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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Work and another Funk

Everyone knows the fire season is around the corner when the aviation resources start appearing at their summer homes. The SEATs have arrived at Cedar City!





Today, I finished up my Helicopter Crewmember class. I'm glad it's over now that I can start working on my taskbook. After class, hoping I'd be heading back to the air center to fly for the rest of the afternoon, I was "diverted" to the park to assist with a prescribed burn to kill off Cheat Grass in the park:





Despite how much I've been working and working out, I still can't shake off this slight depression or 'funk' I've been going through. I've been pretty anti-social the past couple of days. I have no desire or drive to do anything. The past 4 nights in a row, I'd get home, get changed, go to the gym, and walk past all of my roommates only to go to bed at 9 or 9:30 and wake up at 6:30. I feel pissed about something too. I don't know what but it's been affecting me a lot this past week. Hopefully I'll figure out what it is sometimes soon.

Our Helicopter Has Arrived....

...it actually showed up on Saturday but it's contract did not begin until today. The morning was spent getting the trucks ready to chase the helicopter. The afternoon was spent going over basics on being crew members and heading down to the park for a small project. I got my first taste of running a helibase: sitting on my ass for a couple hours only to get up and do something when the helicopter's refueling (when I say do something, I mean stand by a fire extinguisher). I did how ever get some interesting first photos of the helicopter for the season.






The way the crew flight rotation works, I won't be flying till either Saturday or Sunday (I normally don't work on Monday's and I'm in S-271/Helicopter Crewmember class Tomorrow through Friday). I've taught myself patience just due to the fact that I'll probably be sick of flying come September. Until then, I guess I'll just have to enjoy what it is I'm doing for a living...

A Day Off

When you only get one day off in between working, they feel like they're few and far in between. Today is my one day off before I work from Sunday (tomorrow) till Sunday (June 1st. I spent the morning sleeping in till 1100. Why you ask? Because I could. Even if I did go to bed at 1 AM. The early part of the afternoon was spent in Cedar Canyon which is about 14 miles outside of town. I had been searching for the way to the climbs within the canyon since I have been here but only recently with the purchase of a guide book on climbing in southwest Utah have I been able to actually get to the base of the climbs. With the book in hand, my roommate Rob and I headed into Cedar Canyon to check out the climbs. The routes seemed pretty high above our abilities and there weren't many trad routes either. After exploring the canyon, hiking, and some practice gear placements on the few cracks we found near the base of the rocks, we headed back into town in anticipation of a night of beers and relaxation. Not bad for a day off...

Hard Day with Good Pay!

Today, which was originally planned as a day of burning off a huge prescribed burn lot, was spent digging a 1/4 mile fireline down a steep-ass hill for several hours only to have the burn canceled on us. What made matters worse after we began our arduous hike back up the line we just made, it snowed it's ass off:









Driving seemed more treacherous than walking. At one point in time we couldn't see the other side of the 10 acre meadow we were driving across. So to recap, fireline dug that's not going to be used, freezing cold and snow, but 10 1/2 hours of overtime!

Another Day on the Job

Today was a slow day. As usual, the morning was spent in the gym with the crew followed by a 2.5 mile back to the base. As slow a day as it was, the morning was spent working on various projects around the base. My exciting project was labeling the recycling cans around the base! I actually like minuscule projects like that. They allow me some time to sit or chill by myself and think. You all know how I value my thinking time. After that, I drove over from the air center to the main fire center to take care of some of my certification issues as well as my Incident Qualification Card. After lunch, we started to have some fun. We were supposed to head into a canyon to do some saw work for a fuels project the BLM was going to do but because of the weather (raining and cold), we decided to do a project of our own:





Since the bushes around the helicopter pad can only be so high, our manager thought it would be a great training opportunity to unleash us with saws and cut as much sage brush as our happy little arms could bare. Afterwards, of course, we burnt the product of our "training". The rest of the day was spent talking about our schedules when the helicopter comes on. We start staffing the air center 7 days a week on Sunday. Sunday is a crew training day as Crew A works Sunday through Wednesday and Crew B (including yours truly) works Thursday through Sunday. On top of that, I'm in class all of next week (which I'm getting paid for) and most of the week after next. If you include that with what ever other overtime I could possibly get, my paycheck for this pay period will be looking pretty good considering the amount of debt I'm in for the month of May. Man I can't wait to start running fires...

