firecall!
At 10:46 last night I was woken up out of bed with a phone call. Looking at it, and realizing that it had a 541 number, I got really excited. Sure enough, it was Dale from Grayback asking me if I was ready to go on a fire, even though Wayne had told me to take Wednsday and Thursday off because of my blisters. I said that I thought I could handle it (after all, my first fire!) and proceeded to get the remaining five hours and fourty five minutes of sleep until I would need to wake up to get to the rig by 5:30. Later it turns out that I didn't have to be there until six, but that's another story.
My feet, I had a feeling, were going to pose quite a problem. They were still green, and even though I was taking antibiotics and coating them well with a dab of Bacitracin (doctor's orders!) I still knew that they were going to be hurting. So, I prepared the best I could. I put a smudge of Bacitracin on, followed by a bandaid, followed by moleskin, followed by duct tape, followed by two pairs of socks, before I even thought about putting on my boots. Still, out on the fire the pain was so bad that I had to take a low-dosage Vikadin.
Anyway, the fire. Well, actually I could say the "late" fire, since when we got there it was just a bunch of smoldering ashes. Most of the guys say that initial attack (IA) is the most fun, and mop up is kind of drudge work...I didn't really actually see any "action" at all. Well actually, I think I may have seen some 3 inch flames, but that's about it.
Basically, I spent 13 hours prodding around and feeling the black dirt with my hands, checking for hot spots or smouldering logs. When I found them, I'd take my shovel (or pulaski), and mix the cold dirt around with the hot ash until it stopped smoking or was no longer warm. Towards the end of the day we realized that the fire was pretty much all put out, so we sat down and rested for about an hour, and then made a final grid going over a large area.
For some reason, they want us to come back tomorrow, which apparently means that tomorrow is going to be a really easy day of mostly sitting and occasionally putting out smoky fires.
I got dirtier than I ever have in my life, though.
My feet, I had a feeling, were going to pose quite a problem. They were still green, and even though I was taking antibiotics and coating them well with a dab of Bacitracin (doctor's orders!) I still knew that they were going to be hurting. So, I prepared the best I could. I put a smudge of Bacitracin on, followed by a bandaid, followed by moleskin, followed by duct tape, followed by two pairs of socks, before I even thought about putting on my boots. Still, out on the fire the pain was so bad that I had to take a low-dosage Vikadin.
Anyway, the fire. Well, actually I could say the "late" fire, since when we got there it was just a bunch of smoldering ashes. Most of the guys say that initial attack (IA) is the most fun, and mop up is kind of drudge work...I didn't really actually see any "action" at all. Well actually, I think I may have seen some 3 inch flames, but that's about it.
Basically, I spent 13 hours prodding around and feeling the black dirt with my hands, checking for hot spots or smouldering logs. When I found them, I'd take my shovel (or pulaski), and mix the cold dirt around with the hot ash until it stopped smoking or was no longer warm. Towards the end of the day we realized that the fire was pretty much all put out, so we sat down and rested for about an hour, and then made a final grid going over a large area.
For some reason, they want us to come back tomorrow, which apparently means that tomorrow is going to be a really easy day of mostly sitting and occasionally putting out smoky fires.
I got dirtier than I ever have in my life, though.