5/7 days this week.

Academics

30 min fatality fire study

1 hr radio and tactical training. Hours of fatality study met. Missed mechanical study by 3 hrs, I’ll be doing some over the course of the work cycle.

Reading

I did not read any more of the books. 15 books is a pretty good amount to cap off the cycle, definitely underestimated the time to read.

DFS/Electives

• Had barbecue with other crews after training.

• Got breakfast burritos with crew.

• Camped overnight on 2 fires and ate together with crew.

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

S-131 Firefighter Type 1 is an NWCG class for an FFT2 to work on becoming proficient in leading small squads.

You are responsible for making sure they make it off the line every day, supporting your engine captain, and maintaining morale. It requires stepping up and increasing your competence.

There is no begging off responsibility when you lead, a good leader is marked by putting his men first, looking out for them first and foremost. You don’t get leadership to just enjoy the privileges. It requires empathy to understand what your crews’ needs are beyond your own selfish thoughts.

That was the genesis. Also covered were tactics, fire weather, fatality fire leadership failures, and some discussions we worked through.

The real fun part this week was getting to work with a helicopter for real in A-219.

We went off station to attend the class so took a drive. The class was split into 4 groups after a quick review, then we practiced constructing and manifesting cargo loads.

The helicopter then came around and everyone got the chance to hook up a cargo load to the helicopter’s 100 foot long-line while a second person communicated with the pilot on radio.

I worked with one of the helitack people shadowing and completed the hitching safely, then switched and practiced comms with the pilots on approaching and making sure the pilot was aware of what the hitcher was doing. It also included communicating hazards to the pilot.

The leader for our group also had me work on manifesting the first load, which is taking weights, accounting for hazmat, understanding what the aircraft can lift, and making sure it’s all accurate then relaying to the radio person to let the pilot know.

External cargo ops was super cool to work with.

This week’s off days were slow and I only made tacos, completed a big hike and did minor studying.

Over Saturday there was a small highway fire started by bad brakes most, by the time we got there it was already out. Barely counts as a fire honestly. A lady did need help filling her tire with air, so we did at least one good deed.

Thursday was a slow day which consisted of a lot of welding. I’ve completed the top frame welding and am working on welding in new supports which the expanded metal will go on top of. I’ll attach the completed results next week.

Note: I made a mistake thinking this is the last week, the last will be ending June 15th.

Anchor

Hours were met by training, working out, doing things with crew, and welding.

Worked out 5/7 days this week.

Academics

• 8 hours S-131 class

• 4 hours training A-219 Helicopter Transport of External Loads, 30 min review of S-271 Helicopter Crewmember

• 2 hrs fatality fire study 1 hr left.

• 30 mins mechanical study.

Reading

Continued Reading Man and Nature by George P. Marsh

DFS/Electives

• I went golfing with the crew for someone’s birthday, it was really enjoyable just relaxing.

• Hiked about 4 miles on a large mountain.

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

Memorial Day was a great start to the week, with a crew bbq and a pretty relaxed day.

Our engine is finally back from the shop, so we trained in some drafting, and went and checked the old prescribed burn again before going and barbecueing later in the day.

I read a few more pages of Man and Nature, which is a massive book… It reminds me of reading War and Peace, so damn slow, not what you want when trying to finish a cycle. Also, we completed some hoselay training with our new guy.

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty slow as well, Tuesday I spent 3 hours working on refitting the engine. Pretty much going through each bin, figuring out where things are, making sure everything on the inventory list is present and resupplying it if not, focused especially on working through the hose hardware like reducers and nozzles making sure it was all there. The rest of Tuesday was medical incident practice.

Wednesday we had some heavy lightning roll through so we spent the day driving through the backcountry. It was stunningly beautiful and we didn’t locate any lightning.

The next day there was a big lightning-caused grass fire in BLM land and were called, it took us a while and we were stuck in rush hour traffic. We ended up running Code-3 and going past the traffic was a cool experience

Once we arrived we stopped the fire pushing some powerlines. BLM engines, structure brush engines, and the utilities were all on scene. After that we mopped up about a mile, broke apart burning brush piles, saved a frog from burning pile, saw a 2000 gallon blm engine called a Super Heavy blasting burning sections, and a firefighter doing recon with a dirt bike.

Overall an interesting fire, and I got to use a fire hydrant for the first time.

Friday was slow, the district leadership come through and talked to us about the intent going forward for the district and the outlook of the season. It’s a hell of a year to be working until November because it may be nuts… The rest of the day was prepping the engine and then playing ping-pong with the crew.

For Saturday it was another slow day, but I did cook a new meal. This chili was a test recipe I needed to try and it turned out well. It’s good for a whole week of portions.

Sunday was the first day of the new summer schedule.

For working out I did some running, and had chili for protein. Afterwards we did more welding on the hoserack until another last minute fire popped up. It was burning near a prison and in farmland. They think someone shooting started it.

Engines were on scene already and we just plugged in quickly. A lot of garbage and other nasty stuff was burning which was gross. Mostly we mopped up along the line, and then towards the end of the fire went and mopped up a large burning pile of hay and random garbage. The smoke from it was pretty nasty.

It was a weird fire, but good experience for sure. We also filled up off a hydrant a bunch of times which was good practice.

I’ve officially entered the last week of the cycle, and will be capping it off with a helicopter longline course later this week.

Anchor

The hours were met by suppressing wildfire, training, working out, and refitting the engine. At this point I’ve gone over the anchor course hours significantly, it’s lower priority now.

• Worked out 5/7 days this week.

Academics

I did a couple hours of fatality study and a little mechanical study this week, it’s coming close to ending. I’ll be taking S-131 Firefighter Type 1 for 8 hours which will about wrap it up.

Reading

Continued reading Man and Nature by George P. Marsh

Reading has honestly fallen by the way and this reading was too much for the time available. Really burned out on this now.

I’m using the remaining books as the reading for my work cycle. My goal is to finish Man and Nature and one more book then call it good.

DFS/Electives

• Cooked chili meal for first time, tasted great 1.5 hrs

• Barbecued with crew for memorial day 1 hr

• Played ping pong with crew 2 hrs

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

This week started off

Another crazy week this time, tons of academics progress in a swift amount of time.

The first class I completed was S-270 Basic Air Ops

This class covered aviation, especially fixed wing, communicating with helicopters, mechanical aspects of helicopters and fixed wing. We also did some great scenarios of communicating with helicopters and directing bucket drops. A lot of the class was similar to the helicopter crew member course, but the learning about fixed wings was cool.

One of my classmates used to work in Alaska, on a national forest where they were often using floatplanes and helicopters to do work, including logging. The K-Max heavy lift helicopter they were using for helicopter logging one day had spruce blades like all of them, and the spruce for the blades had been taken from the island they were logging on. the k max is extremely unique because it has no tail rotor and instead has two intermeshing blades. This allows it to have the max heavy lift capacity because it can put all power into lifting.

The class was also taught by a couple of smokejumpers which made for some interesting stories and talking about crazy shit like jumping in Alaska and the random side tasks they do besides just jumping fires. they’ll have all sorts of qualifications including up to division level.

S-211 was a great class and a lot of fun, taught by very skilled engine people, included calculations of hydraulic pressures, how to set up hoselay systems and the math behind it, practice with setting up different kinds of hoselays and pumps, understanding pressures, volume, and mechanical and physics forces.

I worked with several people from my module, we had the first day pretty much just class, but we also practiced working on different types of hoselays. The second day we covered a shit ton of hydraulics and math required to calculate hoselays, and the third day we took the final test and then did a race challenge setting up a hoselay.

It started off with us doing a hoselay between two pumps, then directly sending another stretch of hose to a water tank where we used a third pump to “attack” a fake fire. The other team won unfortunately and we had some crazy mishaps.

