The Wildland Firefighters Diary 3 (Im Going To The "La Brea" Fire)

Life can be very interesting at times and when certain events unfold in ways that some of mankind will call coincidental, I choose to thank God and look at nothing as coincidence but more as a prayer answered. As many know if you've been utilizing Allvoices as a source of news, I'm a wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service. I run a chainsaw on a handcrew based out of the Angeles National Forest. This is my third year fighting fire and I have written about some of my experiences in previous articles that can be found on the site. (Wildland Firefighters Diary 1 & 2) I thought I would write an article before I went on a fire this time to bid farewell and also say a few things about what I have experienced up to this point.

I have been "out of service" so to speak for the last two weeks dealing with some issues, kidney stones being one of them. All the while I have watched California light up in flames as I sat in the compounds of my Los Angeles home. Its hard to explain how I felt watching California on fire and not be a part of putting it out. I felt like I needed to be there and internally it drove me crazy.

As I've written in other articles, I'm a practicing Christian and I personally believe that when your living in the spirit God hears your prayers. As I sat at home for the last couple of weeks not able work, I went to the next best thing and wrote about all the fires. I did my best to report them in a factual sense rather than a biased point of view from a firefighter. I didn't want to sound like a baseball player who took steroids writing about others baseball players so I just stated facts rather than opinion. For me, it was the next best thing besides being able to be there. So, for the last few weeks my energy has been on the fires.

I have friends who believe in the law of attraction from the "Secret". Personally, I have never watched it but I entertain his idea of whatever I believe will happen will manifest through my thoughts. Personally, I choose to look at it from a spiritual sense in that whatever I pray for and ask in Jesus name, God will answer....in his time. I do my best to live in the spirit and I constantly pray throughout the day. One of my prayers of late has been asking God to be able to go and fight the "La Brea" fire in Santa Barbara. I have written three articles on that fire and have been praying about and over since the day it started. Guess what....I got the call from my crew boss this morning. My crew is being sent to help fight the "La Brea" fire and I will be on the line by tomorrow afternoon.

Whether you believe in God, the law of attraction, or pure coincidence, I wanted to share my experience with whoever read this. I choose to believe its God answering my prayers for the good of me and the county of Santa Barbara. Please keep in mind, I'm assigned to the Angeles National Forest and I'm being sent to the Los Padres National Forest. With all the fires going on in California, none of which are in the Angeles, we are being sent to where I asked God to go in prayer.

By 0700 I will be at my station in Arcadia, California and be on the road up the coast shortly after that. The "La Brea" fire is 85% contained but hopefully will get it to 100% by the time we leave there. I will more than likely be gone for two weeks as that is the longest we can stay out on a fire per our time cap. The mop up stages after containment will be going on even after I finish my assignment. So, with that I bid all my Allvoices friends farewell for the time