Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Some real firefighting




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We dropped a total of 68,600 gallons of water on the fire today. We didn't stop the fire. We saved some of the scenic forest around Whiskeytown Lake and kept a road from burning over so people could evacuate, but 5 people still got burned up pretty bad.
I'm beat. Back for more tomorrow, just don't know what division we'll be working. The one picture is another CH 47, a Columbia Helicopters ship I managed in the Butler II fire. I'm in the same kind of copter (Except it's olive drab with pink flames.....Plus we can lift a bigger bucket. 2000 gallons.)

6 comments:

Tina said...

How do you breathe in all of that? Dang!

Stay safe!

flyingvan said...

All those beach party bonfires were good training, it turns out. It's rarely thicker than that, and only for a little while. The real danger of the smoke is the poor visibility. We're constantly keeping track of where everyone is

- Rob said...

Thanks Steve and Byron for some LOL moments at work this morning. Gotta watch who is around me before I start reading blogs about pink flames on manly attack aircraft in the future!

princess slea said...

holy shiz. thanks for taking the time to snap some photos and keep us updated in blogland.

nothing exciting happening around here

Unknown said...

I hope the rest of your 'stay' is routine.

flyingvan said...

Slea---I'm glad nothing exciting is happening there. Sounds like you've had your share of natural disasters lately.
Lee---Nothing's routine here. Every day something different. As long as everyone lands safely at the end of the day it's a good day