This is not a good sight to see looking out my front yard:
Those are tanker planes, the fire is less than 1/2 mile right behind my house!
David (Cleartoy) I saw you and your G/F Evacuating with your dirt bike and stuff, the fire looks to be right against your backyard!?? Can you please post any info you know when you get to a computer!
Hopefully the wind will hold the way it is right now!
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those are my boys! cdf air attack and s-2t turboprop airtanker. i missed the strike team that went out there by a couple of hours. this is one of the reasons why it is so hard for me to make races in the summertime. and this year, i voluteered to run a vrush engine for fire season! lots of OT, maybe i will be able to buy a truggy!
tim and dave- how we work it is like this- the ov-10 is the air attack. it is the tower in the sky. it will orbit above the working altitude of the lead planes and tankers. the air attack captain sits in the back seat and gives directions to the tanker pilots about where to start drops, what to tie into, what the goal will be, wheteher to split the drop or drop it all and whether it will be a salvo drop( like a big water baloon splash) or a trail drop( long line). the states air program is set up so a tanker from one of the airbases scattered throughout the state can be on scene of a fire in 20 minutes or less. our rule of thumb is one drop every 5 minutes, less if there is a structure threat. that pink stuff they drop is not slurry, it is a retardent based on water and fertilizer with some additives to keep it together and make it stick to non-flat surfaces. it is not fire proof, just slows the fire down so hopefully, the folks of the ground can catch the head of the fire and stopp its spread.
just a side note- you don't want that stuff on your vehicles or houses. it is a pain to get off and will spot paint if not removed right away. people actually sue us to reapint houses, etc...after the fire because they don't like pink! i love pink!
martin
It seems to me we were talking about some big fires in Colorado a week or two ago. I just wanted to let you guys know, now that the fires have moved West for the time being, our thoughts are with you!
As of 1am this morning the "RSM"/"Las Flores" fire was contained...so the media says! They gave out the number of the Arson Hotline, does that mean the fire guys mentioned the possibility of it??? Or is that the media just being the media?
waldo- the fire folks are still looking into cause. they will take every avenue they can to try to find the start. if someone saw something that no one else did, that is what the line is for. arson is almost impossible to prosecute without eye witnesses, so they will look at every possibillity. it is kinda funny how it works, but first we rule out lightning, then powerlines, birds on powerlines(belieev it or not, they have a tendancy to touch 2 wires at once and fall to the ground aflame), vehicle travel, etc...then we get to the human causes and work in from there. it can be very frustrating and at time we will go so far as to place video cameras in areas where there is a lot of arson activity.
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