the war on fire

Oct. 26


"adopt or perish, now as ever, is natures inexorable imperative."


H.G. Wells.








There is a major war being waged on our soil call the wild fires of California. We are about successful with that war on wild fires as we are on the wars on drugs or terrorism. We are not doing well on all fronts. Why, the rules, magnitude or paradigm has changed. We have to change to meet a new enemy.


As a fireman myself , I can speak with some authority on what it takes to fight fires in wild land setting. Its a special job if you do it as a profession. You need to have skills and physical attributes to operate in woodland setting as opposed to the city or even suburban you see on the nightly news or in your neighborhood. When you decide to be a wild land fireman, you must take what is known as a "pack test".That is where you don a 45lb pack and walk-hike for three miles at a 4min mile pace. If you are a smoke jumper(and crazy to be one) you have to don a 100lb pack for 3 miles. It has been criticized as being too difficult but it saves lives, as few wild land fire fighters ever die of heart problems like there city brothers. I can count on one hand the number of wild land fire I have been in, but they are in no way the level they have experienced in California as of this week. You are looking a mega fires with minor past experience base to combat such a disaster. It like the Katrina floods. A new book has to be written. Before this is over, thousands of citizens will be homeless and the earth will be scorched at close to a million acres.








What you physically experience when working the fire line is just hot hard labor. Cutting trees, working a hoe or carrying a water pak(water weighs 8lbs per gal.) to put out small areas. While you are working your ass off, you have to content with smoke, heat and the potential of the fire shifting quickly and entrapping you so you can not escape. Unlike the local firemen who will be back in the station, in an hour or so after a fire, in wild land they last for days and you carry on until relieve. I have the utmost respect for those who do it as a profession or even to volunteer their time to save lives and property. One thing I liked about the testing for wild land fireman, it is done under real environmental conditions, outside and not on some treadmill.




Training for today: rest day