When we were filling the tank on guy on our team tried to clamp the hose, then was told not to and when he released it the pressure released all of a sudden and the thing shot back probably 15 feet like a rocket. We also had hoses explode on us.

Lots of fun.

Anchor

Hours were met by working out, training classes, and some basic driving time in the pickup.

Worked out 4/7 days this week.

Academics

Finished S-270 Basic Air Ops 16 hours

Finished S-211 Wildland Fire Pumps Did 16 hrs

Also about 10 hours of mechanical learning completed this week, leaving around 9 hours left of that and around 5 hours of reading fatality reports for the rest of the cycle.

4 hrs studying fatality fires and death reports

Reading

Finished My Adventures With Your Money By George Graham Rice

This was a kind of wild book, I started off thinking it was just about financial fraud. However, it turned out to be a gigantic reframe of the author’s high-level scamming and lying and reframing it all to make him look like the good guy. Coming from a guy creating entire scam mines and mining stocks. Very interesting though, might have been a better book for the Investor cycle or something.

He took advantage of numerous mining boomtowns such as Rhyolite, Goldfield, and Bullfrog, all in Nevada. He used them to pimp his penny mining stocks that Eastern markets were hungry for and ruined tens of thousands. He also scammed notable Eastern wealth such as the Guggenheims and Charles Schwab who was known for the Bethlehem steel empire.

His crowning achievement was the Idaho Copper Corporation, where he purchased a defunct mine in Idaho and put together a mining newspaper that relentlessly pushed fake maps, assays, and convinced the public it was a legitimate boom. There was nothing there and he eventually scammed the public for 150 million in today’s money. There was a great degree of false claims and wash trading he engaged in, which was shuffling his own money between accounts and purchasing shares to bait the public into buying. It succeeded in pushing the stock price 15 times higher, then eventually crashed.

Rice was one of the most prolific and well-known early con-men, and was the reason the SEC was created. He was directly cited when the SEC was created as one of the major examples they wanted to crack down on.

Crazy.

Didn’t have much time to read this week so only one book.

Started reading Man and Nature By George Perkins Marsh

DFS/Electives

Went out to get birria tacos with the crew 30 min

Took a super long hike from the station and explored surrounding areas 2.5 hours

Grabbed taco bell with the crew for 30 min, also fun.

Went out Saturday and danced.

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

This was an insane week, very packed with academics especially.

Monday through Wednesday I was taking the course S-271 Helicopter Crew Member which is the basic course needed to begin working around wildland helicopter operations.

The first two days covered helicopter mechanical systems, safety, load capacity, constructing loads, procedures in the helicopter, and how helicopters are used in wildland fire suppression.

It was awesome getting to take the class alongside helicopter crew, and getting taught by very experienced people. You could spend hours listening to the stories they would sometimes slip in.

Wednesday we focused heavily on the practical side, including radio comms from the ground, constructing loads and calculating against helicopter capacity, and filling out manifests and other papers necessary for accident prevention.

We’ll be working with an actual helicopter in early June if it works out.

There was discussion of tragedy aviation accidents as well, including the worst wildland aviation accident in history. The Iron 44 helicopter crash killed 9 people on a fire in northern California in 2008, while hauling a handcrew.

What happened was the contracting company had lied about the load capacity, which is absolutely important to prevent a crash. Overloaded helicopters lose lift capacity, handling, power, etc. In this case they lied to get the Forest Service aviation contract, and it was a horrific result.

The helicopter was lifting off, and going into what is called translational lift, where it is lifting into forward flight with clean air for the blades to bite onto. Overloading the helicopter caused the aircraft to sink instead of lifting, and it impacted multiple trees and went down in a ball of flames.

The two helicopter crew members running the dipsite had to rush down with extniguishers as the Jet-A fuel in the crash ignited. In aviation accidents the extinguishers are only good for extinguishing survivors, they say just let the aircraft burn.

The two crew members only could save 4 of the 13 aboard. The rest were stuck inside and the rescuers could only listen to them burn alive….

It killed 8 firefighters and one of the company pilots.

Carson Helicopters was forbidden from ever flying wildland again, and multiple people went to prison for it. It’s goddamn sad…

Later this week Thursday we went and felled trees again, I dropped 3 around 50-55 feet tall ones. It was extremely frustrating because I had to cut with my left hand due to the slope. Not something fun at all, but it’s good practice.

Additionally, I’ve been trying to get the hose rack project welded by the end of the cycle. Also repaired a crack in a handtool using the welder. Who knows when this hose rack will be done.

There was also some patrolling of the prescribed fire on Friday, and we did a practice handline dig to pass the time.

Next week will be our training week, with a crap ton of academics. It’ll be a lot of fun.

Anchor

Hours were met by felling trees, doing a ton of training, working out, and maintenance duties.

Worked out 5/7 days this week.

Academics

Finished the meteorology course, it was really good at explaining things in a way a non-meteorologist can understand, and increased my weather understanding a lot.

I learned a lot about the trade winds, westerlies, and easterlies. It was fascinating that the trade winds pretty much create the Amazon by carrying moisture which is trapped by the Andes and forms the headwaters of the Amazon river.

Courses Completed

• S-271 14 hrs

• Meteorology Course by the Great Courses 7.25 hrs

• ICS-200 Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response 1.25 hrs

• IS-800 National Response Framework, An Introduction 1 hr

• Gov. Risk Management .25 hrs

• FI-210 Fire Investigation 2.5 hrs

• Introduction to Wildland Fuels 1.5 hrs.

• Smoke Management and Air Quality for Land Managers 30 min

• Understanding Fuel Moisture .75 hrs

Watched the first two videos in the diesel mechanic youtube course, with it going into the basic logic of a diesel engine, and things like the 4 stroke cycle. 1 hr study. Also a few hours of random fire study.

30 hrs of academic study total.

Reading

Finished A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean

Started Reading My Adventures With Your Money By George Graham Rice

DFS/Electives

Made steak tacos 1 hr.

Went to a swing dance group bonfire for 2.5 hours

Also went downtown and went to a night market for 30 min, tried out some hot dogs which were good.

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

Later this week mostly was working on completing aviation training for my S-271 Helicopter Crew Member class. S-271 will allow me to begin working towards becoming a qualified helicopter crew member so it’s going to be an intense week.

Also trained on another patrol day in Firefighter 1 qualification. This consisted of leading the engine crew around the burn, checking for spots, and practicing keeping control and making sure the group stuck together.

The valuable lesson was when in command you should be decisive, establish control, and issue clear instructions, while looking out for your subordinates.

On Friday, I practiced felling trees again, and felled a 50 foot high hazard tree, which is the highest one yet. The cutting has been getting smoother and making more sense.

We’ve been continuing this cutting to clear out hazard trees in a burned area from a fire in 2024.

The rest of the week was completing online training for S-271 which was 5 hours, and going out with the crew and enjoying the beginning of summer. My dancing skills have been improving from repeated forced improvising and practice. It helps a lot with social confidence.

S-271 will be 3 days, including a field day working with a helicopter.

Since it’s the 8 week mark officially, I’ve only got 4 weeks left of the cycle. Really crazy…

That being said, the next cycle will be a work cycle, possibly stretching until October. It sounds like longer than it should be, but there will be a heavy reading list and some additional weather and mechanical academics, since working will take up so much time.

The best part will be getting to do some real firefighting again, and going on assignments, especially out of state.

Coming up at the end of that work cycle, it’ll either be taking advantage of the off season to do a cycle requiring travel, or going for the EMT qualification.

We’ll see in a few weeks.

Anchor

Hours were met by patrolling burn, training for Firefighter 1 qualification in leading small groups, felling trees, doing saw maintenance, completing aviation training, and doing workouts.

