Tagged -- fire camp 2006

Meet Karen. I can't remember her last name but I do remember her a one of the most patient, nicest people you'll ever meet. She is from northern NM, works for some gov't agency and started going to fire s about the same time I did. We worked some fires and then next thing we knew, were sent to a fire in her "neighborhood". After the team took a few weeks off, we were all sent to southern ID to a fire for a few days, then to one in northern ID. The rest of the pics are from that same fire. I traveled for two loooooong days to get there, found myself in the middle of a church ballfield full of very deep dust. It was funny. We evidently were the biggest act in town. The locals would drive around and around the camp gawking at us. We had fun taking pics and waving to them. A little mom and pop grocery store made wonderful salsa! It save my sanity. I bought two containers and took them on up north to keep me going for awhile. We southwesterners need our necessities after all. It took 5-6 hojurs driving to get up to the camp outside of Stanley, ID.

We had to hit every Walmart on the way to get warmer clothes, thank goodness for the warning. I'll do a post with full pics some day and show why!

We drove through Sun Valley to get there and fell in love with the country. I had been gone for a week by then and was really missing my family and thank goodness for our cell phone plan, I could call a lot and stay in touch.

This is the camp we took over as the third team for a very huge complex of fires. It is only about 1/3 of the line of vehicles that was there. At night there were really a lot and it probably extended 1/4 mile, all three to four line of cars and trucks. When one of the fires started towards the camp from downhill, very dangerous, they had to to an enormous burnout downhill to protect us. You could see no more than 30 -40 feet, could hardly breathe, the sun was just a big red ball in the sky and plenty of ash falling in camp. Great adventure for we asthmatics. Jon showed up the morning of our second day there and what a joy! We worked a lot of odd hours, but he still got to snore for me every night. One gal in a tent near ours said that she enjoyed listening to us giggle and talk every night when Jon got to our tent. Yes, we knew others might hear us so we minded our p's and q's. I think we were just punchy from lack of rest. My typical day started at 5:00 am if I was going to shower before breakfast, then eat and report to work by 6:00. We would eat our tables for lunch and take "half hour" for dinner. The camp ws so spread out that it could take 5-10 minutes just to get in the line and then wait. We learned early in the summer how to avoid the crews or it would take forever to get through the food line.

There were over twenty of these YERTS. It took less than 24 hours to empty, take down and pack them up to go back to the cache. It really is something to watch. Sometimes, equipment will be set up on a table out in the open to finish up the finances for the fire. Kind of funny.

This is my Hunny Bunny, in the plaid shirt, in the Communication YERT. The gal with the hat is from Snowflake, AZ. She was always dress to the T . I got the biggest kick out of it because most of us look pretty ragged within a day or two . Sixteen hour days will do that to you! Mac is the guy next to Jon and was my friend when he requested Jon be sent up there. He was pretty funny. He knows us well enough to know that we get tired of being separated by work and went to the bother of jumping through the hoops to get Jon and not just whoever. He works for AZ state
something and has known Jon for quite awhile.

Some how I just lost two pics, oops!
One was the interior of the finance yurt (just found out I was misspelling yurt) and the other was
Cove Fort. We stopped there on the way home for lunch and some rest. We loved it so much that we went up there in 2007 to do demonstrations for the Cove Fort Days in August. Another story.

Finally we got home and Gabe greeted us . What fun to watch him try to fill Papa's boots! He also loved the big old dirty hard hat from the fire collection. Our big boy was only about 26-27 months old by then. What do you think. Should he grow his hair back out? He looks a lot like Aunt Sassy doesn't he?