On the Road

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go-fish

go-fish

FABO Gold Member
FABO Gold Member
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I had plans this weekend. I was making good progress on my D100 engine/trans swap. I had tickets to the Goodguys show in Del Mar and even had a seat in an autocross car. To top it off my son’s 10th birthday party is tomorrow.

I got the call Thursday morning and had to travel on orders to Florida today to rendezvous with one of our fire crews that has been out here for two weeks. We are taking their engine to Texas and they are flying home. We thought we were going to be in FL for two weeks also but Texas is calling.

My son’s birthday was actually on Thursday so we got a good family dinner and trip to the arcade in. He’s understanding but I know he’s a little bummed. He’s got a friend staying over all weekend so that’ll take his mind off me being gone.

Tonight we are staying in Jacksonville and driving to TX. We have to be in McGregor, TX by Monday afternoon.


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Righty Tighty said:
Be safe, sir. I think we're gonna have a busy year...
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Yes we will and we have been busy all year so it’s not “fire season “ anymore. It’s fire “year”. But, it needs to happen in some places. Fire is part of our lands ecology. We’re in a pickle in our times because there is massive fuel loading from suppressing even naturally occurring fires for the past hundred years. Indians and lightning fires used to keep the land clean.
There’s an old man that is a third generation Sequoia National Forest resident who lives next to one of our stations up there. His Grandfather was either the first or one of the first Rangers on that Forest. He says his Grandfather could ride his horse from the Sequoia to Sierra National Forest using no trails. The understory was clean and sparse were the brush fields. Pictures from pre- Smoky Bear days prove this. Now it’s impossible to do the bless you’re on a road or maintained trail.
 
We met up with the outgoing crew last night. I’m glad I don’t drink because it was a late night and the boys wanted to celebrate.
Received intel that we are going to Fredericksburg, TX so if there is any members there I would love to meet up one evening.
The crew we relieved flew out this morning but filled us in on what they were doing. They got dispatched from California to Florida for a 33,000 acre fire. This engine is a 4x4 model which is the only way to go in the swampy areas of Florida. 2wd does no good here.
Their second day on the fire, after driving for 3 days to get to FL, it rained. They spent the rest of their 2 weeks doing prescribed fires for the Southeast Region of the USFS.
So, now we are heading to Texas to pre-position for any new starts there because it is grass fire season there right now until the green up. We should be floating around central TX for about 14 days then driving the engine back to San Diego County. Just in time for Spring Fling!
 
go-fish said:
Yes we will and we have been busy all year so it’s not “fire season “ anymore. It’s fire “year”. But, it needs to happen in some places. Fire is part of our lands ecology. We’re in a pickle in our times because there is massive fuel loading from suppressing even naturally occurring fires for the past hundred years. Indians and lightning fires used to keep the land clean.
There’s an old man that is a third generation Sequoia National Forest resident who lives next to one of our stations up there. His Grandfather was either the first or one of the first Rangers on that Forest. He says his Grandfather could ride his horse from the Sequoia to Sierra National Forest using no trails. The understory was clean and sparse were the brush fields. Pictures from pre- Smoky Bear days prove this. Now it’s impossible to do the bless you’re on a road or maintained trail.
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You hit the bullseye with all of that. A perfect example is the Aspen Fire in 2003 here in AZ. Nobody wanted prescribed burns for different reasons, but then when the forest finally lit off, it was a disaster. We need regular fires with lower intensity to keep the fuel load manageable.

go-fish said:
They got dispatched from California to Florida for a 33,000 acre fire.
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That's a long drive for such a small fire. No other resources that were closer/available?
 
Righty Tighty said:
You hit the bullseye with all of that. A perfect example is the Aspen Fire in 2003 here in AZ. Nobody wanted prescribed burns for different reasons, but then when the forest finally lit off, it was a disaster. We need regular fires with lower intensity to keep the fuel load manageable.


That's a long drive for such a small fire. No other resources that were closer/available?
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The funding mechanism to get resources out here to do prescribed fire is to wait for a wildfire and use the authority to put resources on order. When the wildfire is over they keep the resources in the region. They don’t have the personnel in Fla. alone to accomplish as much prescribed fire and they don’t have the money in the prescribed fire budget to order the resources. Fire budget has way more money so we do it that way. It’s like, “Since your here, and the wildfire is out, ….”.

Personnel can be out for 14 days so we keep the engine out and replace the crews with fresh bodies. While the last crew was in Florida they burned 1500 acres in land plots. Florida is crazy. Things burn when it’s green. Palmetto and other plants like it have a lot of wax that burns hot. It all grows back faster than out west too.

We met replaced that crew in Jacksonville and drove all day to Baton Rouge. Tomorrow we have to drive to Fredericksburg, TX and see if we get assigned to a fire or stage somewhere.
 
Finally made it to Texas. I guess they ran out of brisket. Didn’t even get milspec MREs. We got Refugee Rations.
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Get you guys get assigned or are you in staging? I guess I'm surprised you'd get rations like that in staging, I thought you'd be free to eat on your own dime.
 
Righty Tighty said:
Get you guys get assigned or are you in staging? I guess I'm surprised you'd get rations like that in staging, I thought you'd be free to eat on your own dime.
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We do eat out but gotta have mre’s just in case we get stuck out on a fire and can’t stop in somewhere.

We got a briefing from the state guys tonight (Texas Forest Service) and meet our Task Force Leader tomorrow at morning briefing. There’s a small chance we’ll go to the big fire on Fort Hood but we’ll likely cover behind the local engines that are currently on it. The guy that briefed us tonight said he has been on six fires in the last 3 days.
 
Staging at an airbase this morning.

 
I’m about 45 minutes from Fredericksburg. In San Antonio. If your gonna be in that area over the next few days I could drive up and have some dinner. PM me. Stay safe.
 
mopowers said:
They give you MRE's on a cover assignment? That's crazy. What's the per diem in Texas anyway?
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The MRE’s are just for line lunches. No brown bags like this in Cali, AZ, or Utah. I was hoping for brisket! LOL!
Per diem is $64 a day so we are going to be buying stuff at the grocery store.
 
@loganscuda
Cool! At the moment we are heading out to Medina to the Das Goat Fire. Let me figure out our routine, we’re on Day 1 of 14.
One good thing is that we’re are in a nice hotel for the entire time. Out west we sleep under the stars or in tents. Looking forward to some German food in Fredericksburg too!
 
Medina Tx. Wow your way down there. No nice hotels or motels down there. That’s way to close to the butthole of Texas (Laredo)
 
If you come thru San Antonio let me know I’ll have the wife cook up some enchiladas. Or we’ll grab some good BBQ from The Smoke Shack.
 
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The air drop is a buddy’s pic. It’s my first time working around the little planes.
Back in Fredericksburg today. Got some rain in the region so will be a low fire danger day. A little sun and wind and we’ll be right back in it.
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King Ranch,TX. Backfiring off the fenceline at the big game plot.
 
loganscuda said:
If you come thru San Antonio let me know
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Currently on Camp Bullis in San Antonio. There’s a decent sized fire.
You will be able to see the smoke column if you look towards the base.

We will be staying in Boerne when we pull off the fire.
 
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