PACKIN' TO LEAVE
SUPPLY AT IT'S BEST
NEW CATERER SET UP AND READY TO SERVE
DAY 5 BREAKFAST AT 5:00
ALL PACKED AND READY TO GO
STORM COMIN' IN---AGAIN
THE IC---CUT 'N' PASTE IS ALWAYS FUN
MUSINIA PEAK ON THE WAY HOME
MY CARD FROM A LITTLE 3 YEAR OLD GIRL
MY FIRE TENT ON THE LAWN ALL SET UP---MY GRAND DAUGHTER AND HER MOTHER SLEPT IN IT THE FIRST NIGHT I WAS HOME!!! ;-)
I was gone from the 12th of June until the 22nd of June on the 12,480 acre Black Forest fire right out of Colorado Springs. They made me fly out to the fire but I rode home with a man from Tropic that was on the fire and was allowed to drive. I was really glad he was wiling to let me ride with him because it feels better to me and it saves a lot of money for a one way ticket.
I was pretty excited to go because I thought I was going to be assisting a woman I have been fire friends with for over 25 years. When I got there I found out she was in London and I was going to have the Logistics Section alone. That doesn't mean all alone as I had two facilities unit leaders and a trainee, two supply unit leaders, two ground support unit leaders, one communications unit leader and a communications tech., and a security manager that worked for me. There were also some equipment managers, base camp managers, radio operators and an incident communications manager and two camp crews in the section. After a couple of days an additional logistics section chief showed up to help me run the section.
This was the fire that had the heaviest law enforcement presence of any fire I have ever been on. We had 120 National Guard M.P.'s doing the road blocks and at the height of the fire we had 100 police officers (deputy Sheriff's and City Police) that were working the fire. The reason for such a large law enforcement group is that last year looters got into a fire area near this one and stole a lot of personal belongings of the people that were evacuated. It is really sad to me that this is necessary but I am glad we had that kiond of support. I am not aware of any looting that took place.
On the third day we had a logistics chief's worst nightmare occur. The caterer we had in place had a lot of equipment fail and was unable to provide timely meals for the firefighters so he requested he be replaced. This made it so we had to provide Dinner, Breakfast and lunches without a caterer on site. This is a very difficult thing to do with over 850 firefighters in camp. We got authorized to purchase the meals from a conglomerate of local restaurants but we had to serve the meals ourselves. It turned out good when all of the Operations Section and the IC showed up and served. That was a nice touch and the firefighters all thought that was pretty neat. We made it through the three meals without having to serve MRE's so things turned out OK and the new caterer was able to get set up and operate well for the duration of the incident.
This fire had the greatest monetary loss of structures of any Colorado fire. We lost a few more than 500 structures but it could have just as easily been 2,000. We lucked out and got a tiny bit of rain on the third and fourth days (0.03 inches each day) which was just enough so that we could safely take out the head of the fire and secure the flanks.
This fire had the greatest monetary loss of structures of any Colorado fire. We lost a few more than 500 structures but it could have just as easily been 2,000. We lucked out and got a tiny bit of rain on the third and fourth days (0.03 inches each day) which was just enough so that we could safely take out the head of the fire and secure the flanks.
PUTTING THIS FIRE OUT WAS AN AWESOME WIN IN ANYBODY'S BOOK!!!
2 comments:
It does seem that the looters are moving in after every disaster now.
Looters are the lowest of the low - or at least with all the lowest of the low....
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