If you have not heard yet my crew got on a call on June 20th for a resource order to go down south, to California. We flew out of Fairbanks at 6 am on the 22nd. Now that would not have been that bad but it was worse then it sounds because that is when we acutally boarded the plane. We actually reported to work at 3 am. So we all got about 4 or 5 hours of sleep the night of the 21st. We flew from Fairbanks to Seattle, then to Sacramento. We arrived in Sac town about 1 ish. We had to sit out in the 90 degree heat for about 3 - 4 hours before getting picked up but that kind of waiting is normal for a shotcrew. So we just sait that while people all came up to us to thank us for coming to fight the fires and what not. Well those were the people that read our shirts and knew what a Hotshot Crew was. Then their are the people that have no idea what a shot crew is. So they ask all types of questions. One person ask if we were a basketball team.
It is just funny to us because we are all dressed alike with our maroon shirts and we all the same green nomex cargo pants and all have on heavy duty boots. So it is just funny to us. But any ways when we get picked up by the leads on the crew with our buggies (pictures to come) we have no idea where we are going. Normally, now I say normally, we would go to a hotel because it has been a long stinking day for us. We got up at 3 am and now it is close to 6pm. So we are all tired some cranky and want to just get a shower and a bed. But we find out on the way to where we are going that we are heading directly to get an assingment.
So that sounds like to us that we will go to the ranger district that is closest and we will be givin an assingment for the next day. By the time we get to the Ranger's office in Yuba District we are told to water up. Which means that we need to get our Initial Attack gear out and fill the water bottles. Which means right away to us that we are not going to a hotel tonight and we are going directly to the line.
Now for all of us we are excited for so many reasons. But also a little perturbed, best way to put it. For me exactly I was at first disappointed because I did get to call Sarah and I did not get to call Mom and Dad and tell them exactly what fire I will be on so I was a little nervous at first because I did not want them to get worried about me. But I was also for elated because it was the first uncontrolled fire of the season and the best part was that we were on Initial Attack. Now in civilian terms this means the first stages of the fires. But if you put a little more thought into it, it means that the firefighter can get paid to up to 36 hours straight.
So this means that I can not call Sarah or the P's but I will be on night shift right out of the gate. This means that we will be working through the night. Now becuase we went to the fire we did we were not able to hit the fire line that night, but we were able to work through the night. We pre-postioned ourselves up on this hill top so we could see what the fire was doing. What kind of fire activity we were getting. And at this time it is close to 11 pm and we are all getting tired of sitting in the buggies and waiting so the crew boss (Swisher) told all of us to bed down. Now normally we would get out our sleeping bags take the contacts out and boots off and fall asleep. But this time was different becuase we were told to just get some rest. Which meant that we were not entirely safe on top of the hill and that we should not get comfortable but we were so tired we just had to crash.
Now I can talk alot more about this situation alone. First we have what is called the 18 watch out situations and the 10 fire orders. Now when you break these you supposed to be not in safe conditions. Which means you should never break these 18 and 10's. But for hotshots some of those must be broken at times to do our job most effectively. So it is kind of obvious we will be breaking a few of them. But if we were to go to fire line that night with those conditions we would have broken just about all of them. It normally just an unsaid thing that we would be breaking one or two. But for the first time in my very short fire career we got together got out the 18 watch outs and 10 fire ordrs and figured out exactly which ones we would be breaking and litteraly we broke all of them. So it was a very good idea of Swisher to not put us on the line. But the good thing about all of this is that we were getting paid from 3 am on the 22nd to about 10 pm the 23rd. Because it was IA it meant we could stay on the clock so we made quite a bit of overtime. That was sweet.
It is now the 23rd and we have all gotten about 4 hours of shotty shotty sleep. I slept with my nomex on and boots still laced up. So I was not comfortable and I thought we would be getting up in the middle of the night because of where we were prepoed. But we didn't and my sleep was piss poor. We got woken up at about 5 or so. This was the only day I did not look at my watch in the morning because i knew we were still getting paid. We all got up quiclkly, as ussual within like 2 mins back in the buggies we drove down the road and made us a little coffee fire. Used also as a warming fire because it was like in the 50's or so. We got to drink very little coffee. I personally am staying away from it until the end of the season becuase one the coffee is terrible and two becuase I am trying to go through this job with out any upppers. we got to eat for about 7 mins or so...which we normally get about 30 mins if not a little more in the morning but we were in a hurry to put a line around this fire.
The morning briefing sounded like this. We are on the 25 fire. The fire is moving quick it will get hot and dry very quick and we are on the west flank to start the day. Wow that is short the Incident Commander of the fire is not even there yet. The weather for the day is not in our possesion. And worst is the we have not even figured out where the head of the fire is. Which is very bad news. But we had to do something quick becuase it is moving quick. So we do what a shot crew does best and start direct line construction.
We immediately start at the top of the hill off of this dozer road and we are told to prepare the road so that we can do a back burn to burn the fuel between us and the head of the fire. Now this is a risky postion to be in because we have a good chance of not being able to prepare the road quick enough to do a burn out. So we get to work as quick as possible. We did not have a long hike for this task or this particular day. We acually got dropped off right where we need to start cutting. So we immediatly started to prep the rd. But then our lookout (You always must have a lookout, someone who has eyes on the fire activity nearest you) said that it is spotting closer to the road and that from where he is at he does not feel comfortable with us being there...so he made us pull out and try and different objective. Which I found out later was the right move because about 7 hours later that day that road got burned right up to from the drainage up. So it was a great decison on the lookouts part.
