April 9th

Overcast this am, 7C.
Must be spring, garage sale signs are starting to 'bloom'. Went in to Victoria and Langford after darts yesterday. Got home around 6 so had a late supper.
Got to do some things in the motor home so it will be ready for the trip to Salmon Arm.

Here is the next part of "Fire in My Belly".

Chapter 3 – The Rush and Time Turned Back

T

o be honest learning about Florida fire behavior wasn’t the only reason I wanted to be involved in the fire scene.  The first little wildfire I helped with was only a ½ acre in size, but from the moment I arrived and started beating down the flames and building a hand guard my spirit soared!  Thanks to my training regime I was physically fit, I had become accustomed to the heat and the humidity didn’t bother me.

  I was born again!  I was doing the kind of work I thrived on and was physically younger than I had been in years.  The feeling made me work harder and I remember one of the other staff stopping to stare at me and asking if I was all right.  When I answered, yes, and asked why, the reply was, “Because you have a silly grin on your face.”

  A few minutes later when we found an unexploded mortar shell lying half in the fire, my feelings weren’t dampened at all!

  Jackson Guard had the usual complement of fire fighting tools but in addition they had, for me, some new ones that were unique.  In BC we used ‘Cats’, but we hired them complete with operator, at Eglin we had our own ‘Cats’ and I learned how to load, unload and operate a ‘Cat’ after40 odd years in the business.  They had fire trucks equipped with pumps and 1000-gallon water tanks and foam delivering capability.  We had a 6-wheel drive ATV that could be used to light fire with drip torches on either side or could be used to deliver water and foam from a 100-gallon tank.  We had quads that had built in 30-gallon drip torches that we could go down roads or across country lighting prescribed burns and we had an armoured personnel carrier!

  This last was an amazing machine.  It was converted to an all round fire unit.  We could go down dirt roads at 40 miles per hour lighting fire from a rear mounted flame thrower, we could go through the bush like a bulldozer – it was capable of pushing over trees up to a foot in diameter with its body width blade.  It had a 300-gallon tank from which we could disperse fire-fighting foam from a water cannon!  Man toys! No way! We also had female staff and they were as adept and as capable as any man.  So by definition they were “firefighter” toys.

  So there I was just turned 63, doing again the one thing I had always got the greatest kick out of.  It was hard to believe that only a few months earlier I had thought those days were gone forever.

Chapter 4 – Some of the Actions or It wasn’t all Fun

M

any of the wildfires and controlled fires were routine, but a few of them had some memorable moments and in the following paragraphs I will endeavor to relate those moments as they happened.

  As mentioned elsewhere one of the tools we had were four wheel ATV’s – Quads as they are now referred to.  One of the innovations that was developed for either burning-off along a fire guard or for prescribed fire ignition was a long (75’) flexible metal tube that attached to a five gallon fuel tank containing a mixture of diesel and gasoline.  The tube was similar in its design to a seeping hose used for watering gardens. But this tube had a burning wick secured to the end.  So as we progressed along the route where we wished to ignite a fire, we had a continuous seep of fuel that was ignited as the wick passed over it.  It was much more efficient than a conventional “drip torch”.

   I had grown quite accustomed to using the ATV with both the drip torches and the “fire snake” as it was dubbed.  When igniting fuel for a prescribed burn we did not always stay to trails or roads we often went through the brush and forest.  On this particular burn I was starting the burn from the middle in order to create a convection source and consequently was going through some heavy bush.  Our machines weighed close to a thousand pounds with a full load so they usually were able to ride down most of the sapling size trees and bush clumps.      However while lighting the driver tends to keep an eye to the rear as well as the front to make sure that some problem hasn’t occurred and that the ignition is happening as desired.  On this occasion I was doing just that and while my attention was to the rear the machine road up onto an unusually dense thicket of brush and instead of crushing it down, climbed it and in a flash was falling backwards with me falling backwards out of the driver’s seat.  I don’t know whether it was luck or instinct but as I hit the ground my knees were fully bent back onto my chest and my feet were in the air, as the machine fell I was able to deflect it enough so that it landed on its side beside me.  I needed no reminding that I had a line of fuel stretched out behind me and the flames were following along quickly with the brush igniting just as quickly.

   We were working in pairs and one of the other fellows was behind me and to the side; by the time I got to my feet he was beside me and together were able to right my machine, turn off the fuel to first my “fire snake” then his.  On the second try my machine restarted and we exited the area.

  The worst day I had in the field was during the preparation stage on another prescribed burn,.

  On this particular day two of us were assigned the job of safeguarding all the wooden power transmission poles by constructing firebreaks within the area we were going to burn.  The job was simple enough, but there had been an error in identifying the correct number of poles and the time in which it would take to prepare them.  We were just over half finished when initial ignition was started.  The temperature was about 85 degrees and we were working in direct sun.  When the word got passed that ignition was underway we had to increase our efforts to get finished.  I made the mistake of stripping to the waist and by the time we were finished my body had overheated and I was well on the way to heat stroke.  This condition is extremely dangerous as the body after a certain point will not cool down voluntarily.  I was sick to my stomach, dizzy, hot and starting to hallucinate.

  I was put into one of the vehicles with the air conditioning on full and told to lie down across the seat.  Luckily that was sufficient to stop the effects of the heat.    After about 15 minutes I felt pretty good so I figured I might as well go back to work.  I quickly found that was a mistake; as soon as I was back in the heat my body temperature started to ‘skyrocket’.  I spent the rest of the afternoon watching everyone else from my air-conditioned rest area.

  On still another prescribed fire I got myself into another situation that emphasized how easy a mistake or an error can get people into trouble in doing what is quite routine.

  We were doing a late afternoon burn that we knew would continue into the night.  It was along a secondary road that was used extensively during the day but not much once evening arrived.  We set up a checkpoint and an escort vehicle for any late traffic and then commenced the burn.

  There was no wind and as the evenings were cool we decided to do a straight 4-sided ignition pattern.  I was working by myself on the west perimeter.  This area had been shaded during the day by a larger than usual stand of pine and did not ignite readily. Consequently I was moving slower than usual.                                                                             

    I had noticed when we did our reconnaissance of the area  that there was a bit of windfall along a creek that ran through the middle of the prescribed area.  I figured this would ignite easier and would help draw the fire as well.  So just after dark I headed the ¼ mile or so down to it and found that it did start easily.  I worked back and forth and got it going quite well then decided I should head back up to the road that I was supposed to be working from.

I headed out from where I was working but in a few moments I found fire on all four sides of me, this created a loss of direction and a tiny surge of panic.  I first started one way then immediately decided it couldn’t be correct.  What to do?  I sat there for a few moments then shut my machine off and listened and looked.  I decided I would move closer to the area I was pretty sure I had just lit and when I saw the windfall that was still visible I knew I was correct.

  I turned my machine so I was headed straight away from there and picked out a spot where the fire in front seemed the smallest and headed for it.  When I got close, I could see the headlights of another ATV on the other side of the line of fire, as I got up to the flames I turned and paralleled them until at last I found a spot where there was only some grass and small brush burning, turned and full powered my machine across and out on to the road!  Whew!!

    What I found out later was that the area along the traveled secondary road had ignited quickly and the person working there had finished her section early and decided to work on around and along the dirt road that I had been assigned.  Not knowing where I was, she just kept going and ended up cutting me off.