2013 TRADITIONAL SHOOTING OF THE CHRISTMAS BALLS

This is a photo of me finishing off the last of the Christmas balls at our traditional visit to the rifle range.  It is always fun for me to take the kids and grand kids that want to go out and shoot the glass balls I spend much of the year looking for at yard sales and at DI since they make very few of them anymore.  If you look close at the photo you can see the parachute cord strung across the plywood.  There are a couple of pieces of balls left that I shot before we pulled out.  I also shot the screw holding the parachute cord in placed on the right side.  That made a couple of participants smile.  Me and my youngest son.

THIS HAS TURNED INTO A FUN TRADITION THAT EVERYONE LOOKS FORWARD TO.

WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE????

It has been a while since I had anything to say on here.  Not because I didn't have anything to say, but mainly because I just didn't take the time to sit down and take care of it.  A lot has happened since I was on here last. I had a very good fire season, at least for me, and ended the season with four fires.  The Black Forest in Colorado I already wrote about.  About a month after the Black Forest assignment I went to Boise, Idaho on a small fire assignment to help them prepare for and fight any smaller fires that exceeded the initial attack.   This was a fun assignment on standby and we were utilized on a small (about 1,000 acres) fire that we were able to catch on the second day.  The small team I was with thought this was a worthwhile assignment as the fire we were assigned would likely have grown to a large incident had we not been right there and ready to support the small team that was assigned.  There were six of us on this assignment and it was interesting that there was nearly 200 years of experience on the team.  All of us had served together elsewhere and we enjoyed getting back together again.

In the last two weeks of August I headed north to Ennis, Montana and the Eureka fire.  This was a relatively small fire (nearly 6500 acres) that was managed by a Type 3 (smallest organized team size) that mainly came from the local resource management agencies.  I was really the only member that came into the incident from a long distance.  I had worked with many of the team members elsewhere on fires and got reacquainted with a co-worker I had worked with on the Philipsburg District from 1980 to 1981 during my assignment on that district.  It was a great assignment and like the other fires this year, shortly after I arrived it rained and gave us the opportunity to catch it.  I spent eleven days on this fire.  I had hopes of seeing one of my previous Forest Supervisors that is stationed near this fire but we just couldn't work it out.  I felt bad about that but the times that were available really didn't fit into either of our schedules.

In the middle of September I headed to California and the Rim fire that had burned most of the summer and was finally controlled during my assignment at 256,569 acres.  Like the others we got a little bit of rain that helped us catch it and I only spent 12 days on this one.  I went out as Supply Unit Leader on this assignment and spent most of my time there sending materials and supplies back to the Supply Depot at North Zone. While I was assigned to this incident it was managed by a Type 2 team from California.  Previous to our assignment there had been four other Type 1 (the highest qualified) teams assigned.  I am looking forward to getting the notification of the fire loss on this one in the spring after everything is cleaned and put away.  Even though the management of the fire changed hands a lot of times I felt like we easily met the loss tolerance allowed.  If not the last man standing (ME) gets to take the hit for not managing the supplies properly.  I still think we will be good with what we sent back.

Between and after these assignments I worked at my new job inspecting a new 345 kV power line they are constructing through this area.  I have shared a job with a guy I worked with for many years at the Forest Service.  On this assignment I have had the privilege of working with many of the finest heavy equipment operators in the world.  It has and continues to be a good assignment and I am learning a lot of new things while working on it.  I am happy that I accepted the offer from the company I work for to go to work for them.