Escalante and Peterson Fire

So I completed my first 14 day tour. It was pretty fun and at time exciting but at time really hard. When it wasn't mentally tough from doing really boring work it was physically tough assignments. I am going to go in pretty good detail on these fires because they are my first but mostly because I want to have a written account of my trip. So parts might be a little boring but hopefully not.

So we started the tour off on a project. We were cutting trees down again up in some really rich community. About half way through the day we broke for lunch were our crew boss got a fire call. We were super excited and jumped into the crummies that we drive and took off for Southern Utah. This was our first fire call. We arrived in Escalante that same day and reported to the Incident Command and stayed in the base camp. This was one of Utahs first major fires so they went all out and had an enormous amount of resources. They had a total of 8 crews there 3 being hotshot crews. We didn't get any really exciting assignments this fire because the fire had already been in progress for a couple of day and also there were hotshot crews that were a larger priority than us. Anyways it was a good starting fire because I was able to get used to the fire environment and atmosphere of being on an actual fire. I was able to learn about staying the nights in a base camp, how our crew ran things and such. As for the assignments we got cold trailing assignments. Pretty much we would wake up early each morning and then hike to our starting location. Once there we would usually line out in a straight line and then grid through the perimeter of the fire that we were assigned with one glove off feeling through the dirt and ash looking for hotspots. Hotspots are material that would still be burning. Usually it was a burning log, tree stump, or sometimes tree root. These things are usually buried underground burning. Fire is pretty weird. A fire might climb a tree and burn it and then climb down to the root system and start burning the roots out. Once underground the burning process slows but keeps going. The roots of a tree or buried log can burn for days even months to then resurface to only spark another fire at a later time. Our job to find these hotspots is pretty important but extremely boring. It is a lot of walking bending over and feeling the back of your hand into the dirt searching for abnormally warm spots of ground. Once you find one you yell "hotspot" and then everyone in the line holds while you start digging out the stump of whatever may be burning. Well we did that for about 16 hours a day for about 4 days. We only saw the head of the fire once when it was going over a hill.

Then at the end of day 4 we were about to be demobilized and sent home when we got another fire call. We found out that we were going to be sent to Redding, California. So we loaded back into our buggies for a 15 hour (paid) drive. This fire was very different. In the area there were so many fires going on that they didn't have as many crews per fire. So once we arrived at the fire we checked in and got our first assignment to go and contain a portion of the fire that had "sloped over" the control line. So we hiked up this little mountain and began digging 'hotline' on the active part of a fire. This was by far the most intense time of my entire tour. Right when we got there we broke the crew into half, one on each corner of the slopover. The chain saws started up and then went ahead to cut down the trees and the rest of the crew started digging line around the perimeter of the fire. It was so intense because we were right next to the fire. Not only is digging line hard work but the heat from the fire was soo hot. Plus the smoke from the fire made it really hard to breath. I remember while I was digging line having thoughts like, "Man this is really hot" and then I started thinking about this video we watched in class back when I was taking the Wildland course at the academy. In this video their was a "firesheltler deployment survivor" In this video he talked about while he was in the shelter and the fire was blazing around him he remembered having thoughts of just wanting end his life by taking a deep breath of the hot air or throwing of his shelter off him but then said that the only thing that could keep him going was the thought of his loved ones. Well, I while I was digging that hotline I could see why he would say that. Even though the heat I was feeling was super hot but nothing compared to the heat this man felt while in his shelter I felt like I understood his feelings because being that close to a fire is pretty miserable. With the combination of hard work, fire heat, and smoke you lose most of your energy and motivation real quick. Like, I remember thinking, "if this fire somehow jumped our line and was racing towards us I don't know if my adrenaline would kick in enough to get my out of here." Anyways, we are a very safe crew and have very wise leadership because when the winds picked up we pulled off the hill into our safety zones. Which was wise because only a couple minutes later the fire jumped our line and ripped through the entire valley. We hung out in our safety zones for a while which was nice because we were able to get our energy back. Later that night we did a burn out. Which is pretty fun. The idea is for burn out is that you burn out the full between you and a control line to put a buffer between you and the fire. So you start your own fire that is burning all the full but at a lower level of activity. So that when the fire reaches that spot it needs to stop because the full it needs has already been burnt out. This was cool because it was at night and so a little cooler day temperatures plus it made for some pretty cool pictures. We pulled a 29 hour shift that day and night so we were given a 24 hour break. Which was nice.