What To Do and the Summer to Come

With complete boredom as my inspiration, I created a rather lengthy to-do list while sitting in a all-hands meeting in the park. A lot of it revolves around budget(s) for the summer, car maintenance, climbing stuff, things I want to research or look up because of interest (not necessarily out of necessity...), and a few other things. Most of my to-do list revolves around my deployment down to Antarctica. I'm starting to feel like a seasoned traveler because of all of the things I learned from last year/earlier this year (some I learned the hard way). The one thing I learned is plan a hell of a lot earlier than I did last year. I didn't start packing or even thinking about packing until about a week before I left. Surprisingly, I didn't do too bad of a job. This year, however, I'm trying to do a few other things after I get off the ice. I'm still looking to go to Morocco after my deployment. So far the only trip the guide company I've been looking at is offering starts on the 28th in Marrakech...3 days after my scheduled redeployment date back into the real world. Granted, I was scheduled for a 28 Feb earlier this year and I ended up getting scheduled for a 19 Feb redeployment date with an actual date of the 21st, I'm still hoping for a little more time in between redeploying to Christchurch before heading off to Morocco. Anyways, I beginning to plan this all out now so I won't have any logistical surprises come September.

This week so far at work has been pretty good. I spent another day at the park yesterday doing some required first aid training and attending an all-hands meeting. Even though we [Zion Helitack] aren't stationed in the park, just coming down into park and looking around...especially from our training site(s), is pretty awe-inspiring.





I mean, I'm not just a tourist or a visitor paying to come to the park...I work there. I get paid to not only drive into the park for various tasks, I get paid to fly over it as well. The ship comes on next Monday. Unfortunately, I won't be working Monday and I'll be in a class from Tuesday till Friday. I did, however, almost make it on the Potosi Fire right outside of Las Vegas. I'm assuming they got the fire under control because I'm sitting here writing this post. Regardless, with all this excitement right now and the excitement to come this summer and fall, I'm pretty restless right now...

A Funk

Ever since this weekend, I've been in sorta a funk. I feel bad about it to because it all stemmed around the hike we did for the Devil's Den Fatality Staff Hike. I feel really bad about it because I feel it takes away from the hard, emotional time that my manager and two lead firefighters are going through with the entire ordeal. I know I didn't know Spencer Koyle, but it still hit home pretty hard for me. Anyways, that's had me down for a few days. Today, while talking to my good friend William "Brody" Brotman I come to define my feelings for Cedar City and its people. I love the city itself. It's a beautiful, quaint little town. The people sorta scare me. Haha, I know that sounds bad but here me out. It seem that life is centered around getting married straight out of high school and settling down without the intention of straying far from their hometowns. With Cedar City being the ultra-conservative town it is, I see very little originality in some of the people. Very little uniqueness. I don't know…it's hard to explain. Speaking of which, I find it hard to explain what I do for work to some people because it seems too impossible for them. It seems too far-fetched, unrealistic, if not irresponsible to not work the normal 9-5. I guess that's where the scariness came in for me. I guess that's also what has me In this funk right now. I hope that makes sense to you…

A Walk to Remember

Thursday, I made it down into the park as an employee for the first time. We spent the morning going over basic fire operations in the park, the first half of the afternoon attempting a prescirbed burn, then the final half of the afternoon conducting a PT hike on the Angels Landing Trail.



This weekend has been a pretty good one. It has also been emotional for me. Friday morning at work was spent PTing. While everyone else was doing their pack test, since I had already completed mine, I was given the option to run the 3 miles. Considering that I really didn't do much running before I started working, 3 miles was definitely a workout. Surprisingly, I'm doing too bad keeping up with the PT. I thought I was going to be miserably out of shape but asides from the altitude, nothing has really stopped me from keeping up with the group. If anything, I'm usually near the front of the pack for runs. After PT. We got ready for our weekend camping trip. Our trip was two fold. 1) Friday night's camp-out was a moment to bond with one another and go over what Saturday had in store for us. The entire reason we were in that area of Fishlake National Forest was to conduct a trial one of a staff hike of a fatality site that occurred on the Devil's Den Fire in 2006. This proved to be an excellent experience for all of us. Our manager and both of our lead firefighters knew Spencer Koyle personally which made the entire weekend really emotional and hard for them. We as firefighter hear about the type of fuel, weather, and topography that consistently kill firefighters all the time. Every year. Box canyons, chimneys, accumulations of dead and down, droughts, low RH's, Low FMC, high probabilities of ignition, etc. Not every firefighter gets to hear first hand experience from other firefighters that happened to be there when someone was killed. It was powerful to see the terrain that got Spencer in trouble. It was powerful to re-create the conditions, to see the exact spot where his body was found, to see the memorial created by people on the side of the mountain; it became very over-whelming to me to the point where I started to think about my own father's death and the death of those I knew and loved. I too broke into tears just standing on the ridge looking down into the drainage where Spencer was killed.

Overall, the past couple of days have been a blast. I'm starting to love working for Zion Helitack more and more just as I though I would. Bring on the fire season...

A sample of Utah's Alcohol laws.

For those of you that have been inquiring about Utah's liquor laws.

This is an excerpt from Lonely Planet's Zion & Bryce Canyon National Parks Guide:

It's a misconception that you can't get a drink in Utah. You can get just as drunk here as anywhere in the US.

