1,072 Acre Fire in Homer, AK

coldclimb

Sometime early last week a downed powerline started a bit of a fire on a hillside near Homer, AK that quickly spread into a few acres and threatened a few houses. The next day a few state resources were dispatched, but before they could get a knock on things, the fire blew up from around thirty acres to somewhere over seven hundred acres. Our local fire departments threw together a strike team to head south and assist, since the state's resources are stretched thin this early in the fire season.

After driving all night in our fire engines some 300 miles, we hit the fireline before the sun came up. A forest fire is an uncommonly beautiful thing, but unfortunately I only brought my P&S this trip, so I couldn't get a decent shot when we pulled up on a hillside overlooking a dimly lit slope with cool smoke drifting through the black outlines of trees. Here and there a "candle" glowed bright from the top of a burning tree to add to the feel of the moment. You don't ge to share in that, however, so here's a hotspot we worked come morning.





The fire didn't burn very throughly, leaving a mottled and undefined "black" with a lot of fuel left to burn still. Fortunately things weren't nearly as hot as the day before, so we didn't have much trouble. Helitack maintained a constant noise overhead.




Our first day ended with us camping at a local school. Several of us didn't have tents though, so they rigged a makeshift shelter and survived the frost quite well.



I'm getting cut off for now, but I've got a few more pics coming sometime soon! Sorry for the delay!

coldclimb

Alright, continuing: Here's Tommy working a hotspot a couple days in. When the sun wasn't out things got a bit chilly, especially with the soaking conditions we were in using hoselines.




When water is scarce or even not available at all, simple grubbing with a tool is the best option to put out the fire. Just mixing hot dirt with cool dirt helps disipate the heat and prevent continued burning. Here Steven cuts away an embankment with smoldering heat underneath, helped by a bit of water from the hoseline and a light rain.




Very often in firefighting conditions are such that you can't even see your feet. In this case it's just a small hotspot Greg is working, but sometimes the whole fireline is like this. It gets a bit tough to find and fight the fire then.




The dense wood in the heavier fuels holds heat remarkably well. When we find hotspots in tree stumps or logs, we first have to expose the heat, and then cool it either with water or grubbing in the cold dirt. Greg exposes the heat inside this stump to let it all cool down.




I couldn't resist a self portrait when I found this log jutting out over a cliff in a small gorge of sorts. My camera promptly blew off the log I balanced it on and took some finagling to finally function again.




The scenery in Homer is hard to beat, with the whole hillside angling down to meet the Kachemak Bay, bordered on the other side by steep mountain slopes and more than a couple glaciers. Here's Greg and Bowzr.




Greg waters down a hotspot in a dangerously burned "snag" with a fedco. These oversized squirtguns are notoriously unreliable as far as keeping the water inside them goes, so firefighters know that any time these come off the truck, we're getting wet. This is a stitch of five or six photos.




We spent six days on the fire total, and with weather getting cooler and more humid we packed up and hit the road back home. Gotta love getting paid to hike around in the great Alaskan outdoors and play with fire at the same time! Hope you got some enjoyment out of it too!

Dogdots

I enjoyed your photos very much. Alaska is a place I hope to visit someday.

Thank-you for sharing

Skippy

coldclimb wrote:

Alright, continuing: Here's Tommy working a hotspot a couple days in. When the sun wasn't out things got a bit chilly, especially with the soaking conditions we were in using hoselines.


The scenery in Homer is hard to beat, with the whole hillside angling down to meet the Kachemak Bay, bordered on the other side by steep mountain slopes and more than a couple glaciers. Here's Greg and Bowzr.




We spent six days on the fire total, and with weather getting cooler and more humid we packed up and hit the road back home. Gotta love getting paid to hike around in the great Alaskan outdoors and play with fire at the same time! Hope you got some enjoyment out of it too!

You are a brave sole you truly are
Thank you for taking the risk of being injured or even killed to bring safety once again to these areas.

I must say your friend on the Right in the image above looks remarkably like Nikolai

Love the shot you stitched of the tall tree .... Skippy
.

Art Scott

fightin dem fires can be tricky work......good captures thanx for sharing......always like to see pix from the big state and you.....

JAG

Ahh...good show! I saw about this fire on channel 2 news. Glad you all got it out before it became a complete disaster like the Big Lake fire did. Super work your doing and as an Alaskan I appreciate all you do!

coldclimb

Thanks everyone! Yeah it's a tough job sometimes, but really I enjoy almost everything about it, so I can't really say I suffer much doing this work. After all, you don't become a firefighter because you DON'T like to play with fire...