So the next morning after our break we hiked to a different part of the fire were we were had the assignment to help work with a bull dozer team. This was a lot of fun because the dozers to most of the hard work and we just sit there and look for places across the line were the fire could jump. But we were able to watch the dozers tare up a path and nock down trees and stuff. The fire started picking up anyways and so we went to our safety zones as a precaution and spent a lunch there. From that point on the fire was pretty much under control so we started our mop of phase again which is mostly just coldtrailing. Then we hit our 14 active days on fire and went home to enjoy our two (paid) days off!

I really like my job. It is a lot of fun and pays good. There are a lot more aspects to wildland firefighting that I haven't covered but hopefully will in later blogs. You can check out more pictures of facebook.

Manor Lands (Project 2)

As many of you already know, I was hired for the Summer by the State of Utah working for the Department of Natural Resources as Fire Technician Type I. Which pretty much means that I am working for the State of Utah as a Wildland Firefighter. I was hired by the Utah Fire and Rescue Academy (UFRA) Crew. Our office is actually located in Draper (right around the point of the mountain) on the prison property. Something pretty cool that I learned was that the first firecrew that my department had was a prison crew called the Flame-in-go's (mascot was a flamingo). In early 1990's/late 80's, prisoners ending there prison sentence and having been on good behavior where actually given jobs as wildland firefighters. They have slowly branched away from this and now the organization is full time employees. It is pretty cool to be working for an organization that has a pretty cool history. Every once in a while you can see evidence though of the flame-in-go's which is pretty cool.

Being a Wildland Firefighter working for the state instead of some other private organization definitely has its perks. First, our department is well funded. Having this means that we get brand new equipment all the time. This year all the rookies got new fireline packs and our crew got 6 new chain saws. It is pretty nice to be able to be fully stocked on supplies all the time.

Second, we get to ride around in crew vehicles. Unlike other firecrews who need to pack all their gear and their crew into SUV's, we own these buggies that we are able to ride around in. They are super nice because we get plenty of leg room and plenty of space for all our gear.

Third, we are able to get 40 hours a week even if there are no fires to fight. How it works is that when their is no fire to fight our crew is pretty much hired out to different projects. So when the fire season is slow and there aren't any fire assignments given too us we will get 40 hours a week. These are usually scheduled. We will do the projects until we get an assignment. For example for the last couple of weeks, since there has been no fires, we first got hired down to Poderosa Park which is right outside Zion's National Park. This resort assigned us to clear about 30 feet from either side of the road of all trees/brush. The resort needed the road to have better visibility. Another example of us being hired out is this week were we travelled up to Manor lands which is right on the Utah/Wyoming border. The lots up their had many large beetle infested trees that needed to be cut down. Even though the Zion project was pretty fun because we were able to visit the park on our day off I didn't have my camera and since I brought my camera to this project I was able to take pictures, which is why I decided to blog about this one.

When we do project work, our crew likes to try and get all of our 40 hours done at once. So we were scheduled to get them all done in 3 days. Tuesday morning at 6:00 we reported to work and headed for Manor lands when we showed up we were given our assigned areas and instructions on which trees to fall and which ones not too and we got to work.

Whenever we are using a chain saw there is always one sawyer (guy with the chain saw) and at least one swamper (this guy helps move everything that is cut to either burn piles or to a place were the brush can be chipped/shreaded. Swamper is also responsible for helping the sawyer by making sure the cuts are lined up right and pounding the wedge in if the cuts alone don't fall the tree.) This is a picture of one of my crew members acting as sawyer and my squad boss acting as swamper while cutting down a tree. So pretty much we do this all day. Cut down a trees, saw them into pieces, and then move the pieces to piles. Since we are only working for 14 hour days there is a lot of passing off of the saw and I was able to get a lot of saw time. This is a video of me cutting down a tree. I am the one making the cuts and then my swamper (Chad Roesher) moves in and pounds the wedge in to finally topple the tree.

For this project we worked really long days. Tuesday and Wednesday we had 14 hour days and then on Thursday we had a 12 hour work day. Which makes for some really really long days. Even though we only worked 3 days it definitely felt like a 40 hour week. So that is typical work each week except....

That it Snowed!!!! The night of the first day it began to snow hard. We kept waiting for them to tell us that we were going to cancel the project but it never came. It was freezing cold and snowed all that night. Pretty crazy When we got back that night we had to set up our tents in the snow which was miserable. When we woke up that morning and got to work again it continued to snow. But we kept working through it. It was really really cold. But luckily after lunch that afternoon on the second day the snow stopped and the sun came out and it began to warm up and the snow had melted. We had a pretty good afternoon and finished the trip strong.