Understanding Utah's arcane liquor laws - now that's hard. After a while, you feel like you're listening to John Travolta in Pulp Fiction explaining hash in Amsterdam.

Grocery stores can sell only beer, and only beer that's no more than 3.2% alcohol. If it's over 3.2% it's called 'stout' or 'hard' beer and can be sold only in a state-approved liquor store, which is the only place to buy packaged wine and spirits to carry out. Most towns only have one such liquor store, if any, and they're usually in nondescript, unadvertised locations. You must be 21 to buy alcohol, and it's never sold on Sundays.

Depending on their liquor license, restaurants can sell wine, beer and spirits with their food, but you must ask to see the drink list; they're not supposed to offer it. A place with a 'tavern' license can sell only 3.2% beer, but you must order food to go with it; you can't have just a drink.

A 'private club' serves a full range of liquor, and you don't need to order food to enjoy it. But you must be a member to enter. Temporary, two week memberships are usually $5 and allow five guests; if you ask at the door, someone inside will often sponsor you as their guest to avoid the cover charge.

At any establishment, you can have only one drink in front of you at a time. Sometimes called 'Utah's slammin rule,' this means you must finish a drink before ordering another; in the case of pitchers of, say, margaritas, there must be three people present to order one.

And so on. And no, we're not makin this up...


I can't possibly make that shit up either...

Christmas in May!

As with any new job (especially in the fire service), one of the most exciting parts about your first couple days of work is the issuance of new gear. In the fire world, that gear can turn out to be a lot. I know a bunch of you back home were wondering what kind of equipment I work with on the wildland side of things so I've combine showing you my new gear with showing you the gear I personally added to my pack(s) to better my life on the fire line. First, the gear that goes in my line pack:



It seems like a lot but I'm able to cram it all into my pack and at a decent weight. Asides from what they issued me, I added to my pack a Fireline Handbook, the Appendix B to the Fireline Handbook (for advanced weather calculations), two pens, a sharpie, a small spanner wrench, duct tape, eye wash/drops, a couple of granola bars, a can of Vienna Sausage, an MRE, and a couple packets of Claritin. One thing I found that I like about the wildland side of firefighting is that a lot of what we do and what's mandated of us, can be found in small pocket guides. On top of a lot of policies and guidelines we have to follow, we also do a lot of writing on fires, hence:



On top of all of the "hardware" I've received, I received a bunch of uniform items:



And finally, what Zion National Park employee would be without:



On top of all of those goodies, I also received a tent, sleeping bag, bivy sack, space blanket, sleeping pad, and a few other things to survive out in the wilds for 14 days. I also have an employee pass into the park (I think) and a free membership to a gym that's open 24 hours a day. Asides from the PT and the elevation, this week is going to be pretty exciting...

"1st" day tomorrow

The weekend is almost over. Asides from my friend rear-ending me the other night everything went pretty well. I went to a small party of our neighbor's co-workers. I had planned on just staying in and reading a book but they ended up dragging myself and my roommate (who also happens to work for Zion Helitack) out. Saturday was spent doing very little. My roommate Josh and I went out a few times but otherwise, the evening was spent inside reading on studying some material for work. Today was spent much the same way as Sautrday: reading and studying. Tomorrow is the first day of the season where the entire crew, seasonals and all, will begin working at the air center which means more faces, more equipment I have to deal with, more classes, and more reading material I have to take to heart. I actually can't wait. I'm not exactly thrilled to see how I'll fair with the PT to come but I really can't wait to start working tomorrow.

As I said in previous posts, our helicopter will be at the air center on the 26th. At that point, we start staffing it 7 days a week during the day (our SOPs state that we have to be on the ground within 30 minutes after the official sunset of the day). I take S-271/Helicopter Crewmember certification on the 27th through the 30th. This week will be spent getting oriented to Zion Helitack and Color Country firefighting. We have a prescribed burn to conduct on Tuesday and possibly Wednesday. We'll spend all day one day next week in the park getting oriented to certain features we need to take to memory. We have meetings to attend within the park and we have several classes and training we'll be partaking in before the fire season gets into full swing. All of that starts tomorrow I guess...

End of the Week

The end of the week is drawing near. I'm done with my training at the BLM Fire Center. For the rest of my season, I'll be reporting to the Air Center starting tomorrow. I'm helping our helicopter manager with a class tomorrow all day which I'm actually looking forward to. Monday the entire helitack crew starts which means more faces to get to know and remember. My roommates are gone for the weekend which means I have the house to myself. Hopefully there will be something decent on TV Friday and Saturday night. With Red Flag Warnings for the Arizona Strip and Zion NP and Fire Weather Watches for the Cedar City area, I'm going to stay relatively close to the city to try to catch a fire on the engines before I become 100% property of the air center. I'm starting to like it here more and more. The people here are either incredibly friendly or 100% assholes. The assholes I can ignore pretty easily. The friendly people really make a difference here.