Worked out 6/7 days this week.

Academics

Worked 5 hours on aviation class work for S-271 Helicopter Crew Member

Completed A-100 Basic Aviation Safety, A-110 Aviation Transportation of Hazardous Materials, and A-200 Aviation Mishap Review in 6 hrs

Watched 30 min of the Meteorology Course by the Great Courses

Reading

Finished Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917 by Michael Punke

Finished Smokejumper: A Memoir by One of America’s Most Select Airborne Firefighters by Jason A. Ramos

Started Reading A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean

DFS/Electives

Went to youth group movie night and worship meeting for 4 hours, made a couple friends

Went out dancing with the fire crew 2 hours

Went out on a date for 1 hour

Went to concert Sunday for 1 hr

Writing

Gunner

Week 7, Unexpected Opportunities Again... And Another Successful Burn Operation

Sunday 5/3/2026…

Read more

4 months ago · 5 likes · Gunner's Preparation

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

This was a long week, I learned a lot and worked a ton of overtime.

The main focus of the week was a controlled burn of 100+ acres near a local subdivision, for WUI fuels mitigation.

WUI stands for wildland-urban interface, anywhere that has wildland and structures/infrastructure meeting. Much of the United States falls under this category and most homes destroyed by wildfire and lives lost are in these kind of areas.

It was very important that this burn project was done, and it was assisted by the local volunteer department which was good to see. "

We first prepped the line by clearing fuels that had fallen in like pinecones, then strung out a couple thousand feet of hose and attack lines for important areas that would be hard to hold.

Later in the week Friday was when firing began and the unit was burned.

My engine worked on the holding unit, who are responsible for catching spot fires produced by the burn, keeping it within the containment lines.

The fire had one spot that crossed right as there was a large wind surge uphill, which left everyone coughing like hell and keeled over. I ran down from my position to help suppress, managed to dig some line and took a big breath just as the smoke surged uphill fast again. Probably coughed for 30 seconds after that and could hardly breath.

Not fun…

We managed to line it, but it was a hell of an adrenaline rush!

The smoke kept pushing uphill for much of the day which made us have to hunker down on the other side of the ridgetop to get out of it.

I was able to use a new firing device, which launches what look like ping-pong balls injected with antifreeze to cause a chemical reaction and start a fire. It looks a lot like a paintball gun. Ran a drip torch and flare pistol as well.

Saturday and Sunday were mopping up days, there was a lot of downtime so got some good reading done. The overhead ended up getting burgers for the crew for working overtime, they were really good.

It’s always one of the most enjoyable parts of the job eating with your crew, knowing you’ve done good work.

Side Projects

The hose rack finally has the top piece on and I’ve started welding it. It’ll probably take a while yet with as few chances we’re getting to work on it.

Our crew’s EMT also conducted some med bag familiarization while on one of our patrol days.

New Classes and Next Unexpected Opportunity

I ended up getting randomly enrolled in S-271 Helicopter Crewmember classes for a couple weeks from now, which will mean learning to work around wildland helicopters, and becoming a trainee crew member.

No idea what this entails yet, but the academic time will more than make up for missing this week’s study. It’s also a very valuable and useful skillset to have.

We will also be certifying in long line operations. Will definitely keep you updated.

Anchor

Hours were met by purchasing gear for welding and maintenance, physical training, burning, working on hose rack, and medical training.

Worked out 7/7 days this week.

Academics

Studied 1 hour of fire pumps, learned about common issues and their troubleshooting.

Studied fire science 1 hour.

Very low hours this week, just didn’t get it done.

The major classes for several days next week will more than cover it though.

Reading

Finished The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57

This one was brutal. 5 U.S. Forest Service firefighters were killed in Southern California when a drainage had a massive run of fire up it, the ensuing wave of heat and flame acted like a blowtorch or furnace blast compressing waves of heat and flame in the drainage walls.

The force was so powerful it moved over thirty miles per hour, and hit the firefighters, leaving 2 burned and 3 dead. They barely had time to react. The 2 burned later died in hospital.

The arsonist responsible was Raymond Lee Oyler, who was the first arsonist to face the death penalty for fatalities caused by a wildland arson fire.

It was difficult reading it, any death of a fellow firefighter or other responder hits hard even if you are removed from the circumstances by decades and different circumstance…

The closeness of the fire service means it hurts even if you never met them.

Honoring that is important. Fire is a small world too, if you didn’t know someone who died you likely know someone who did. One of the people on our district knew some of the people involved in the Esperanza fire from working nearby, and it only magnified the impression it made.

Knowing what fire conditions feel like from literal experience even slightly, also puts it into a unique almost spiritual connection felt from a deep point in the soul. Hence the greater metaphysical connection of the profession beyond just simple physical actions. It is almost like a higher power watches over it, or binds firemen together. Same with other dangerous professions…

It’s these hidden undercurrents of the profession that really start marking the point where you go beyond just being a participant to being a part of it permanently. It reflects in your habits, actions, what you see when you look at a hillside burning, the shared connection with people you’ve never met, yet can still feel deep pain when you study their deaths.

What is worse is that firefighters are often solid, good people you respect, and can respect for simply serving honorably even never meeting them.

Studying fatality fires is a massive part of wildland firefighting, because valuable lessons can be learned from the mistakes of others and save lives.

It’s not making it about yourself, it’s connecting with something deeper that can only be discovered through experience and time. With honest, committed effort over years and years. Frankly, much of it is subtle and unexplainable…

Maybe I can expand on this in another article…

Started Reading Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917

DFS/Electives

• Went to youth group Wednesday for 2.5 hours,

• Hung out with crew 3 hours.

• Went to dance event for 2 hours.

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

This was a training heavy week. Most of our time was spent working on RT-130 which is the required annual refresher training we take to recertify for firefighting.

I learn new things every year I do it and it’s pretty amazing how much you forget during an off season.

It’s a bit surreal that this is the halfway mark of the Wildland Firefighting cycle.

Continuing…

Around Monday we covered some random projects, which included refurbishing one of our trucks, cleaning chainsaws, and sharpening the tools inside.

Tuesday and Wednesday both consisted of RT-130 Presentations, covered everything needed to recertify.

Thursday we completed a driving course with pickups. Then after lunch we ran through hoselays, engine, and pump training until the end of the day.

Friday was driver training practicing backing pickups and parallel parking, doing cone course reversing, and driving a truck loaded with 150 gallons of water on a narrow road.

The highlight of the day was definitely getting to drive a Type 3 Engine. It was pretty basic, but we covered air brakes, driving technique, and a lot of the mechanical side relating to onboard pumps, water capacity, and how the systems differ from regular vehicles.

Type-3’s are the largest engines that can still be called wildland rigs, any larger and you are getting into the traditional red fire truck type for structural firefighting.

In the afternoon we went and did hoselay training using hosepacks. It was an uphill race where we raced another team to knock down cones representing flame. My team won and I knocked down the last cone.

It was wrong though because I ran with my hose pack not carrying an attack line, so it wasn’t the end of the world, but you always advance with water when doing hoselays because otherwise you can be burned over. It was unintentional, but another mistake that needs work.

This video is used in our basic training and shows the process of putting down a hoselay pretty well.

Anchor

Hours were met by completing training, working on maintenance of station, physical training, and becoming recertified.

A lot of heavy focus on doing pumps training, sand table scenarios, chainsaw maintenance in depth, and a medical scenario. We were placed in situation where the helitack crew was running saws along a trail and a tree strike had hit two cutters and a baby.

The group rushed in not paying attention to the hypothetical overhead hazards, which was a major failure on both my part and the groups because I was hit by a hypothetical tree branch and knocked unconscious, the group had to provide C-Spine stabilization and evacuate me first because one had a broken leg, and the other bleeding from the neck, which wasn’t as bad as a stepped out vertebrae and unconscious firefighter.

