Life on a 500,000 acre fire complex for two weeks
I got the call August 1st asking if I was available for an assignment with the Division of Forestry taking an engine from our fire department to a wildland fire in interior Alaska. This year's fire season has been a little late in coming, but hit us all at once with multiple large fires kicking up across the state in late July. Getting a few things organized in a hurry, I woke up the next morning and headed to the station to meet up with the rest of the crew, Danny Clemons and John Atwell, and get the truck.
We started out intending to go to Anderson with a type 1 engine and do structure protection on the Railbelt Complex there, but when you work much with Forestry you quickly realize that everything changes. After several hours of waiting around for our orders, we were still unclear as to which fire we were headed to and even what rig we were to take. Over the course of the first day our orders were changed, and this is the type 6 truck we actually wound up taking.
Evidently somebody, somewhere in the DOF messed up, because we had a group of four engines just sitting around for an entire day waiting to find out where to go. Eventually we went back to the station and slept, getting up the next day and finally receiving our orders to head out. This time we were headed to Circle, Alaska, a small town of 73 or so people at the very end of the Steese Highway on the Yukon River. The fire was the Crazy Mountain Complex and consisted of several different fires around Circle and the nearby town Central, totalling 447,420 acres.
Passing through Nenana on the way north we got a glimpse of the Railbelt complex, which has been burning for a good portion of the summer near Fairbanks.
The Steese Highway brings to stark realization the remoteness of most of Alaska, with well over 100 miles of dirt road heading off to only two small towns, and still a major enough road to deserve recognition as state highway 6. We were very happy to be in the lead.
The smoke got thick about fifty miles out and visibility dropped significantly. We hit Circle and set up camp, and the next morning attended the briefing to get our assignments. Our concentration was to be the Bluff Creek fire, the only one burning on the road system between Central and Circle.
Over the next two weeks we became very familiar with the miles of the one single road that went through the burn. Here's another engine crew working on getting a Mark III pump started to run water supply from a small pond.
Visibility lifted somewhat and the views gave a sort of an idea what the area looks like without fire.
We spent most of the day supplying water to crews working alongside the highway, with heavy smoke creating a hazard to drivers and crews alike. John and Danny fill a fedco for a crew member while a forestry engine approaches through the haze.
One thing that is still always cool to me is the way the sun looks through the smoke on a wildfire. This photo is fairly accurate in color, although it feels a bit more vivid in person.
On our first day on the fire we had some pump issues and were forced to spend the evening driving 160 miles back to Fairbanks to get the machine fixed. We stopped into a saw shop at 0600 the next day and the guys there were very helpful, getting us back on the road to Circle in almost no time with a running pump. Along the way back we stopped to get a shot of the fireweed blooming in an old burn from two years back. This fire burned over a million acres, leaving plenty of room for the fireweed to grow after it was gone. The pall of smoke from our fire fills half the horizon, leaving me wishing I could have been there before the fire to get this same shot.
There were literally mountains of fireweed growing along the highway this summer.
Eventually we made it back to the fire and got lined out by or Division Supervisor with the job of driving up and down the road looking for things that need done or people that need water.
About this point in the fire, trees with root systems that had been burning out for days began to fall, turning the road into a hazardous minefield. Our biggest job quickly became keeping the trees chopped up and tossed aside as fast as they fell, which turned out to be a bit exciting at times.
Meanwhile the fire burned on, creeping slowly through the thick mossy tundra flooring the woods and torching the conveniently flammable spruce with little effort.
You can get a little idea how hazardous the woods can be, with trees falling right and left and visibility measured in feet. Danny and I took off on foot to check the extension of an arm of fire that hadn't been scouted out yet.
The quicker wildlife didn't seem to have much trouble evading the flames, but more than one rabbit met its demise running along the smoky road.
At this point I figured out that AWB worked better for me than the "cloudy" setting and lost the orange tint which, however real it may be, seems to detract from the pictures. Here's Danny dragging a hoseline through the thick brush and knocking down some heat.
As much fun as this job is, it's really not a simple one, and you can sort of see why. Danny digs at some heat under the thick moss, with visibility choked to a minimum and dangerously burned trees all around.
Somewhere along the line the days began blurring together, and I really couldn't tell one day from another looking back on them now. We filled with water, dumped our water, cut trees, delivered water to crews, ran pumps, patrolled the road, and all sorts of jobs we could find to keep ourselves useful. Here's Danny ready on the wye to switch water flow as soon as this engine is topped off.
At lunchtime one day, Danny demonstrates what just three of the small packets of coffee creamer in an MRE will do when exposed to flame. Hey, you don't become a firefighter because you DON'T like fire. Your coffee creamer will do the same thing... try it sometime.
Here's a 180 degree pano of the black off a portion of road that burned really well.
On our road patrol one morning we spotted a little rodent limping slowly across the road, and stopped to check it out. It turned out to be a mink or ermine, we weren't sure which, with burnt feet and singed whiskers. He was having a hard time, so we gave him a comfy bed and some water.
