Mop-up and burning. 24-25th. We started moping up with water and burning up green patches. Still not good burning weather. On the 25th we went back to camp and got a hot meal.

Burn-out. Today we lit the line off using close to 40 gallons of drip torch fuel and 100 rounds out of the gun. The winds worked mostly in our favor but the green grass didn't. Not the best burn. lots of green islands and patchy. I got to light all day. Fun but tiring.

Spike out. We continues the prep and snagging process. Our long term goal is to burn off the dozer line to stop the distant approaching fire. The crew mostly feels we should go direct since the grass here is green. That means burning will most likely cause a mess. Dewey (supervisor) fought long and hard to get us out of the noisy camp. So we'll be spiking out near the line for a couple days at least.

Black Cat Fire. #1 priority fire in the US. On the saw again today. We arrived to our division to prep dozer line. Since the dozer does most of the work for us we sent out snagging and moving brush. Dropped a ton of dead trees. It was so thick we hung lots of trees up. We all learned a lot today about cutting trees and about ourselves.

Travel to Montana. The fire is in Lo Lo pass just outside of Missoula. Called the Black Cat fire 10,000 acres. We arrived at base camp late. Loudest camp I've ever been too. Lots of homes are threatened and several already burned.

Mop-up time. 17th-19th. We plumed hose from water tenders at the top of the drainage. Lots of roads here going to huge summer cabins. Water moping is great makes our lives better working on the steeps. On the last day of mop-up two people from a prison crew (one being their Crew Boss) got pinned under a tree. We all went to the scene and reviewed the stupid things they did. Long story short don't stand down hill of falling trees. Also no human can stop a green tree from rolling down a hill so don't try. The guy how tried to stop the tree didn't get hurt bad. The crew boss broke his leg in several places. Preventable.

Little Goose Fire. 4800 acres. The terrain here is extremely steep. We hiked in the long way going down into a drainage from the buggies and working with a BIA crew up out the other side. I got on the saw team for the day. Spent as much time getting my footing as I did cutting. Tough day. Almost got taken out by a rock (hit my pack), as did most of us. By the end of the day no one got hurt and the line looked great.

Travel. Off to Wyoming! We traveled two days arriving at base camp the 15th. No information on the fire yet.

The International Scout changing hand!!!

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Stop taking pictures and gas up the saw

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East Zone Complex camp

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The type one team didn't know what fire that column is from.

Horton Fire not clear day

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Horton Fire

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Horton Fire

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Clear day on Horton Fire

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Snagging

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pano

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Big blow up

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Column early day

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Big blow up

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Blow up - Small up hill run

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Drainage mop up

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Smoke inversion - Red Ridge safety zone

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Red Ridge safety zone - smoke inversion

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View of Dollar Ridge from Red Ridge

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Column early in dispatch

Gila trailer park @ base camp

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We had to get new front tires on the buggies. The tow company left them on blocks most of the dispatch. The other shot crews called area where we parked the Gila trailer park.

Steve "dirty"

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Got the nickname from the character in the movie Young Guns.

Brian

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Tyler "Dove"

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Lead saw

Arturo "Art"

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Gordon "Gordo"

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Ian

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Assistant squad boss

Alex

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Adam

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He dosen't want his face on the scary web. Assistant squad boss.

Jesse

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My bunk house roomate

Erin "The Sailer" and Brett "Beefy"

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The Gila Hotshot ladies

Shannon "shamus"

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He rides bulls

Tobe

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My squad boss (sqaud 2)

Justin "JK 47"

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He likes guns

R&R. Went to Show Low AZ for a night. Turned out to be a middle age biker town. Made it fun by going to the go cart track. I'm in Silver City right now using the free internet at a cafe. Negrito's internet has been down since we got back. So I had to drive 135 miles to use the internet. That’s dedication (I also had to go to Wal-Mart).

Mop-up. The 7th and 8th consisted of lots of mop-up with hose lines. More than half the crew has come down with "the sickness". Just a nasty cold. I was spared. I think do to all the colds I got working at the ski resort this winter. Worked out well for me since I got to cut as first saw both days.

