One of the “worst-case scenarios” discussed during our "eclipscalypse" meeting was the possibility that a large area fire might break out before the weekend deluge of visitors began. The litany of problems this would create is hard to cover, but snarling traffic and putting yet another added strain on depleted fire fighting resources are two big ones. Well, that happened.
On Thursday night, just as we were finishing up a 12-hour shift of mop up on a small three-acre fire that had more or less put to bed a couple of days earlier, we received a call over the radio that a significant slope over had occurred on a nearby fire. ( For those of you new to wildfire, a slope over is when a fire crosses over an already established containment line.) The sky confirmed this news with a smudge of gray smoke rising in the east. Within a few minutes dispatch requested our resources and we are the 45-minute drive back to the base, where they would decide how to use us.
When we arrived the Incident Command Post, we waited—as usual. There is typically quite a bit of hurry up and wait, confusion and cluster fuck that occurs during these times, as strategies and tactics and logistics must try to keep up with a quickly changing crisis. But after 45 minutes or so we had our directions, and headed to the fire, which had grown at least 5000 acres in the last few hours. Developing an offensive plan to stop it was impossible, so we took on a defensive strategy—meaning we were going to save houses.
My engine headed into the smoke with one other and quickly came to a little red house, where a woman was out frantically hosing down all the vegetation between her and her house, of which there was plenty. A dog, clearly a nursing female got in front of the truck as if to inspect whether we were worthy of entry. She decided we were all right, and after some coaxing got out of our way.
A dozer came in and cut a line around the house, about a seventy-foot circle around the home. Now we had a clear perimeter to defend. A hand crew hiked in to help us contain in spot fires that might break out in that perimeter.
I went around spraying the wild shrubs and grasses that were within the perimeter, coming close again to the dog mom. Her pups were behind her, in a fenced off area, and I made sure to keep a distance from her—but she seemed to understand I was the least of her worries. She just stood in front of the fence that housed her pups and stared pensively at the oncoming flames.
The first assault from the fire came from the south. It hit our dozer line, but the flames were small, fueled only by grass and light winds. The real problem was ten to twenty feet from the line. There, small junipers went wild with flame, spraying fat embers that dazzled against the blue evening sky, and scattered into the yellow grass near the home. We ran after them all, shooting mist, while the hand crew pounded at them with their shovels.
(Fire approaching our line)
(Embers spraying at crew members as they watch for spots)
After ten minutes of this, the flames died down; our line had held. The fire made about three different attacks, all similar to the first, and we managed to hold them all back. By one in the morning, the house was safely surrounded by black, and the fire had moved on.
We went on ‘patrol’ status—meaning every thirty minutes we drove up and down the road to which we were assigned, to make sure no other houses were in jeopardy. We would intermittently park, and catch a few minutes of shut eye. We were on about hour twenty, and the sleep came all too easy, but my dreams were strained bizarre and broken. The radio would buzz, and we would wake up, and drive around some more. Eventually, the sun rose and we started moping up smokes that were left near the house and the road. Finally at about 10 am we were told to head back to the Incident Command Post to get some breakfast and sleep. On our way out, I spotted the mom dog sleeping peacefully in the dirt, her pups all laying next to her safely surrounded by cold black ash.