I guess he may have been looking for a nice place to curl up and die, and he found it. A few hours later when we checked on him he was stiff and cooling, so we gave him back to the woods we found him in and kept up with the work.
Danny watches the fire during a bit of recon we did on foot.
Visibility is still limited and fire is still burning strong across the whole complex, but it's not very active near the road, which is the only place we can touch it.
Thousands of acres of burnt trees present both beauty and danger to those working within.
Off in the distance, a roar can be heard as a faint orange glow marks another tree torching to the top.
Trees of course kept falling across the road. Sometime we'd pass a rig going the other direction and round a corner to find an obstacle like this, absolutely impassable and fallen only in the last few seconds. We'd cut these out of the road with our heads up and keeping an eye on the other trees around us. Luckily we didn't get crushed, and had only one close encounter where John had to stomp the gas to get the truck out of the way.
Danny chops up a freshly fallen snag while the root system burns away in the background.
Visibility started to improve after a light rain fell, and we got a little better impression of the lay of the land around us. Still chopping trees and hucking logs off the roadway...
While working the pump one day keeping the water flowing, I got a good view of the chopper coming in for more water. A little rainfall cleaned up the smoke a bit and let air attack get back into the game, helping the crews on the line by cooling off the hotter spots.
Lunchtime antics again lifted the spirits, but this time with a feathery touch instead of flames. :rofl
It was at this point in the fire that it started raining, giving us a lot of spare time. Instead of sending us home, however, they kept us for a while longer as the only initial attack resources in the area. We spent our time as usefully as possible of course.
One of the pumps stopped working very well, and had some problems with flooding of the cylinder. Solution: Apply flame.
As our time on the fire wound to a close, we eventually got a solid date set for demobilization. We spent our last days rolling up the hose the crews had laid out on the firelines. Here's a beautifully constructed fireline near the river that helped save a trapper's cabin, with John carrying the last load of hose out to the roadway.
On our last day on the fire we moved down the road to Central and cleaned up the hoselines there, and then got all the paperwork dealt with and headed back to Fairbanks planning to crash for the night and head the rest of the way home in the morning.
The next day was spent cleaning up the truck and resting, and after two weeks on the fireline, we're glad to be home. I hope you all enjoy the pictures!
We started out intending to go to Anderson with a type 1 engine and do structure protection on the Railbelt Complex there, but when you work much with Forestry you quickly realize that everything changes. After several hours of waiting around for our orders, we were still unclear as to which fire we were headed to and even what rig we were to take. Over the course of the first day our orders were changed, and this is the type 6 truck we actually wound up taking.
Evidently somebody, somewhere in the DOF messed up, because we had a group of four engines just sitting around for an entire day waiting to find out where to go. Eventually we went back to the station and slept, getting up the next day and finally receiving our orders to head out. This time we were headed to Circle, Alaska, a small town of 73 or so people at the very end of the Steese Highway on the Yukon River. The fire was the Crazy Mountain Complex and consisted of several different fires around Circle and the nearby town Central, totalling 447,420 acres.
Passing through Nenana on the way north we got a glimpse of the Railbelt complex, which has been burning for a good portion of the summer near Fairbanks.
The Steese Highway brings to stark realization the remoteness of most of Alaska, with well over 100 miles of dirt road heading off to only two small towns, and still a major enough road to deserve recognition as state highway 6. We were very happy to be in the lead.
The smoke got thick about fifty miles out and visibility dropped significantly. We hit Circle and set up camp, and the next morning attended the briefing to get our assignments. Our concentration was to be the Bluff Creek fire, the only one burning on the road system between Central and Circle.
Over the next two weeks we became very familiar with the miles of the one single road that went through the burn. Here's another engine crew working on getting a Mark III pump started to run water supply from a small pond.
Visibility lifted somewhat and the views gave a sort of an idea what the area looks like without fire.
We spent most of the day supplying water to crews working alongside the highway, with heavy smoke creating a hazard to drivers and crews alike. John and Danny fill a fedco for a crew member while a forestry engine approaches through the haze.
One thing that is still always cool to me is the way the sun looks through the smoke on a wildfire. This photo is fairly accurate in color, although it feels a bit more vivid in person.
On our first day on the fire we had some pump issues and were forced to spend the evening driving 160 miles back to Fairbanks to get the machine fixed. We stopped into a saw shop at 0600 the next day and the guys there were very helpful, getting us back on the road to Circle in almost no time with a running pump. Along the way back we stopped to get a shot of the fireweed blooming in an old burn from two years back. This fire burned over a million acres, leaving plenty of room for the fireweed to grow after it was gone. The pall of smoke from our fire fills half the horizon, leaving me wishing I could have been there before the fire to get this same shot.
There were literally mountains of fireweed growing along the highway this summer.
Eventually we made it back to the fire and got lined out by or Division Supervisor with the job of driving up and down the road looking for things that need done or people that need water.
About this point in the fire, trees with root systems that had been burning out for days began to fall, turning the road into a hazardous minefield. Our biggest job quickly became keeping the trees chopped up and tossed aside as fast as they fell, which turned out to be a bit exciting at times.