Travel. All the other crews are flying home for R&R and flying back to Idaho. Dewey our Sup convinced SWICC to let us drive home which will give us a couple extra days to get over "the sickness". On the way home we stopped for a night in Vegas (no drinking allowed since the driving idea was to get healthy). Made 110$ out of 20$ and called it night before I spent all my winnings. Steve (1) Casino (0).

Snagging. Long day for the saw team (5 saws). Our mission is to clear the line of dangerous snags. Snags are dead trees typically burning or burned out with little holding them up. Winds will knock these trees over and can hurt someone putting hand line in. Ian and I got to cut over 40 snags today. Didn't get to many pictures since we kept a fast pace. Three other hotshot crews were behind us putting in saw line, hand line and hose line. It felt like we were diffusing mines at some points since there were so many snags. You have to decide which one to take first and then keep a close eye on all the one ready to come down around you. We heard and saw about as many fall on their own as we cut down. Probably the best day I've had yet this summer! Got to cut a couple tree the size of the saw bar 26 inches. No double cuts yet…

Horton Fire. We've been moved to another fire that’s part of the East Zone Complex. Two shot crews have been working for days on this one and the fire blew up on them the day before and they lost their line. One of the crew is Logan IHC that an Americorps NCCC buddy is on (Aaron). Aaron, Erin (who is on Gila with me) and myself are the only three Americorps to go onto hotshoting from last year in Denver. We used hose again today to mop-up the colder edge of the fire. At camp we got to hangout with Aaron and catch up a little bit.

More mop-up. The fire died down for 2nd 3rd and 4th. We continued the mop-up process and watched as columns popped up all around in the distance about 2pm everyday.

The big blow up. Another strong smoke inversion today. When it cleared the fire was extremely active. Ending the day around 26,000+ acres burned. We couldn't safely go into the drainage so we ended up with another much needed easy day. Great pictures today. First smoke column I've seen that big and close. All the work we've done isn't for nothing. Red Ridge didn't turn into a column and our line from yesterday held. However this fire is far from controlled. Its projected control date is now Sept.

Mop-up. We spent the 30th moping up the drainage with the assistance of Mark 3 water pumps hosed from the drainage creek. Great thing to have as long as the vintage 60's pumps keep running.

Dollar Ridge. Across from Red Ridge is Dollar Ridge where our mission today is to put line around the fires there. Type 2 crews have been hard at work finishing of what we started on Red Ridge so the over head felt comfortable moving on. We worked with a type 2 crew from Massachusetts putting the line in. (didn't know they did wildfire stuff there). I was out front on the saw cutting timber and brush for the hand line.

Smoke inversion. Due to the smoke being held in the canyon we couldn't see what fire activity was headed our way. The decision was made to wait out the inversion and see if this fire or adjacent fires blows up from forecasted low RH's and 20-30 mph winds. Being in the drainage would be dangerous if the fire blew up. Due to all the unburned fuel in between spot fires. The winds never came and the fire stayed fairly subdued. We got an easy day today.

Drainage. More of the same today. Plenty of spot fires to go around. Safety zones are far and few between so we have extra lookouts placed on the ridge tops. More crews are arriving due to the divisions pleas for more resources. The window for catching this fire is closing. All the moisture is drying up and record temps and red flag warnings are in store for tomorrow.

The Drainage. Today we moved to the Red Ridge drainage. Our goal it to hold Red Ridge since it is the only fire in the area not actively burning hundreds of acres. Light rains have been our saving grace. Gila IHC is running 4 saws everyday due to the heavy dead and downed trees and slash. Which is great news since that means I get to cut everyday as fourth saw. My legs aren't used to the added saw weight but its been fun cutting. My saw partner is Ian. He's got 6 years experience hotshoting and he's the assistant squad one boss.

Red Ridge Fire. We've arrived on the Red Ridge fire, which is a part of the East Zone Complex. When a large number of fires get in a small geographical area they get named a complex. This complex is a type 1 incident, which means it is the largest and most complex type of fire. So far two hotshot crews are on scene including us. The fire size is approximately 800 acres but no one has GPS'ed the fires edge. Most all fires in the mountains of Idaho burn "dirty". In this case it mean a fire makes a crown run up a slope burning everything for a relatively small area. That initial burn will send embers up to a 1/4 mile or more starting hundreds of small spot fires. Today we started put line around these small fires. A daunting task that is seemingly never ending.