25 June 2008

It's gonna get worse...

Today is day 3 of my normal 3 days off before I go back to work. We ran a small fire near the end of our shift on Sunday which gave us a few hours of overtime. I spent the past 3 days trying to tie up some loose ends with my Physical Qualification (PQ) process for Antarctica. Thinking that I only had to get a dental exam, I walked out of the dentist's office yesterday with two cavities filled and -$375 in my pocket. The most exciting part of the past few days...

Today my roommate informed me that her girlfriend (my co-worker and other roommate) had told her that two of our co-workers have been sent to Northern California to help with fires out that way. Curious as to why 2 Helicopter Crewmembers from Utah were being sent to Cali so early in the season I decided to check up on some news and do some research on the fire activity in the country. I checked the National Situation Report, a daily report on fire activity across the country, and discovered how bad the situation is for Northern California. Over the past 24 hours there have been over 500 new fires that have started in the country....over 400 of which started in California. I also came across this article in firehouse.com. After reading the sit report, I counted Nor Cal had 18 complex fires already. A complex fire is a fire that composes of two or more fires that have burned together or 2 or more fires managed by the same Incident Management Team. Usually complexes don't start popping up until later on in the season. It being June only means the season's gonna get worse...

21 June 2008

Today was a brighter day in my life. No particular reason. I woke up and went to work with a smile on my face. And, for the first time in my life, I ran 4 miles without breaking a sweat. It's amazing what you can pull off when you put your mind to it. Today was an "out of sight, out of mind" day. I spent the morning reading and buying a new camera. After lunch I worked on a small project and played a game of horseshoes. Around 5 o'clock, we got dispatched to a fire just south of Cedar City only to be canceled and turned around 5 minutes later. And here I am talking to you all. The fire season is definitely here. We just need ignition sources...

20 June 2008

First Fire and Ups and Downs

On Sunday, halfway through our shift, we got dispatched to our first fire of the season. The Corn Creek Fire, as it was called, is located near Escalante, UT and is still burning as I write. We spent from Sunday till last night [Thursday] on the fire doing work out on the line and running the helibase. It felt good to get out on a fire but it couldn't have come at a worse time. Between things I need to get done for Antarctica and dealing from personal trouble that brewed while I was gone, Thursday night and today were pretty shitty. I'm still pretty down right now but such is life.

Life around the air center is pretty hectic. I'm choosing to talk about this because I realized that my problems with my personal life (primarily depression and some personal issues with a few people) have really been affecting my work. Considering I have other people's lives in my hands, I take my mind off my problems a lot and focus on work....even at home. Anyways, we have a few tankers hanging around the base which is pretty cool considering how fucking huge they are. I've seen them in the sky and knew that they were big but damn. All of the Air Attack platform planes are stationed at the base now. We have another helitack crew from Boise hanging out for a few weeks as well. When the fire season truly kicks off, we'll have a bunch of BLM Smokejumpers from Boise as well as a shit load of heavy air tankers and a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane. Hopefully I'll stay busy enough to keep my mind off of my personal life for a while...

14 June 2008

Zion Helitack, Utah Phillips, and the Days to Come

Had I the tenacity to post an entry on Thursday, it would have been pretty shitty. I was in a bad mood all Thursday. What compounded matters even more was the fact that my mood was affecting my work which in turn led me to make mistakes left and right and piss me off even more. By the time my bed time came around I had calmed down. Hearing my friend's voice on the phone and visiting her in the beginning of the week really help bring a smile back to my face which in turn made the following day a whole lot better. Friday and today was spent doing project work....all damn day. Southern Utah is ready for fire. A shit-ton of fire when it comes....the only thing we need now are ignition sources (i.e. dry lighting). My mind has been wrapped around fire and aviation policies for the past couple of days. I managed to get out and do some climbing yesterday only to come back home and read the Interagency Helicopter Operations Guide and the Interagnecy Aerial Ignition Guide till I fell asleep. I need either a life, fires, or to spend more time with my girlfriend that lives 10 hours away....

I normally do not talk about my political views with many people (well, my real political views) and I won't start now. I will say, however, that I'm really passionate towards the poor, the battered down, and the working class. I favor hobos, hippies, ramblers, folk singers, activists, writers, poets, musicians, and any free-living spirit over your average joe any day. I came across a man who fits into a lot of those categories, Utah Phillips, listening to a newly acquired Ani Difranco album entitled fellow workers. Utah's music and stories opened my eyes even more to those classes of society that are looked down upon or taken for granted by the majority of the population. It'd be a little wishy-washy to say that he sorta changed my life and my perception of such but he did something to me rather permanent. I found out a few days ago on a blog his son keeps about him that he had passed away on May 23rd. I had never got the chance to experience, not just see, him in person. I'm pretty bummed out about that. I'm glad to have found him before he died though. Hopefully I can find some bootlegged concerts of his to try to create an experience for me. Until then, I'm sticking with folk music to carry me for a little while.

Tomorrow is my last day of work for a few days. I'm not looking forward to it. We're suppose to be having some sort of "Physical Training Test" which includes an audacious run and possibly a pack hike. I'm sore as it is from climbing and an ass-kicking workout in the gym today. Monday through Wednesday will be the first time I'm not doing anything or driving anywhere for several weeks which will be nice. I have a pack of Miller Light and a bunch of magazines and books to catch up with. Maybe even more journal entries too...