Once we were on the way they placed me in a litter and group carried. I had to fake throw up and then they replaced me with the adult cpr dummy and did training, during it I hopped in and practiced it myself. We also trained in how to give CPR to a baby and apply an AED to them.

The review afterwards was informative and definitely it looks like I may want to do the EMT course this winter to improve my medical abilities drastically.

I also earned my CPR certification which is minor, but good knowledge.

Worked out 5/7 days this week.

Hours met.

Academics

Completed 8 hrs of RT-130 and finished refresher training, now recertified for firefighting. Covered engines, driving, pumps, chainsaws, tactics, fatality fires, hearing protection, hazards, chemical response, responding to fires related to pipelines, solar fields, meth labs, etc, weird garbage fires, bloodborne pathogens. A number of other things as well.

Completed 3 hours of studying past district incidents, and hypothetical scenarios

Watched 30 min of Meteorology: An Introduction to the Wonders of the Weather by The Great Courses

Hours met.

Reading

• Finished reading The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal

The Thirtymile Fire was an extremely tragic one, 12 firefighters were entrapped in a firestorm which killed 4 of them and left the rest injured. The fire should’ve been easily surviveable in the rock scree where they deployed. However, it was impossible because of the factors involved.

Fire shelters can only survive radiant heat, and the firefighters were hit by a different kind called convective heat. Radiant is what you feel on your bare skin and can be blocked, but convective will merely flow through the air around blocking objects and can cause shelters to melt.

The heat around the fatality site reached upwards of 1200-1600 degrees, and was so hot the superheated gases ignited dead materials in the rocks and lit fires below the shelters.

500 degrees is the limit for a shelter, and the gases were so hot they instantly killed the firefighters through inhalation and burning their lungs and throats. The unusual nature makes sense once you realize that instead of going into the air vertical with the smoke plume, the narrow canyon trapped it and forced the rolling heat right along their deployment. For example, the firefighters on the road experienced drastically less heat.

Think of it like car exhaust, burning material produces gases that have to go somewhere. Normally it goes into the sky, in this case it took a fatal turn.

It’s sobering to read about. You may never have it happen in a career, but it could’ve been anyone and this makes it clear firefighting is serious business with deadly consequences for mistakes. 3 of the 4 were in their first season, all 3 in their late teens or early 20’s…

• Finished A Sand County Almanac

Aldo Leopold is one of the defining figures of the Forest Service and American conservation. He writes heavily advocating the preservation of natural landscapes, and goes in depth on the philosophical concepts behind maintaining and improving land. The book was written while improving a decrepit farm in Wisconsin, which eventually was restored very well by him.

It has lots of interesting stories about the early west, and experiences within the national forests and establishing the first American wilderness area. Leopold was a man of high moral conviction, and was a massive contributor to preserving the exceptional landscapes available to us in the United States.

• Started The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder, and the Agony of Engine 57

DFS/Electives

• Went swing dancing 2 hours, took a girl out.

• Watched the Minecraft movie with the crew for 2 hours.

• Went out with my family who visited this weekend, spent 6 hours checking out cool stuff and going to an arcade and a few concerts.

• Notably played a couple hours of a Japanese arcade drift game after the anime Initial-D. The anime is pretty famous among the car world and in Japan and a lot of car guys like it. I’ve only drifted once very badly and am not a car guy yet, but it would be really interesting to take a drifting course.

  

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

This week started off removing hose from the previous burn, it was tougher hiking up than removing. Good exercise and it was good practice for butterflying the hose and transporting it.

We did a little bit of exploring and found an old 1900’s drainage pipe along with some interesting beaver ponds.

In addition to that, on Friday we went and did further hazard tree cutting on the same fire scar mentioned in a prior week. The trees being felled were risks to a nearby forest road and needed to be dropped.

I dropped 6 hazard trees ranging in height from 10 feet to upwards of 50 feet, with a couple of those being fairly large in diameter. The process of dropping a fire-burned dead tree is a lot different than felling a live tree. It also is more dangerous often.

It’s not intuitive the first time you do it, but since the tree has been totally killed it has zero weight to leverage itself over once you make your cuts. This means you’ll need to make a much larger face cut, possibly up to half of the diameter of the tree.

Fire weakened trees also have damaged structural integrity in many cases and have parts like the tops that can break off fairly easily.

Some of the trees were impossible to take down with wedges or without. On several I had to remove holding wood with the saw and it finally would go.

These images below are a basic representation of what I mean.

You can see that the face cut which consists of the gunning cut and the sloping cut is about a third of the diameter. On a dead tree that goes up to about half. This cut acts as part of the leverage, while the backcut functions to release the tree up to the hinge wood, which directs where you want the tree to fall.

Felling and trees are dangerous, and both kill firefighters yearly. It is a hell of a lot of fun though. Excellent learning and my first time using a saw for real work.

In this image you can see a real example of the cutting. That distinct middle section is the hinge wood.

Anchor Course

Hours were met by felling trees, working out, training, cleaning up the burn area, and completing some important coursework.

I’ve officially registered for two new anchor course offerings in place of S-290, which I found out is not available online anymore. They account for 30 hours of coursework and will be taking place in mid-May during our district training week.

The two classes will be S-211 Wildland Fire Pumps relating to pressures, pump math, hoselays etc. Some good foundational understanding missed during my previous seasons.

The other will be S-270 Basic Air Operations. This class will have training on aircraft types, helicopter and fixed wing operations, and safety working around aircraft.

Worked out 6/7 days this week.

Academics

Studied Yarnell Hill Fire Entrapment Fatality Report 4 hrs

Studied Thirtymile Fire Burnover Report 2.5 hrs

Studied Tuolumne Fire Fatality Report 1.5 hrs

This fire fatality was an extremely sad one, the firefighter was hiking up a handline escape route with another firefighter on a 90% slope when she was overtaken by fire and killed. She’d made it within 5 feet of safety, before inhalation of lethal fire gases killed her.

At the time she was a state firefighter for the California Department of Forestry.

Watched 1.5 hrs of Meteorology: An Introduction to the Wonders of the Weather by The Great Courses

Read Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, PMS 494-2 30 min

Studied 1 hr saw training

Hours met

Reading

Continued reading The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal

Didn’t read enough this week, probably only a third of the necessary hours. Will need further work.

DFS/Electives

• Went swing dancing 1.5 hours Monday

• Went to music event, danced for an hour.

• Went to formal event for 2 hours and danced.

• Went out with fire crew for 4 hours.

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

It was about 2 hours of welding and placement, then we spent a couple hours the next day laying out some extra posts for reinforcement then cut and cemented them.

Technique has gotten significantly better for flux core, the only issues are getting under cut, and some unfortunate pinholes forming. Need to adjust some of the settings, perhaps going slower to properly fill the crater is the best option.

We now have all of the support posts welded into position and level for the most part. Next up will be working on the flat top piece of the rack, which will require some overhead welds…

Unfortunately, I found out the hard way about flash rust. It’s a quick onset rust which can start minutes or hours after welding is done. It’s not necessarily destroying the rack, but it looks bad.

We’ll have to remove it with a wire wheel, clean it with some acetone, and then spray it with some protective coatings so it doesn’t rust further.

This week had another burn, near a historic ranger station which was built back in the early 1900’s. Ranger districts interestingly used to be smaller due to horses being the only transportation. Eventually once automobiles were invented districts began to be consolidated, eventually turning into the larger ranger districts you see today.

We burned 66 total acres in some very steep ground. I worked on preparing this area a few weeks ago so it was satisfying to see it get burned.

Anchor

Hours met this week through prescribed burning, hose rack construction, learning a new engine type, working out, and completing a driver safety training course.

