June | 2015 | Dirty Hotshot

Today was my official first day on the Saddle Fire. It may also turn out to be my last day on the fire. I got out to the line today, was assigned a dozer and operator, and got geared up to go scout the line for future rehab operations. As I was firing up my GPS, preparing to go for a hike, I heard the division trainee calling my dozer on the radio. Since he was not far from ,me I walked over to see what was up. My dozer was being demobilized…

At briefing last night I learned that the entire fire had line around it. Night shift did a small burnout with no issues, and this morning they were calling the fire 40% contained. That’s a conservative estimate. (Conservative estimates are the norm in fire containment percentages.) What I saw of the fire was pretty cold and pretty contained, with high recovery relative humidities last night and in the forecast. Suppression mode is moving toward rehabilitation mode in a hurry…

So I followed the dozer and transport back to ICP, said goodbye, and tied in with operations to see what was to be my fate. Sounds like I’ll either get demobilized too or get another piece of equipment. If an excavator comes in, I might get to run that for rehab shifts. Otherwise, I’ll probably be headed home in the morning.

So it goes.

***As I’m editing this post, I’m listening to radio traffic from air attack, discussing a possible new start not far from here. Who knows, maybe they’ll need a dozer boss!

That is all.

I’m on my first real fire of the 2015 fire season. There were a few small local fires early in the Spring, but they were only type four and type five single-shift low-intensity fires. The crew did a few prescribed burns this spring too, but no “real” fires until now.

The Saddle Fire is on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest under a type two incident management team. The latest situation report listed the fire at 1,480 acres, 15% contained, with 866 personnel assigned. It grew 460 acres yesterday and threatened some structures, but hasn’t sounded too spicy today. I wouldn’t know, because I’ve just been hanging out next to the operations tent since noon, waiting for an assignment.

Ops says I should get an assignment tomorrow, but I’ll still go to the night briefing at 1800 to see if anything is going on requiring my services.

This is my first time out as a single resource, Heavy Equipment Boss (HEQB). I got signed off on my taskbook for HEQB last season, but have always taken my assignments on fires the crew was assigned to already. This time I left the crew at home, borrowed a jeep from prevention, and drove myself from my home unit to the fire like a grownup. Pretty cool.

I love being on a hotshot crew. I like the missions we get as a crew, doing epic burnouts and constructing handline. I like dropping big trees when I get the chance. My favorite part of the crew at this point in my career is running a squad. I get to work with a bunch of really good dudes every day. The only position I’ve had on the crew that I enjoyed nearly as much as squadboss was being a primary sawyer, but my time on a sawteam is over.

Yesterday, I showed up at work at 0800 like always, and did a couple hours of PT with a few of the guys since we were doing “PT on your own,” which for us was a 13 mile or so mountain bike ride. That was fun. I was getting changed after PT, getting ready to go prep a burn block when my boss called saying there was an order for HEQB in northern California and asking if I wanted it. I did. So did one of the other squadbosses. So we had one of the seniors pick a number between 1 and 20. I won.

I was on the road about an hour later and drove as long as Forest Service policy would allow a solo driver to operate. This morning I got up and hit the road at 0600 and got to ICP around 1130. I checked in as quickly as possible, anticipating a quick briefing from operations and an assignment to a division and a piece of equipment. But that’s not always the way it goes.

Hopefully there will be something for me tomorrow, and I’ll get to get out on the line doing something useful.

That is all.