10 June 2008

Bozeman

It seems I can't escape snowfall no matter where I go. As I sit here in Bozeman peering out of the window of my friend's house, I can't help but wonder when it will warm up. This morning started out amazingly sunny...I feel sorta bad now that I rolled over and went back to sleep. By noon, the sun went away and a pretty ferocious thunderstorm visited the area for about an hour. Now being 1345 I staring at snow; big, honking flakes of snow. I don't know what today will hold. I'm waiting for my friend to get back from work. We have today together before I drive the 10 hours back to Cedar City so hopefully it will be something good. It's sorta frustrating being on a time crunch. I wish I had more than a day to spend up here. I wish I had more time to drive back home (I passed soo many places to fly fish right of the road) but, alas, duty calls. This week (at least today), all of Southern Utah is under a Red Flag Warning for extreme fire weather behavior. Hopefully we'll get some storm systems to come through and give us some work....

"Kill All Niggers"

A lot of people ask me why I'm sometimes pretty paranoid about certain areas I travel to or through being a person of color. Sometimes I wonder myself. Seeing "Kill All Niggers" sprawled across a bathroom wall in Idaho sort of reinforces my worries...

08 June 2008

Busy and Restless

Man what a random set of days I've had in the past few. Our last day of SAR training on Thursday came with a few surprises. The first one was snow:






I knew it was suppose to storm the night before...just not that kind of percipitation. I awoke to about 2 inches of snow on the ground that was steadily melting. The hills behind our house look like those out of the rocky mountains below the timber line.

Nothing necessarily with the class, however. Our class finished up normally. We worked more with raising systems and Mechanical Advantages and we added a stokes basket in the mix. The day before, however, drained me pretty physically...so much to the point where I laid down at 1900 to take a nap only to wake up at 0600 the next morning. When I woke up, I was pretty groggy and out of it. So much that I was walking down my stairs to get in my car when I realized I had put my boots on my socked feet without any pants on what soever. After correcting that issue. I got into my car only to neglect a few missed phone calls (Sorry Anna) including one from my boss to head into the air center before I left for class because I was to head out to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to help with a project for a permitee leasing the land (It's a BLM monument) for grazing rights. After I woke up a little later on that morning it dawned on me what was fully going on. I left class from the park and drove for 3 hours (1 of them being down a dirt washboard road for 40 miles) till I finally met up with the rest of my crew. What we were doing was we were sling loading a whole bunch of shit (And I mean that in every sense of the word) up on top of this mesa for this guy to build a cabin of some sort to run his grazing operation. When I say shit I mean just that. This dude had cut up sections of a 40 foot steel millvan container, he had random pieces of word and furniture...it was amazing. The most amazing part of it all were the two air freight containers he somehow acquired that he wanted us to fly:



It doesn't look big but that behemoth is 8 ft by 8 ft by 10 ft and ways 1050 lbs. The first day we tried flying it...after 2 hours of rigging it to fly, our helicopter had to turn around because they could make it up on the mesa with the winds. The next day we cut it in half and flew it that way. The second of the two containers we cut the plexiglass out of it and flew it that way. All in all, it was a good day for a lot of training took places while we worked this project. The one thing that did suck throughout the entire ordeal was that my camera broke about 2 hours before I took my first flight in N420RL (our helicopter). So no photos of the flight or the beautiful plot of land the permitee was taking care of.

Today was spent doing initial attack training and Cargo Let Down training. Cargo Let Down is a way to deliver supplies and equipment to firefighters from a helicopter with out having to deliver it at the end of a long line connected to the belly of the helicopter. The equipment can be carried inside the ship then "belayed" or lowered from the ship to the selected drop point on the ground. Our training consisted on selecting said drop points, guiding the helicopter in, and basic radio communications all around. After all was said and done we got to experience packing out all of that crap we had dropped which I'm sure we'll do sometime this summer on real calls. I think one load I packed out weighed 40 lbs in itself asides from my 35 lb pack and my 8 lb tool. Needless to say I'm beat. Today was the last day of my 4 day tour. Tomorrow I drive to Bozeman, MT for a couple days and I'll be back in Cedar City. Until then, every one stay safe...if not, whatever you do, do it here in SW Utah and start a fire...we're all getting restless...

03 June 2008

SAR Class and the First Few Days of June...

Well June is here and we're slowly experiencing a warming trend in the area. The nights are definitely getting warmer and the days are getting hotter. We spent all of Sunday training: long lines, bucket work, etc. Monday was my much needed day off. Although i didn't do much (asides from spending $200 on food), it still felt pretty good just to bum around. Today was my first day of Search and Rescue training. I'm really glad and excited to have the opportunity to participate in this class. I've been drawn to technical rope rescue since I started my career in the fire and EMS service so this class, to me, is my calling. Tomorrow we'll spend all day on the far side of the park practicing lowering and hauling systems. Unfortunately, my dumb ass was running (or walking really fast....I don't remember) around my car when I tripped over a rock, caught my knee [cap] on my bike rack in my trailer hitch, and face planted into the concrete with a horrific sound. Luckily I didn't shed any blood....externally. I can feel my knee trying to swell and it's really hard to walk. I think my nose is broken and I might have a slight concussion (My head is pounding and I'm a little sensitive to light). I'm going to ride it out tonight and see how the morning fares for me. Either way, I'll be at that class dammit. As you can see, we don't have many fires going on right now and I don't have anything better to do...