Worked out 6/7 days this week.

Academics

Watched 1 hour of the Meteorology Course by the Great Courses

Completed 3 NWCG Self-Paced Courses

• Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy

• FI-110 Wildland Fire Observations and Origin Scene Protection for First Responders

• PSM-008, Protecting Wildfire Personnel from Smoke

These were all quite interesting, and gave some valuable info on fire investigation, and larger wildfire policy and health concerns.

Studied driver’s training for operating large fire and government vehicles for 2 hours

I had an interesting discussion with a senior firefighter on the district for 2 hours, while checking the prescribed fire. He told us about how there’s a myth in wildland fire that postively charged lightning causes more wildfires because it is the more powerful kind, originating from the top of the thunderstorm and having both greater voltage and amperage, plus being able to strike up to 25 miles away.

Negatively charged lightning gives this impression because it originates from below the thunder cloud, and produces less intense currents and amperage, with it appearing as the traditional lightning you expect to see branching out in a storm.

In a nutshell, it doesn’t matter because lightning is so powerful it will ignite whatever it hits. The negative charge lightning just tends to be extinguished by precipitation before it can burn.

I also learned that the saying “Bolt from the Blue” comes from positively charged lightning being able to strike out so far.

Academic hours were missed by 1 hour this week.

Reading

Started Reading The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal

Didn’t read nearly enough this week, back to it this week.

DFS/Electives

Went to country swing dancing, learned 4 good basic moves. Fumbled more intermediate one, needs more practice.

Went to Christian Youth Group event at local college on Saturday.

Writing

That’s all for this week’s update, if there’s anything to improve on let me know.

Have a good week!

This week we started off by burning an already prepped area off the district. It was the next district up from us, where we were placed since our own planned burn was canceled for weather.

It was a pretty cold day, and once holding was over I ended up in a routine of hunkering down near burning logs to stay warm for about 2.5 hours. Checking the line about every 15 minutes for spot fires was the only worry then.

Another cool experience happened too. The engine needed a part so we drove into Boise and stopped by the manufacturer that makes a large chunk of the wildland engines in the U.S. It’s called Boise Mobile Equipment and has a large fab shop, paint area, and a massive assembly bay. The inventory warehouse was pretty crazy too.

We’ve got a new assistant engineer on the engine, who serves as the second in command to the engine captain. He’s a solid guy, has some pretty interesting stories of being an MP in the army and deploying to Korea his last year. Also, he worked as a hotshot for several years and hearing some of his stories is a great way to pass the time patrolling.

The other interesting event was fixing a pressure issue, which was causing the engine pump to not maintain a seal and be able to pull water into the tank from a water source. It ended up being a bad seal which we replaced. Too much air was entering the system and killing the vacuum.

This process is called drafting, and it essentially works by closing certain valves, allowing the pump to have a negative vacuum. This allows it to pull water into the tank, reversing the normal discharging process. We use it to fill tanks when we don’t have easy access to hydrants or fill stations.

Often it’ll be done by filling out of ponds, lakes, streams, or even swimming pools if it comes down to it. Any deep enough water source can work.

Here’s a video that probably explains better.

Type 3 Engine Drafting

We use what’s called hardline, plastic hoselines that allow the water to flow in consistently. It’s an interesting issue, but if you use standard cotton jacketed hose it will go flat and can’t maintain flow or pressure when pulling water instead of discharging.

These lines come equipped with a valve called a foot valve. It serves a couple functions. Firstly, the strainer attachment filters out large debris. The important part is the valve itself, which both allows water to flow when properly primed, and also prevents water from flowing back out and ruining your drafting.

The final project of this week was doing hazard tree cutting on a fire scar from the 2024 season, that burned 2 hours north of my district.

Ended up felling a basic tree, catching up on some lapsed saw training. Also helped swamp slash that we cleared off of roads, when trees fell there.

The area we worked was extremely beautiful, it had dozens of small creeks running off the hillsides. Made it sketchy climbing the hills.

Working out was pretty minimal this week. Both hands were hurting, so I went and had them xrayed. Likely from falling on them last year there are some issues that need to be fixed. In a nutshell, there will be a follow up appointment and in the meantime both hands are braced at night. Did 3 leg workouts, 3/7 days.

Anchor hours met this week were by working out, burning, project work, doing a bunch of learning admin systems, engine training, and pump practice.

Academics

Watched 1 hour of the Meteorology: An Introduction to the Wonders of the Weather course.

I screwed up this week being lazy with working on the academics. Unfortunately it means a heavier workload down the road for the last 9 weeks of the cycle.

DFS/Electives

Went line dancing on monday, stayed for some social swing dancing afterwards. It was awkward trying to dance with only two moves, so need to practice a lot more. Still fun though.

Reading

Finished The Fight for Conservation by Gifford Pinchot

Finished Young Men and Fire By Norman Maclean

Finished Glory Days of Logging by Ralph Andrews

Finished Watching Fire In Paradise

Writing

came up with a great idea to create an accomplishments post for his substack.

This’ll be my less frequent version of that. Thanks for reading.

Skills Acquired

• Learned burning tactics and drip torch operation.

• Learned basics of fire science and biological role of fire.

• Learned to operate flare pistols.

• Learned basics of chainsaw maintenance and operation for felling trees.

• Learned basics of country swing dancing.

• Learned MIG welding and basic fabrication skills.

• Learned basic cementing skills.

• Became certified A-Faller for government firefighting.

• Became certified wildland FFT2.

• Became CPR-BLS Certified

• Learned wildland helicopter crewmember operations, making cargo sling loads, and helicopter mechanical understanding.

Books Read

• The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan

• Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire – An Award-Winning Investigation of the Deadly 1994 Disaster by John N. Maclean

• Ghosts of the Fireground: Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter by Peter M. Leschak

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

• Last Man Down by Richard Picciotto

• Report From Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith

• The Fight for Conservation by Gifford Pinchot

• Glory Days of Logging by Ralph W. Andrews

• Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean

• The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal

• A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

• The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57 by John N. Maclean

• Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917 by Michael Punke

• Smokejumper: A Memoir by One of America’s Most Select Airborne Firefighters by Jason A. Ramos

• A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean

Courses Completed

• FI-110 Wildland Fire Observations and Origin Scene Protection for First Responders

• FI-210 Wildland Fire Origin and Cause (Pre-Course Work)

• RT-130 Fire Refresher Training 2026

• S-131 Firefighter Type 1

• S-211 Wildland Fire Pumps

• S-270 Basic Air Ops

• S-271 Helicopter Crewmember

• Meteorology: An Intro To The Wonders of the Weather by the Great Courses

Minor Stuff

• Introduction to Wildland Fuels

• Understanding and Collecting Fuel Moisture

• A-100 Basic Aviation Safety

• A-110 Aviation Transportation of Hazardous Materials

• A-200 Aviation Mishap Review

• IS-200 Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response

• IS-800 National Response Framework, An Introduction

• Completed Wildland Firefighter Cycle

Starting this Monday we stopped our prescribed burns for a couple days to monitor the existing ones. It sounds exciting, but it practice it means hanging out on a fireline all day. It was some good time for reading, so finished several books.

Wednesday we got back to it, this time shifting to a different burn unit. The previous burns had nothing on this unit. It had some of the most wild fire behavior I’ve ever seen in my life. The bosses put me on some steep, aggressive terrain and we lit off about a mile of ridgeline. Also was able to use a flare pistol for the first time to light off fuels.

Thursday was the same, absolutely crazy fire behavior.

The interstate at some points was even smoked out, which was interesting to watch.

* For working out this week it was a lot of hiking and physical labor, so 5/7 days.

The hours of the anchor course have definitely been met this week.

Skills Learned

*Learned burning and drip torch operation.