You can view the rest of my pictures by visiting http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020675&l=c1acf&id=203001753

Trips with friends

So I haven't blogged in a while and so I am going to have to update a little with some things that have been going on. First is that over spring break my friends and I went down to St. George and then Las Vegas. We hung out in St. George at Marc Stones parents house and went swimming and saw a movie. We also went on a hike to the top of this plateau. When we got to the top we came across a Geocache. It was pretty awesome because we had just been talking about finding one the day before. We continued down to Vegas. Were we travelled the strip and and visited a lot of really cool sites. We also went to the Mountain West Basketball tournament and visited the Las Vegas Temple. When at the Mountain West Tournament we met up with my Uncle Tim and my cousin Tom. It was a lot of fun to be able to sit with them for one of the games. They are really funny. They took us out to dinner also. While there we went and rode the stratosphere. Here are some pictures:

The Log Cabin

The house I live at here in Provo was built a long time ago. We estimate that it was built in the 1980's. We think that it was built in sections. The oldest section is actually a log cabin. If you go around the back of the house you can see the old logs that were shaved and linked together.

Last year ben, one of my roommates, was down in the basement (It is actually a small celler with pipes and our furnace) but he found a whole that had been nocked into into the wall. Well we looked under the whole and found that it leads under all the floors of the entire house. I guess all the floors are raised about two feet off the ground or so and so there is a little crawl space that you can fit. We explored underneath all the rooms. Since then we have began leading groups of people under the house on little tours.

The first time we went under the log cabin we found some pretty cool treasures. We found a couple of really old newspapers dated from 1906 and 1908. We also found a mail envolope with the old mail still inside. It turned out to be junk mail from 1908. We carefully opened the envolope and found the mail inside in pretty decent condition. It was a "New York Taylors Mens Spring and Summer Dress Catalog" It was a pretty cool find. It had price listings and even sample fabric inside that you could feel and touch. Pretty cool.

One of the neatest things about the envolope was that the address was still readable. So we knew that it was addressed to our house because it had our address on it and so we knew that the name of the person on the envolope had once lived here. The name we found was James R. Hooks. We did a little geneology work and found out that he was probably the builder of the log cabin and died in 1930. We also found out that he was buried in the the Provo Cemetary. Which was just down the street. So one afternoon me and my roommates went to the cemetary and looked around and found his tombstone. We didn't know what to say other than, "thanks for building the house."

General Conference

So each year my grandparents give me two tickets to general conference. So me and Kenfo were able to go this year. We went to the sunday afternoon session and had great seats. We were seated in the Plaza and had amazing seats.

This is Kenfo and one of the big screens that they have set up in the conference center

This is my standing in the aisle where we sit

It was awesome to be able to hear all the general authorities and see them live. It was a great experience for me and Ken.

For more pics visit: http://uvsc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014132&l=33d1b&id=203001753

The FRAY!!!

So while my sister mindy and her husband Jakob were in town we were able to go to the Fray concert at the Usana Outdoor Theater. It was Awesome!!! Before the concert my friend josh and I won a free T-shirt. It was pretty cool.

Church Sites

While I was at the Hill Cumorah Pageant I was able to go to many of the church historical sites. I would have included these pictures as part of the Hill Cumorah Post I did but since I took so many of just the church sites I decided to make a seperate blog about them.

The Smith Farm

This was were Joseph Smith moved to with his family. It isn't the original log cabin but the church has rebuilt it in the same location and actually used the same kind of tools to reconstruct it. It was really cool to be in such and old house.

This is from the outside looking up at the window into the bedroom that Joseph would have been in when Moroni first appeared to Joseph as an angel. The second pictures is a view of the inside of that bedroom.


Me and getting a picture after the tour.

The Sacred Grove

This is where Joseph Smith had the first vision. Our group was able to walk through and take pictures. I am so glad that the church takes really good care of these sites. It was a little hot but a beautiful day.

It was pretty dark in the grove because of all the trees and plants but I was able to play with the setting on my new camera and came up with some pretty cool pictures.

The Hill Cumorah

















This is the top of the Hill Cumorah where the record of the Book of Mormon was eventually buried and hidden by Moroni only to be later uncovered by Joseph Smith. They have since built a statue of Moroni as an angel.



















The Hill Cumorah is the tallest hill in the area so you would get alot of poeple that would just come relax and enjoy the view.

Joseph Smith Sr. Farm

Joseph Smith Farm This is the farm where the records where kept for a long time. I didn't have enough time to go on the tour but I was able to get this picture.

The Grant Building

This is where the first copy of the Book of Mormon was published. It was fun to see how old books were made and the equipment they used.


















If you go to this link than you will be able to see a lot more of the pictures I took of the historical sites.

http://uvsc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011940&l=21c50&id=203001753