The next assignment was to punch in direct line on the Western flank of the fire.
It is just funny to us because we are all dressed alike with our maroon shirts and we all the same green nomex cargo pants and all have on heavy duty boots. So it is just funny to us. But any ways when we get picked up by the leads on the crew with our buggies (pictures to come) we have no idea where we are going. Normally, now I say normally, we would go to a hotel because it has been a long stinking day for us. We got up at 3 am and now it is close to 6pm. So we are all tired some cranky and want to just get a shower and a bed. But we find out on the way to where we are going that we are heading directly to get an assingment.
So that sounds like to us that we will go to the ranger district that is closest and we will be givin an assingment for the next day. By the time we get to the Ranger's office in Yuba District we are told to water up. Which means that we need to get our Initial Attack gear out and fill the water bottles. Which means right away to us that we are not going to a hotel tonight and we are going directly to the line.
Now for all of us we are excited for so many reasons. But also a little perturbed, best way to put it. For me exactly I was at first disappointed because I did get to call Sarah and I did not get to call Mom and Dad and tell them exactly what fire I will be on so I was a little nervous at first because I did not want them to get worried about me. But I was also for elated because it was the first uncontrolled fire of the season and the best part was that we were on Initial Attack. Now in civilian terms this means the first stages of the fires. But if you put a little more thought into it, it means that the firefighter can get paid to up to 36 hours straight.
So this means that I can not call Sarah or the P's but I will be on night shift right out of the gate. This means that we will be working through the night. Now becuase we went to the fire we did we were not able to hit the fire line that night, but we were able to work through the night. We pre-postioned ourselves up on this hill top so we could see what the fire was doing. What kind of fire activity we were getting. And at this time it is close to 11 pm and we are all getting tired of sitting in the buggies and waiting so the crew boss (Swisher) told all of us to bed down. Now normally we would get out our sleeping bags take the contacts out and boots off and fall asleep. But this time was different becuase we were told to just get some rest. Which meant that we were not entirely safe on top of the hill and that we should not get comfortable but we were so tired we just had to crash.
Now I can talk alot more about this situation alone. First we have what is called the 18 watch out situations and the 10 fire orders. Now when you break these you supposed to be not in safe conditions. Which means you should never break these 18 and 10's. But for hotshots some of those must be broken at times to do our job most effectively. So it is kind of obvious we will be breaking a few of them. But if we were to go to fire line that night with those conditions we would have broken just about all of them. It normally just an unsaid thing that we would be breaking one or two. But for the first time in my very short fire career we got together got out the 18 watch outs and 10 fire ordrs and figured out exactly which ones we would be breaking and litteraly we broke all of them. So it was a very good idea of Swisher to not put us on the line. But the good thing about all of this is that we were getting paid from 3 am on the 22nd to about 10 pm the 23rd. Because it was IA it meant we could stay on the clock so we made quite a bit of overtime. That was sweet.
It is now the 23rd and we have all gotten about 4 hours of shotty shotty sleep. I slept with my nomex on and boots still laced up. So I was not comfortable and I thought we would be getting up in the middle of the night because of where we were prepoed. But we didn't and my sleep was piss poor. We got woken up at about 5 or so. This was the only day I did not look at my watch in the morning because i knew we were still getting paid. We all got up quiclkly, as ussual within like 2 mins back in the buggies we drove down the road and made us a little coffee fire. Used also as a warming fire because it was like in the 50's or so. We got to drink very little coffee. I personally am staying away from it until the end of the season becuase one the coffee is terrible and two becuase I am trying to go through this job with out any upppers. we got to eat for about 7 mins or so...which we normally get about 30 mins if not a little more in the morning but we were in a hurry to put a line around this fire.
The morning briefing sounded like this. We are on the 25 fire. The fire is moving quick it will get hot and dry very quick and we are on the west flank to start the day. Wow that is short the Incident Commander of the fire is not even there yet. The weather for the day is not in our possesion. And worst is the we have not even figured out where the head of the fire is. Which is very bad news. But we had to do something quick becuase it is moving quick. So we do what a shot crew does best and start direct line construction.
We immediately start at the top of the hill off of this dozer road and we are told to prepare the road so that we can do a back burn to burn the fuel between us and the head of the fire. Now this is a risky postion to be in because we have a good chance of not being able to prepare the road quick enough to do a burn out. So we get to work as quick as possible. We did not have a long hike for this task or this particular day. We acually got dropped off right where we need to start cutting. So we immediatly started to prep the rd. But then our lookout (You always must have a lookout, someone who has eyes on the fire activity nearest you) said that it is spotting closer to the road and that from where he is at he does not feel comfortable with us being there...so he made us pull out and try and different objective. Which I found out later was the right move because about 7 hours later that day that road got burned right up to from the drainage up. So it was a great decison on the lookouts part.
The next assignment was to punch in direct line on the Western flank of the fire.
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