Heating Up
July 21, 2015 1:38 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello again! Hope everyone is surviving the heat and keeping cool. The last couple weeks for myself have been pretty busy. My crew and I had almost three straight weeks of man up with the occasional wildfire thrown in. With the extreme temperatures and reduced humidity fire hazard in the province sky-rocketed. Because of that we got a good chunk of fire line experience. One of the more memorable fires we actioned occurred two weeks ago inside a cutblock 11km south of Swan Hills. The fire began on July 1st inside a slash filled cutblock. The fire initially burned up most of the block which contained multiple log decks ready for haul as well as some of the surrounding forest. A dozer guard had been established around the fire perimeter which did provide an effective barrier. However the next day weather conditions caused the fire to take off and it jumped the dozer guard and burnt into a neighbouring block. The fire at this point increased dramatically inside and the fire consumed more log decks in the process. This is the point in which Millar Western’s crew was dispatched to the fire to contain it. We flew in and assisted in spot fire prevention of the area while our helicopter provided bucket support by dropping water onto the burning log decks. We managed to contain the fire and prevent it spreading into the surrounding forests. It was a great learning experience for me and my crew because of the interaction with government crews and putting our skills to the test to see what works and what doesn’t. It was a pretty hard but rewarding couple of weeks for me and my crew but it was great for crew cohesion and developing our skills. Thanks for reading and I can’t wait to see what the next couple weeks have in store.
