Ot Odtaa*

Rusty

Rusty

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( * One Darn Thing After Another )

Went to pick up some take-out Chinese food when I noticed that in addition to the grey skies against Mount Grant to the west of us, there was some really dark stuff in the air against the mountain. And there were these little orange spots all over in it. It is about a mile west of town, about half a mile up the mountain, and maybe 3 miles north.

After dinner, I went out in my truck with my 7x50 binoculars and saw a helicopter dumping water on the fire. It was burning up a canyon on the mountain predominately, with only a few spot fires blown by the wind scattered off to the south. Anyway, saw the helicopter land at the airport, detatch it's water bucket and load it inside, and fly off with still several merrily burning spots left burning.

Apparently there'd been 5 blazes today between here and Fallon, a distance of 70 miles. Caused by lightning strikes.

Well, not much I can do about it. Just keep checking it every now and then. Not really worried about it, just leaves me with an uncomfortable feeling
 
Good luck with that fire, Rusty. Hopefully they'll get a crew put on it and get it out.

I'm worried about fire season this year in Northern California. As far as I know, they've grounded all our tanker planes because of an accident last year. I work out at the Chico Technology center, which is at the airport, and I haven't seen any of the tankers leave the ground in over a month. I live on a ridge surrounded by pine forests, as do a lot of other people around here. Without those tankers, things are going to be rough if we have a bad fire year. I hope they get something figured out.

--Josh
 
Went back to see what went about midnight. Still saw numerous areas burning. However, there were at least 4 pumper trucks from South Lake Tahoe, another county in the state, and I didn't catch names on two others. Looks like they are waiting til daylight to try to extinguish what is still burning ( hopefully burning it's self out.
 
About noon today went out again and looked. Still burning down in the canyon.

The 4 out of town pumpers were out on the flat in front of the mountain. A quarter mile further in were half a dozen BLM pumpers lined up in a row. Both groups had shade tarps erected and everyone was under them. No way to get the trucks up the sheer face. Not too smart to try and climb it with firefighting gear either.

This time there were two helicopters, hitting the fire at ridgecrest. If they can keep it from jumping over the crest, they've got it contained. Lots of fuel downslope though.

Incidentally, you are halfway right, UB. Isn't much to burn til you get halfway up the mountain. Then you hit the treeline. Plenty of fuel from there on up.
 
of saying "there are too many trees in your locale";)

Like tornadoes in the midwest are nature sayinng "there aren't enuf trees here".

Keith
 
Hope everything is going OK with this. I did happen to see a show on fire jumpers the other day. They showed the equipment they used. All I can say is that they need to learn the Way of the Khurk. Badly. They showed this poor guy cutting brush and a few small trees with a pick ax. I think that is the proper term for it, ax on one side digging blade of the other, that is what we call them here anyway. I know the jumpers and fire fighters need something to dig with but a AK or Ganga Ram (BAS,WW II etc) would have torn through what they were cutting many times faster and with alot less effort then the stuff they were using. I wonder if there is any way to inform them of what they were missing out on. That order alone would keep the kamis jumping for a long, long time.
 
Mark, I went and looked it up. It's called a Pulaski Axe - axe on one side grub hoe on the other. Pulaski for short. Anyway, if someone says the word you'll know what they are talking about. I knew that I used to know it, but couldn't remember off the top of my head, so ran "firefighting tools" on Google. That led me to a place called The Fire Store that sold them under axes.

As of midnight, it's still burning, but down to two spots. No way a crew could get in there. About a 50 degree slope, covered in sand. Can't climb it, couldn't jump in and hold on. The trees that are burning are the only anchor in sight. Think it should have exhausted the fuel there by tomorrow.
 
Out - flat dead and not even smoking. However not that it is out, now we have a lot of smoke in the air blowing in from elsewhere.
 
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