*Learned about biological role of fire and basic fire science.

*Learned flare pistol operation

Interesting Experiences

* Worked very close to 100 foot flame lengths.

* Saw multiple fire whirls

* Hiking through thick brush dodging fast moving fire

* Got to burn with drip torch first time

* Used incendiary pistol for first time

* Helped prep lines

* Helped hold burn

* Burned on top of active underground coal mine, mountain settling around it so large chasms

* Burned off of a major interstate.

* Drove past burning Amazon truck, you can see it faintly here

* One of our guys found a massive pair of elk horns

* Worked with a bunch of new people

* On Wednesday and Tuesday ripped off 1,000 acres per day

My crew boss said it was some of the most insane fire behavior they’d ever seen on a prescribed fire, terrain variation drove wild runs of fire, while low humidity and high temps and wind were a perfect combo.

During firing operations this week I made some stupid mistakes regarding crew operations, and general stuff with burning and being methodical.

Caught some flack for it and rightfully so. This crew is a more tightly run operation than engines are, and being new there are a lot of things to figure out. It was quite frustrating, and embarrassing.

Those feelings were misplaced. It’s a normal thing to have struggles learning new things.

Overall, it went very well. Talking with the bosses when we got back Friday, they said there was a ton of improvement and it was good to have me on the assignment. There’s not much of a better sign than

Academics

The assignment really required focus, and the remaining time was a major focus on reading. Courses will be a heavier focus again next week.

0 hours.

Reading

Finished The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America

Finished Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire – An Award-Winning Investigation of the Deadly 1994 Disaster

Finished Ghosts of the Fireground: Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter

Finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

DFS/Electives

* Got to light off dozens of acres and it was a crazy rush of adrenaline

* This week went out to a steakhouse near the hotel with the crew for a couple hours, plus eating at other restaurants too.

* Went hunting for deer and elk sheds during some downtime between burns also with the crew. No luck finding anything, but it was a good experience.

* Went to a couple of interesting local concerts at a music festival. My dancing skills have improved and it was a ton of fun.

Writing

Thanks for reading, if there can be any improvements let me know.

See you all next week.

Both even served faithfully on 9/11 and saved lives, Smith as a retired firefighter for 57 straight days rescuing people, removing bodies and clearing debris. Picciotto saving multiple lives, surviving the collapse of the North Tower in a stairwell, then navigating with his men through the treacherous, unstable rubble fields.

However, like Benedict Arnold and John Paul Jones as described in The Preparation book, they diverged drastically in their later actions.

John Paul Jones was courageous and remained loyal to the country through great trial, becoming the father of the American Navy. This included the capture of HMS Serapis under great odds, making Jones a credit to the service.

Benedict Arnold in his own right was a courageous man, leading his troops from the front and leading to great successes at Saratoga and other battles. His personal failings though led him down a dark path of resentment and jealousy, legitimate grievances that may have eventually ended he let lead him to nearly giving up West Point, and control of the Hudson river to the British.

Both men were courageous, but the resolve of one led him to be a permanent figure in the founding of the nation. The other led him to a dark, irrelevant exile in Britain. Forever known as a traitor.

Dennis Smith was a man of immense character, who served on Engine Co. 82 in the most brutal years in the history of the FDNY from 1966-1973. He was nearly killed multiple times during this, and watched plenty of friends and civilians die in the anarchy of the city at the time.

He maintained a strong compassion for the community, refusing to allow himself to be degraded by the anarchy, callousness, sadistic cruelty, and the nihilistic public. He reached out to his community to the very end. Smith was also an incredibly courageous firefighter, saving lives and he earned the respect of dozens of the toughest firefighters in the city. Men whose word meant something, an unassuming man highly regarded by his fellow firefighters.

He worked to better the lives of firefighters, the fire service, and the city until the end of his life. On 9/11 he volunteered immediately for rescues, spending 57 straight days in the rubble, extracting bodies and removing rubble. He would later pass from complications related to this mass exposure in 2022.

Smith was a Renaissance man in many ways. He raised a family, published 16 books, and founded the NYC fire museum and Firehouse magazine, among other notable things.

A man whose code and duty-bound honor led him to be honored by thousands at his passing.

Richard Picciotto wasn’t completely dissimilar. He’d also served in the War Years and had a generally good reputation and strong connection with his fellow firefighters.

Picciotto was by all accounts a courageous man, not shrinking from challenge. He’d raised a family, and risen to the rank of chief through honorable service. He served honorably in the 1993 WTC bombing as well.

When 9/11 happened he rushed towards it like any firefighter worth his salt would. He went in the building, evacuating civilians. He was still there when the South Tower collapsed, and survived when the North Tower collapsed on top of the stairwell him and about a dozen others were trapped in.

He legitimately served bravely, including issuing an evacuation order which likely saved many lives before the North Tower came down.

However, one decision to behave a certain way brought much of his reputation crashing down. Picciotto decided he was going to write a book about the experience merely days after it happened. While he was in the hospital still.

In the book he writes very self-referentially, and makes himself out to be some kind of hero figure above his fellow firefighters.

When he encountered Josephine Smith, an elderly woman trapped and fleeing, he comes up with this oddly questionable line. Like he went out of his way to help her, did her a favor. Not just doing his job like any other.

“I matched her with an entire company, Ladder Co. 6, out of Chinatown,” Picciotto wrote. “There was something about Josephine that seemed deserving of my extra special attention.

This self-aggrandizing led to multiple other firefighters who survived the stairwell refusing to speak with him ever again. Picciotto was even the only one not invited to a group counseling session put on by the FDNY, because the others refused to be in the room with him.

“I never once in that stairwell saw John Wayne, and if you read this book you’d think John Wayne was in the stairwell with us,” said Firefighter Bill Butler, 39, of Ladder 6.

A fellow fire chief named Jay Jonas who also survived refuses to speak with him to this day, and made a few remarkable statements about Picciotto’s actions. For note, Jonas was an honorable man, a straight shooter who served 43 years and was just as brave and reputable. Jonas never wrote a book, never broke that code of honor, never portrayed himself as anything other than doing his job.

“He paints himself as a great athlete and that’s why he was selected to go out first, and that’s not true,” Jonas said. “He was chosen because he was one of two officers in the stairway and didn’t have any men with him, and I was directly responsible for five men in that stairway and Josephine Harris.” Referring to Picciotto claiming responsibility for saving her.

“He writes about us like we’re lemmings, like Please, Rich Picciotto, save us,” says Jonas.

“We should write a book,” he’d told his friend Jonas a few days after they climbed out. “Write a book?” Jonas replied. “I can barely get out of bed.”

“It would also end his friendship with Jonas—“It’s a very bad book,” says Jonas—and whatever camaraderie he shared that day with the others from Ladder Six. “We don’t speak to him,” says Komorowski. “Liar,” Butler wrote in his copy of the book.”

“Picciotto was the highest-ranking guy, but he was not the commanding officer. He was doing nothing. He was balled up in a corner,” says Jonas.

Picciotto’s book is a story of an individual, mainly, rather than of a group, which goes against the grain. “Other people tell you you’re a good firefighter,” explains one department official. “You don’t claim that yourself.”

To get that kind of reaction from extremely tough men you just survived a 100 floor collapse with, you have to do something heinous.

Richard Picciotto essentially did that. He even admits that he was scared in the book, being the first out and leaving the group behind.

“Opened up a good deal of distance between myself and the rest of the pack,” he writes. “That was okay. In my head, it had moved from being a leadership situation … to being a question of survival… . My focus shifted … to getting the hell out of there.”

If he had just been honest, and acted by some sort of personal code like the FDNY as a whole does, he may still be as well regarded as any other. Certainly at least respected by the men he survived the collapse with.