Meanwhile the fire burned on, creeping slowly through the thick mossy tundra flooring the woods and torching the conveniently flammable spruce with little effort.
You can get a little idea how hazardous the woods can be, with trees falling right and left and visibility measured in feet. Danny and I took off on foot to check the extension of an arm of fire that hadn't been scouted out yet.
The quicker wildlife didn't seem to have much trouble evading the flames, but more than one rabbit met its demise running along the smoky road.
At this point I figured out that AWB worked better for me than the "cloudy" setting and lost the orange tint which, however real it may be, seems to detract from the pictures. Here's Danny dragging a hoseline through the thick brush and knocking down some heat.
As much fun as this job is, it's really not a simple one, and you can sort of see why. Danny digs at some heat under the thick moss, with visibility choked to a minimum and dangerously burned trees all around.
Somewhere along the line the days began blurring together, and I really couldn't tell one day from another looking back on them now. We filled with water, dumped our water, cut trees, delivered water to crews, ran pumps, patrolled the road, and all sorts of jobs we could find to keep ourselves useful. Here's Danny ready on the wye to switch water flow as soon as this engine is topped off.
At lunchtime one day, Danny demonstrates what just three of the small packets of coffee creamer in an MRE will do when exposed to flame. Hey, you don't become a firefighter because you DON'T like fire. Your coffee creamer will do the same thing... try it sometime.
Here's a 180 degree pano of the black off a portion of road that burned really well.
On our road patrol one morning we spotted a little rodent limping slowly across the road, and stopped to check it out. It turned out to be a mink or ermine, we weren't sure which, with burnt feet and singed whiskers. He was having a hard time, so we gave him a comfy bed and some water.
I guess he may have been looking for a nice place to curl up and die, and he found it. A few hours later when we checked on him he was stiff and cooling, so we gave him back to the woods we found him in and kept up with the work.
Danny watches the fire during a bit of recon we did on foot.
Visibility is still limited and fire is still burning strong across the whole complex, but it's not very active near the road, which is the only place we can touch it.
Thousands of acres of burnt trees present both beauty and danger to those working within.
Off in the distance, a roar can be heard as a faint orange glow marks another tree torching to the top.
Trees of course kept falling across the road. Sometime we'd pass a rig going the other direction and round a corner to find an obstacle like this, absolutely impassable and fallen only in the last few seconds. We'd cut these out of the road with our heads up and keeping an eye on the other trees around us. Luckily we didn't get crushed, and had only one close encounter where John had to stomp the gas to get the truck out of the way.
Danny chops up a freshly fallen snag while the root system burns away in the background.
Visibility started to improve after a light rain fell, and we got a little better impression of the lay of the land around us. Still chopping trees and hucking logs off the roadway...
While working the pump one day keeping the water flowing, I got a good view of the chopper coming in for more water. A little rainfall cleaned up the smoke a bit and let air attack get back into the game, helping the crews on the line by cooling off the hotter spots.
Lunchtime antics again lifted the spirits, but this time with a feathery touch instead of flames. :rofl
It was at this point in the fire that it started raining, giving us a lot of spare time. Instead of sending us home, however, they kept us for a while longer as the only initial attack resources in the area. We spent our time as usefully as possible of course.
One of the pumps stopped working very well, and had some problems with flooding of the cylinder. Solution: Apply flame.
As our time on the fire wound to a close, we eventually got a solid date set for demobilization. We spent our last days rolling up the hose the crews had laid out on the firelines. Here's a beautifully constructed fireline near the river that helped save a trapper's cabin, with John carrying the last load of hose out to the roadway.
On our last day on the fire we moved down the road to Central and cleaned up the hoselines there, and then got all the paperwork dealt with and headed back to Fairbanks planning to crash for the night and head the rest of the way home in the morning.
The next day was spent cleaning up the truck and resting, and after two weeks on the fireline, we're glad to be home.
I hope you all enjoy the pictures!
John Borland
www.morffed.com
www.morffed.com
0
Comments
Cuong
I like the wildlife shots.
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So sad about the little ermine (or whatever it was). :cry
I concur, it's fascinating to get a glimpse into your world. For some reason, my boring desk job is seeming extra boring now.
Anyway, thanks for a great post.
-joel
Link to my Smugmug site
BTW, the bird shot was freaking awesome
My Photo Blog -->http://dthorpphoto.blogspot.com/
Thanks for sharing your story & the pictures, they were great
Nightspidy
Thanks for tackling such challenges on behalf of we ordinary people.
(shoot first, then ask questions)
www.cdub.ca | www.cdubphoto.smugmug.com | Twitter | Canon 5DII + Canon 24-105 f/4 L, Canon 580EX II, Gitzo GT1541 + Acratech GV2L
Thanks for sharing this!
Blog: http://blog.scolephoto.com
www.morffed.com
I love the hills when the fireweed comes in, the contrast between the burnt snags and the brightly colored flower is great.