Fire Season 2009: End of Season Report

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Oh, sorry I was just resting after my long and exhausting fire season. This year marks my 5th season of fire and my third season with the Helitack crew. To be honest I had been looking forward to this season ever since Nathan left because I knew it was going to help me pass the time and pass the time it did. If working 1,211 hours in 119 days doesn't keep you busy I don't know what will. This year there weren't many really big fires in our state and that means we were doing our job, keeping 90% under 5 acres. Just because there weren't many large fires doesn't mean there weren't little fires keeping us busy hopping around the state. This year I started on June 8th and my first fire was on June 11th, my last day of work was October 15th and the last fire I was on was on October 13th. All said and done I worked on 32 different fires and some days I worked as many as 3 fires a day. Like last year I didn't spend much time in Ellensburg and for me that is a really good thing. The less time I spend in Ellensburg the more days I work and the more money I make. To be honest this job isn't all about the money but since I pretty much have to give up my summer I might as well make as much money as possible. This year I worked a total of 119 days, 57 of those in Omak, 48 in Ellensburg, 4 in Pomeroy, 3 in Olympia, 2 in Goldendale, 2 in Ephrata, 2 in Cashmere, and 1 in Hoquium. I consider it a good year if I spend half my time in Ellensburg and as you can see this was a very good year. This is the first year I have ever been to a fire on the west side of the mountains and to make things interesting I went to 4, three one day and then one a month and a half later, all of them were human caused, which isn't surprising considering 3 of them were on the 5th of July. I didn't really have anything exciting happen this year, there weren't any hydraulics failures or run in landings. I did however get to spend a lot of time with old friends and even made some new ones. I got to watch some really interesting foreign films and listen to some interesting debates. I ate out more than anyone probably should in 4 months and to be honest I can't imagine spending my summer any other way. Fire hasn't always been a part of my life and I know I can't do this forever but I am thankful for every year I have had in fire and I hope I have many more fun, exciting, and safe years left in me.

All Down Hill From Here

When Rebecca last gave an update about what I was doing, I was the night time FDO here on JSS Istiqla'al. Now, I am the only FDO at the fire base and I am working from 0900-2100 every day. I am now the FDO and the platoon leader for my 34 man platoon. We have 2 M109A6 Self Propelled 155mm howitzers on the fire base. We are the only platoon within 1-82 FA battalion on the JSS. It is really nice being away from the rest of the battalion in some ways. I don't really have to worry about high ranking people showing up all the time and getting in my business. Whenever we do have visitors, 1-7 CAV knows to call me to let me know that someone is coming down to see us. Every once in a while my BC (battery commander) will make a trip to the JSS to see how things are going. However, it is also a bit difficult being so far away from my battery. We dont have the access to supplies and whatever else we need. I am constantly forced to use my connections at 1-7 to get things done. I convinced them to give us a satellite so we can watch TV in our office and I am also working on getting a BBQ built for our fire base. My BC brought us steaks the last time he came out and we were able to "acquire" a grill for three nights in a row for cookouts. My platoon was very excited to get steak. I am used to all of the crappy food that we get here on the JSS but most of my platoon spent the first half of the deployment at a bigger FOB with good food. They all think that they are being starved out here.

Anyway, I love my new job. I love that I am an FDO and PL. It is really rewarding to lead a while platoon. It is also really great to get to be the FDO and fire rounds for my old fire support NCO from B Troop, 1-7 CAV. I am glad that I will be able to say that I have done all three of the main FA LT positions (PL, FDO and FSO) while in Iraq. When I was on night shift, we fired a lot of illumination rounds. Being on day shift now, I don't get to shoot as much. However, just the other day we had a big PR event with an Iraqi general and the brigade commander. We fired high explosive (HE) rounds (while my old FSNCO observed) for the general. He got to give the fire command to the guns for the first round and then he pulled the lanyard for the remaining rounds. There were about 30 people in the entourage that came with the general including tons of people from the media. I even had to give a briefing about our operations. The even went very well. The general, my BC and my brigade commander were all very pleased. All my guys received a coin from the brigade commander and I was told to write them all up for awards. I was very happy.

I should be going on leave around the last week of November. The leave slots will come out around the 15th of October. Then, I have to wait for another person to get back from leave before they will let me leave. I won't have a solid date until right before I fly out because it all just depends on the travel time of that one guy I am waiting for.

Other than that, not much goes on around here. We get target acquisitions every day and we get all ready to fire and then it always ends up being birds or something that the radar thought was a mortar or rocket. Since I've been here, there has only been one confirmed rocket acquisition that we were tasked to lay our guns on. We were all ready to shoot and then they decided not to shoot because the collateral damage was too risky. Even so, I was told that the entire division tactical operation center knew that my guns were laid on the target in under 2 min after the acquisition and that everyone was pleased.

Most of the time my job is pretty boring but I still enjoy it very much. 12 hours on and 12 hours off gets old pretty quickly but it could be worse. We are now over 2/3 done and I will get to see Rebecca next month. That's really all I am thinking about these days. I can't wait to get home.

"Get To The Chopper"

Last Friday I was lucky enough to have my nephew Tanner, my brother Chris, and my dad come visit me at work. Tanner was very unimpressed with the weather conditions in Ellensburg. That day it was about 60 degrees with 15mph sustained winds gusting to 30mph. For anyone who has ever lived in Ellensburg, WA you know that these are what would be considered "normal" winds. Tanner told me he didn't like that it blew his hair around and that we needed to have our hoods up to protect our heads from the wind, it was very cute.

The first helicopter we saw was the "blue"(Huey) helicopter. Tanner had a blast practicing getting in and out of the seat belt as fast as he could just like we do when we land on a fire. He was better at putting the seat belt together than most adults who fly on our helicopters for the first time.
After we had fun with the seat belts in the back Uncle Chris and I showed Tanner how fun it was to be up in the front seats. Tanner was skeptical at first but once he saw how much fun we were having he just had to come up and try it out.

Tanner and I sat up in the managers seat and he pointed things out and I told him what they were. After a little while Tanner kicked me out and wanted to just hang out up front all by himself.

He had so much fun pushing the buttons on the cyclic and pretending like he was flying.

Of course he after he experienced life in the managers seat he just had to see what it was like in the pilot's seat. Since the Huey can be flown from either the left or right seat there really isn't that much of a difference but he had a lot of fun sticking his hands out of the hole in the bubble window (our pilots use it to see the load when doing long line work) and of course pushing the buttons on the cyclic.

Once Tanner was done in the "blue" (Huey) he wanted to see the "other" (Cobra) helicopter. We had to go get the keys from my manager and Tanner was super stoked to see our "BIG" (fuel) trucks. I think if it wasn't windy out he would have been just as excited to hang out around the trucks as he was with the helicopters. On our way back out the the helicopters Tanner informed me first we were going to see the "other"(Cobra) helicopter and then we were going to see the "yellow" (Huey) helicopter. I tried to tell him that the "blue" and "yellow" helicopters were the same but he didn't seem to mind.

While we were getting Tanner into the cobra the Helitack program director, Dan Boyle, came out because he thought that they were launching the cobra to a fire. Once he realized we weren't he asked Tanner if he was going to fly the helicopter. I thought that Tanner would say yes but he said "NO" like he knew he wasn't supposed to, it was super cute.

Tanner and Chris both got to sit in the cobra Tanner sat in the front in the managers seat while Chris sat in the back in the pilots seat. I think they both had a lot of fun hanging out together pretending like they were flying.

Tanner had such a good time hanging out in the helicopter that the only way to convince him to get out of the helicopter was, to convince him if he got out he could come back again.