Picciotto didn’t need to write that book, he could’ve stayed silent and any mistakes he’d made would’ve gone to the grave with the other firefighters. They said it themselves.

He didn’t have to go down the path he did, but his hubris at the most defining moment of his life irrevocably exposed his true self. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth to read about it when the man is otherwise brave, and was well-regarded in the FDNY.

To behave as Picciotto did in any case is dishonorable.

Lessons

Lessons to be learned are to always be honest about shortcomings, shift the spotlight to how others helped or what they did, focus on service to others instead of self, work on your invisible competence, and be a reliable man. The virtue of clementia heavily appears here.

Even if Picciotto hadn’t been completely put together, his brothers would’ve taken the secret to the grave out of respect. His blustering forced them to expose him. All firemen understand that in difficult, and frightening circumstances to be afraid and making mistakes in some moments or fucking up is a very human thing. Even brave men are afraid, and Picciotto was certainly a brave man overall.

It wasn't that Piccotto was scared that made him contemptible, it was his lying, exaggeration, deflection, and snubbing of his fellow firefighters that led him to be exiled from a group he should’ve been a core member of. A group of people he could’ve had unbreakable relationships with the rest of his life.

What made Smith so different from Picciotto was his relentless optimism, service, and focus on helping others and bettering his surroundings in the fire service and New York City. This despite the degenerate public he had to help regularly.

Picciotto behaved in a way that destroyed an otherwise good reputation, and took him from being a respected man of bravery to someone held in contempt. A man that sold his soul for a quick buck, giving up the greatest brotherhood he’d ever had.

That betrayal echoes forever. Picciotto will never again be respected by that group, nor the FDNY. Time will remember him for that, rather than his prior solid reputation. He will be remembered by those who matter as a traitor to what the FDNY meant.

Be like Dennis Smith, take Richard Picciotto as a cautionary tale.

First cool opportunity showed up!

We ended up getting a last minute assignment offered for this weekend in Southern Utah. I’ll be working for a few days prescribed burning.

The first day we were here we got an initial attack fire which marks the first of the season.

Also ended up doing my first prescribed burn, where I was able to run a drip torch, and helped dig holding lines.

Earlier this first week was a slow start. Meeting the people working on the district has been good, and there are a lot of interesting people working here, including a helitack crew.

It’s also located near some pretty stunning country which will be great to hike in.

I’ll be committed to working here for a while, so every bit of effort getting a good, productive routine going helps, and the Wildland firefighter cycle will be mostly done here.

Preparation work primarily consisted of onboarding for the position, preparing my gear for fires, including my line pack and what’s known as a red bag, which typically holds extra clothing for fire assignments, toiletries, extra fire gear, etc. It goes on the engine along with other gear. Put together a hose pack, which allows for quick deployment of hose when attacking a fire. Also tied a crude girth hitch to attach a tool on the pack.

Anchor Course

Between firefighting, training for 3 hours, onboarding, the welding project for 6 hours, doing an hour of engine maintenance and working out for 5 hours this week, the weekly anchor hours have been met.

This week has been a lot of learning the engine, specifically pump systems, and also going through what we call engine checks, where every morning we will check fluids, tires, start the pump, and check that all lights are good. Onboarding processes have also taken up a lot of time.

I’ve also undertaken a welding project to build a hose drying rack where we will wash and leave hose to dry. The station’s welder hadn’t been used in years so me and another couple crew members went into putting it back into operation, we had some funny mistakes including misreading the wire specs and assuming it needed gas when it was in fact FCAW, which doesn’t require any.

The weld bead was sputtering pretty badly and wouldn’t melt properly, so we tore down the machine a bit and discovered an electrical connection was far too loose for proper flow. After that it welded fine, overall a good lesson in thoroughness.

We are placing metal tubing into pairs of tubing sunk into the ground and raising it by a certain amount each time to account for slope, making sure it’s level, and then placing a larger flat piece of angle iron and expanded steel over the top. This will create a hose drying rack which the station has lacked since last year.

It’s funny that having some random fabrication and welding skills has come in handy here, a few classes I took years ago make me already more valuable as part of the crew. Random skills really can come in handy sometimes…

The other big project of the week was preparing a burn zone for a controlled burn

Mostly went and cleared the handlines of debris.

Reading

Finished reading Report from Engine Co. 82 by Dennis Smith

This was an excellent read. Being a firefighter, Smith’s decriptions of the job, it’s dynamics, and the tenuous relationship with the public are extremely accurate. His description of the “War Years” of the FDNY are wild and beyond almost any modern firefighter’s experience. On the regular these men were nearly killed by apathetic, callous, and nihilistic people in the impoverished neighborhoods they served. False alarms, people dropping trash cans and bricks on them from above. Setting booby traps in buildings. All manner of deaths occurred from such things. Throwing bricks at firemen on the sides of trucks speeding by was not uncommon. In wildland we deal with less of it, but personally you will see drug camps, scummy people, arson, homeless fires, garbage fires, near death experiences, and often fight fires alongside structural departments when near homes. Crew dynamics are the same too. We will share meals together, workout together, and develop extremely close bonds requiring thick skin and a semi-military cohesion among the crew. It all was accurate.

Dennis Smith was a man of great character, because even though he worked in the busiest firehouse in the world for 7 years. In a scummy collection of neighborhoods. He never let it make him bitter or hateful. Smith watched friends die from the public’s actions in horrific ways, yet still made the effort to reach out and help, maintaining a positive attitude. It may have been foolhardy, but the man is worthy of high respect for his incredible displays of clementia and patience, and his compassion to others. He helped a little girl once with a school report, showing her the equipment, with as much kindness as he showed to his own children. This despite having nearly been killed days before by a brick thrown at him on the engine. After retiring he still made endless efforts selflessly supporting the FDNY, and notably showed up and stayed for 57 days straight after 9/11. He would later pass away in 2022 from cancer complications caused by 9/11 contaminants. He was 61 years old in 2001. He also founded Firehouse Magazine, firefighter support funds using his own money, a still running fire expo, the NYC Fire Museum, and 16 books. After his death he received the highest respect from the FDNY and thousands across the fire world. He earned his place within the fire world unquestionably, and unlike many writers actually was living what he spoke of. His word meant something.

Smith was a man worth emulating, and worthy of respect by any firefighter even years after his passing. Report from Engine Co. 82 still is one of the defining books of the fire service, and he rightfully earned his place within it.

Finished Last Man Down by Richard Picciotto

Richard Picciotto was a chief in the FDNY when 9/11 happened, and worked the scene evacuating hundreds until the North Nower completely collapsed over him and multiple other firefighters, trapped in a building stairwell. They managed to survive and escape miraculously after hours trapped under mountains of rubble, being part of a group of only 20 to be pulled from the rubble alive. Undoubtedly a brave man.

However, his story took an unfortunate turn I found. He decided he was going to write this book just days after the collapses. Days. What kind of man thinks to himself, “I’m going to write a book about this” when just after a horrific incident. Hundreds of fellow firefighters, cops, and medics dead, thousands of civilians dead. Utterly distasteful and disrespectful to everyone else, especially his brothers in the department. The book became a best seller, but led to him destroying his friendships with those he survived the collapse with, and being hated in the department he loved. None of them will speak with him anymore. It included exaggerations about what he did, and was excessively self-referential. Picciotto made his money, but he sold his soul. Not a man worth covering any longer than necessary. Completely unnecessary and he destroyed what honor he did have.

Started reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

It’s a strange start to the cycle as the first reading topic, but 13 chapters in and some good insights came. It fits well with the welding project, and the necessary learning that goes with it.

Interestingly, Pirsig talks about what converted him from being sloppy and not understanding his machine. An incident where he took it into a shop with careless mechanics, and what turned out to be a simple part replacement became a nightmare of careless mechanicking including breaking engine fins, broken parts, and an attitude of detachment from their work, leading them to completely skip half of the work and do the other half extremely badly.

