The Wildland Firefighters Diary 4 (The Devils Punchbowl Fire 8/20-8/24)

Greetings Allvoices community, it is sure nice to be home. For those who follow my writing or those of you who just stumbled across this article...I am back. After 15 long days, I am once again home. In my last article I wrote about being dispatched to the La Brea Fire in Santa Barbara, California. Well, as my crew boss always saws, in this job you always have to be flexible and everything is subject to change at a moments notice.

August 20th I reported to my Arcadia station set on spending the next two weeks up the coast line battling the La Brea Fire. My mind was set and my bag was packed as I drove the various freeway routes to work. I arrived at the station on time and began my crew duties as a chainsaw operator. Dismantling my saw to nuts and bolts, cleaning it, and then reassembling it in working condition. The task didn't take too long because I do it over and over again. My crew loaded up and we were out of the station by 0830.

Before hitting the road to Santa Barbara, we had to stop at the Little Tujunga Station to pick up some paperwork. I was eager to get to Santa Barbara and see what we were dealing with so anxiety began to set in. My crew boss had said we needed to be at base camp by 1800 for our assignment and that we were working the dangerous night shift. The drive should only take 5 hours so in all reality we were on schedule.

At Little Tujunga the crew sat in the buggy waiting for our crew boss with the paperwork but the dial on my watch kept spinning. Five minutes became ten that then became an hour. Finally my crew boss boarded the bus but he was shaking his head. "We got cancelled" he said. What had happened was that the La Brea fire was pretty much over and the unified command running the show had been turned over to Cal Fire who in turn wanted to use only their own resources on the fire. I work for the U.S. Forest Service which is a whole different cha-cha. (Federal) Everything is subject to change...I have to be flexible. My crew boss disappeared for another couple hours as I sat on the bus waiting to hear what was next.

The verdict came and It wasn't to my liking. We had been reassigned to our own forest (Angeles NF) to clear brush and thin the forest out in fire preparation. In the fire world its grunt work but you take the good with the bad. Now, I read a few Allvoices contributions before I wrote this and one really bothered me. It talked about conspiracy to boost the economy by lighting fires and why do fires burn so long now. For me, it was hard to swallow what was being said. Crews work long hard days thinning out the forest in preparation and fire prevention. The fact of the matter is there is too much forest and in certain areas, the terrain is just inaccessible. Fires burn longer these days partly because of mankind because we turn them off. Years ago, fires would burn until all brush was gone. Nobody stopped them, they just burned. Nowadays, with houses, cabins, etc. right in the thick of things, fires have to be stopped so to prevent death. In stopping the fires, brush grows thicker and thicker. This is a scientific fact.

I spent the first few days thinning the forest out with my crew by Pyramid Lakes just Southwest of the Antelope Valley. The temperature was scorching and the days were long but I got through it. On the third day we got a fire call. Lighting strikes had hit Little Rock and Juniper Hills. It was an hour away but 3 brush fires were burning and we were dispatched. The fire we were assigned to was called the "Punchbowl" fire. When we pulled up it was raining outside but the flames still persisted. This is a perfect example of how hot the fires burn these days with the dry and thick brush. The rain water helped a lot but it didnt turn the fire completely off. Our crew had to jump out and put hand line around it while helicopters dropped water. Los Angeles County inmate crews took the right flank while the Forest Service took the left. After 6 hours we had line around the blaze and began mopping up the 20 acres that burned.

By the time the "overhead" (people in charge) felt comfortable with the fire, we drove to Texas Canyon Station and pitched our tents in there front lawn. It was the nearest station and we were tired so home was where we laid our head. The next morning we ate at Denny's as a crew and then drove back to Little Rock to fine tune the burn area and make sure there weren't anymore hotspots. It was day 4 of my assignment and I started missing my wife and kids as I patrolled the burned area. All that was left was skeletal remains of trees and black ground to walk on. It was ugly. By the evening time we determined the area to be "cold" and rolled up all the hose. We decided to drive to Vallermo Station to spend the night this time which was nice because I got cell service over there. We ate Denny's for dinner and again, pitched our tents. I called home and talked to my wife and little boy. Since I never made it to Santa Barbara there was no telling how long I would be out for. It was a day by day thing.

I laid in my tent exhausted and dirty. I hadn't showered in days but I washed up in the sink at the station. My feet had blisters so I took some ibuprophen and put mole skin over them. It was only day 4 so I had to suck it up. My tent shook and I heard my crew boss say, "Drink water and hydrate, its an extreme fire danger tomorrow. Humidity is in the teens to single digits and the heat is triple digits. Hydrate, I don't want anyone falling out on me!" I pounded two bottles of water and fell asleep before I could let go of the last one.

To be continued...