Had the mechanics simply been thorough and cared about being a mechanic, they likely wouldn’ve properly diagnosed the issue.

DFS/Electives

• Lifting weights/running/hiking: Worked out 5/7 days, did a PT hike carrying leafblower, did two days of chest and tri, did a couple 2 mile runs.

• Went to a rave event at a local arcade which was pretty interesting, discovered some new music genres to explore further.

Writing

Thanks for reading!

Anchor Course

I’ll be working as a wildland firefighter in Idaho. Likely costs will be low due to earning money while working, and the productive hours will be on the job. The cycle will last from March 15th until June 15th, then will transition into a work cycle as the season picks up.

The anchor course will be 160 hours of productive work hours. 12 weeks means putting in 13 hours of productive time a week.

Things that count as productive time:

• Training

• Responding to wildfires

• Working controlled burns

• Working on equipment/the engine maintenance

• Daily physical training

• Project work, clearing roads or prepping burn zones are examples

• Doing station projects/chores

• Completing important admin tasks

Firefighting can have some sitting around so those idle hours mostly won’t count unless I’m learning something. They’ll be filled by academics and reading. It’ll be important to keep an honest account of truly productive hours.

Next on to the academics.

Academics

The academic portion of the cycle will be 120 hours, focusing on learning important knowledge for wildland firefighting. The main trainings will be on weather, tactics, fire behavior, wildland firefighting history and practices, and learning about mechanical systems/technology used in the job like pumps and hydraulics.

Some courses may not be exactly related to working on an engine, but a greater understanding of firefighting is an excellent investment and at least makes me a more capable crew member.

This will be 10 hours a week of studying.

NWCG and other Self-Enrollment Courses:

• RT-130 Firefighter 2 Refresher Training 4 hrs COMPLETED

• Meteorology: An Introduction to the Wonders of the Weather 12 hrs
  (Great Courses) $39.99 cost COMPLETED

• S-290 Intermediate Wildland Fire Behavior Online portion 20 hrs

  Discovered that S-290 is no longer offered online at all, and I’ll be taking at least 30 hours of in person classes during our training week. New classes will be below.

• NWCG S-270 Basic Air Operations 16 hours (New)

• NWCG S-211 Portable Pumps and Water Use 16 hours (New)

• Introduction to Wildland Fuels 2 hrs COMPLETED

• Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy .5 hrs COMPLETED

• FI-110 Wildland Fire Observations and Origin Scene Protection for First Responders 3 hrs COMPLETED

• Firefighting Orders and Watch Out Situations 2hrs COMPLETED

• FI-210 Wildland Fire Origin and Cause Pre Course Work 3 hrs COMPLETED

• Understanding and Collecting Fuel Moisture 3hrs

• PSM-008, Protecting Wildfire Personnel from Smoke .5 hrs COMPLETED

• Gov Risk Management 101 1 hr COMPLETED

• Weather Information Management System Basic Navigation 1hr UNABLE TO COMPLETE

• Smoke Management and Air Quality for Land Managers 1 hr COMPLETED

• ICS 200 Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response 3 hrs COMPLETED

• ICS 800 National Response Framework Introduction, 4 hrs COMPLETED

Additional ICS potential courses

• IS-230 Fundamentals of Emergency Management 3 hrs

• IS-235 Emergency Planning 3 hrs

• IS-240 Leadership and Influence 3hrs

• IS-241 Decision Making and Problem Solving 2hrs

• IS-242 Effective Communication 2 hrs

• IS-520 Introduction to Continuity of Operations Planning 2hrs

Personal Study

• Studying multiple fire reports on fatality fires, injuries, burnovers for 30hrs. These includes workbooks making it a more academic pursuit. 15 hrs left

• Studying diesel engines, hydraulics, pump systems, hoselays, vehicle electrical systems, small engines on chainsaws and pumps 23 hrs 22 left

Totalling 120 hrs up to potentially 135 if the additional ICS courses are taken.

That list is long….

Anyways, we can begin going into the reading.

Reading

This portion of the cycle will focus heavily on the history of wildland fire, biographies, cloud and weather books. Conservationist, mining, and logging books also. A few structural firefighting books too. 90+ hrs total

• Young Men and Fire

  by Norman Maclean 5 hrs COMPLETED

• The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

  by Timothy Egan 5 hrs COMPLETED

• The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal

  by John N. Maclean 4 hrs COMPLETED

• Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire

  by John N. Maclean 4 hrs COMPLETED

• The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder, and the Agony of Engine 57

  by John N. Maclean 4.5 hrs COMPLETED

• On the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It

  by Kyle Dickman 4 hrs

• Smokejumper: A Memoir by One of America’s Most Select Airborne Firefighters

  by Jason A. Ramos 3.5 hrs COMPLETED

• Fireseason: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout

  by Philip Connors 4 hrs

• Fire on the Rim: A Firefighter’s Season at the Grand Canyon

  Book by Stephen J. Pyne 2 hr

• High-mountain Two-manner: A Montana smokejumper recalls hitting the silk and the books in his college years

  By Frank Fowler 3 hrs

• Ghosts of the Fireground : Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter by Peter Leschak 3 hrs COMPLETED

• Last Man Down: A Firefighter’s Story of Survival and Escape from the World Trade Center By Richard Picciotto 3 hrs COMPLETED

• Report from Engine Co. 82: The American Firefighting Classic

  By Dennis Smith 2 hrs COMPLETED

• River of Fire: The Rattlesnake Fire and the Mission Boys

  By John N. Maclean 3.5 hrs

• A River Runs through It and Other Stories

  By Norman Maclean 3 hrs COMPLETED

• Glory Days of Logging

  By Ralph W. Andrews 2 hrs COMPLETED

• Deadfall: Generations of Logging in the Pacific Northwest

  By James Lemonds 2 hrs

• A Sand County Almanac

  By Aldo Leopold 2 hrs COMPLETED

• Man and Nature

  By George Perkins Marsh 3 hrs

• The Mountains of California

  By John Muir 2 hrs

• Big Timber Big Men: A History of Loggers in a New Land

  1 hr

• American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation

  By John F. Reiger 3 hrs

• The Fight For Conservation

  By Gifford Pinchot 2 hrs COMPLETED

• Lochsa Story: Land Ethics in the Bitterroot Mountains

  By Bud Moore 2.5

• Fire and Brimstone : the North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917

  By Michael Punke 2 hrs COMPLETED

• My Adventures with Your Money

  By George Graham Rice 2 hrs

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

  By Robert Pirsig 6 hrs COMPLETED

• The Cloudspotter's Guide

  By Gavin Pretor-Pinney 1.5 hr

• NWCG Fire Weather Guide 1 hr

Things I’ll Be Watching

In addition I will be watching a documentary about the 1910 fires in Idaho and Montana, called The Big Burn and another called Fire in Paradise about the 2018 Camp Fire burning the town of Paradise, CA. (completed)

For videos I’ve selected a couple of several hour diesel mechanic video courses to increase understanding of how the actual systems on the engines work. This will go with pump videos, hydraulics, small engines, and how electrical and fluid systems work on large vehicles.

Reflection

For reflections it will mostly be working on writing and editing the weekly updates, and not much else. There will be 3 hrs a week of reflection for a total of 36 hours throughout the cycle.

DFS

For the fun part, I’ll be practicing swing dancing a few hours a week and going to various events on weekends. Music events is probably a good possibility if done right. Possibly will take some martial arts if time allows.

End

That defines the firefighter cycle pretty throughly I’d say, excluding some incidental costs.

If there’s anything that could be improved in the article please feel free, have a good one.