YMCA of the Rockies. Spent the last two days at a conference for Americorps entitled Legacy. Most branches of Americorps were represented (Vista, Senior corps, etc). The lectures were awful so I spent my time hiking in the camp and the bordering Rocky Mountain National Park. I don't have any pictures because it was snowing, cloudy or foggy. However, hear the view of the mountains is awesome from the YMCA camp.

The sky is falling.
Looks like over a foot of snow in the mountains tonight. Our goal for tomorrow is to burn some piles of limbs from our forest thinning projects. The rest of the next two weeks will be mostly Squad Boss training (131) and Pumps training.

Settling into camp

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Chucking debris off the cliff

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Working with this view beats any office window.

The textbook cut

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My fellow sawyer Adam was impressed with this particular cut so I posed for a picture with it. Note: It was a level cut; it just looks slanted because it’s off the stump and on uneven ground.

View from ridge line

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We tied into the rocky ridgeline, which kept the chains of line we had to dig reasonable.

Stop taking pictures and dig!

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Digging line for the controlled burn.

Fort Collins. Spent this week (Mon-Fri) digging & cutting line for a controlled burn outside Fort Collins. Ten of us Americorps and two Forest Service camped out in the cold fall weather at 8,500ft. The experience was great. It was an opportunity to bond with everyone. We sat around the campfire every night and enjoyed all hamburgers and hot dogs one could eat. Due to weather conditions the burn had been postponed from Saturday.

Indian Peaks Wilderness - Lake

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Aspen colors

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First snow. Spent the weekend camping at Brainerd Lake and hiking in the Indian Peak Wilderness. Camping the first day at 9,000 ft proved to be extremely cold and windy. The next day Melanie and I hiked to one of the many lakes in Indian Peak Wilderness. Most of the other hikers were headed to one of the near by peaks. They all had crampons and heavy down winter parkas with them. We turned around at the lake since we had tennis shoes and fall jackets.

A group of four Corps members left for California on a two-week dispatch this weekend. The Cali fires have been getting tons of media coverage here.

Cutting Complete! Every year the FS (Forest Service) is given a quota of acreage to thin in the forest. For that reason Americorps has been manning chain saws and swamping debris. Lately it’s been a made rush to get done before the deadline. Today we completed the FS goals. What do you win for completing early? Even more work next year. More importantly people can continue to be sent on dispatches. Dispatches are important for Americorps enjoyment, FS employee over-time and keeping FS costs down to stay on budget.

More pictures. If you want to see more pictures from UT. Check it.

http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c206/stevepassmore/

Bumbershoot. Spent the last 5 nights in Seattle WA with Melanie. Near a hundred bands played in the Seattle Center. Got to see Tribe Called Quest, Steve Miller Band, Kanye West and Atmosphere. Seattle Center was home of the worlds fair and bumbershoot is British for umbrella (also the name of the festival). Also got to see some good friends, Laura and Rob.

Mainstage with Kanye West

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West is a huge sell out

Space Needle

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Melanie and I at the Space Needle

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Laura and I at Steve Miller Band

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Seattle skyline from Space Needle

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Northern CO crew

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Last day. We stayed around to help clean up after all the other crews left. Highlight of the day: I was bet $20 to jump in a huge water pumpkin. They hold water for heli bucket drops and are the size of a small above ground pool. The guys on the crew learned quick that us Americorps will do anything for money.

pano of salt flats

pano, originally uploaded by stevempassmore.

View from Pilot.

Save the fish! The fish expert’s electro shocked the water and saved 172 fish from the stream. The electro shock stuns the fish and they float to the surface. I forgot to mention that the fish holding pond got a direct hit with flame retardant so they have to move the whole breading operation. We heard over air to ground "you know the pond we weren't supposed to hit. Well, its red now sorry."

Long days = cat naps

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View from Helicopter

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Saw line. The fire has been burning areas of unburned fuel inside the boundary of black. Today we worked on reinforcing the retardant line with a saw line. The goal is to remove heavy fuels with the chain saw. By keeping unburned areas it helps re-growth and controls erosion. Also in this case the fire could still spread up the ridge line to the top of the mountain then back down to the fish area (very small chance of that happening). One more thing, I got another Helicopter ride.

2851 acres. 70% of that is actually burned. Known in the fire world as a dirty burn. More of the same mop up. Got a Helicopter ride 1/2 way up the mountain. It was my first time in a helicopter. Also the Americorps Tahoe got a flat tire. Turns out if something breaks on a fire they fix it for you. Goes for ripped pants, tires, tools and anything else.

Waiting

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Helicopter rides!

Mop up. Now the long process of securing the edge of the fire begins. By this point we are all getting a little tired from the 16 hour days and long steep hiking. Our saving grace is the amazing catered dinners provided to us each night. We had steaks a few nights as well as tasty locally brewed root beer!

Controlled burn

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Controlled burn

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2nd Night

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2nd day view of the fire

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Fish habitat

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View of the fish habitat after it got burned over. The water got so hot it boiled off and cooked the fish.

Smoke column

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Fire(1) vs. Northern CO(0). Well so much for the fish. 2000+ acres burned over night. The Pilot fire transitioned to a type 3 incident. Two hotshot crews, two hand crews, two helicopters, two small planes and two large planes arrive early in the day. One large home is now in danger as well as the holding pond for the remaining fish. Most of the fish habitat is nuked. Our goal for the day is to save what habitat is left by digging 30+ chains of line with Northern UT. Then set a backfire to build a black (burned) barrier. It worked. The burn was risky due to the squirrelly winds we have had. If the wind shifted during the burn it would have been hard to get away fast enough in the light flashy fuels.

helidrop

helidrop, originally uploaded by stevempassmore.

Look what my camera and photoshop can do!

More running away

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The branch scratches on the side of the Tahoe are called Colorado pin strips.

Run away!

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Night view

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When we woke up to evacuate I got this shot of the advancing fire.

suppressant drop

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Since the streambed had to be clear of retardant the ridgeline was the only option for seed drops.

Tree no longer torching

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Helitech dropped a bucket on the torching tree. The propeller blades kicked up hot embers and started spot fires that popped up shortly after.

tree torch

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I got to watch as this tree went up. It eventally started spot fires all over.

Spot fires

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We eat lunch in the shade where the flames are burning in this picture. Minutes later the whole tree went up.

spot fires

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The spot fires are out of our control at this point. You can see part of the line we dug in the lower left hand corner.

Smoke blocking the sun

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On our way out the smoke made it look like late afternoon.

Pilot Fire. Wendover UT is home to the most genetically pure strain of Cutthroat trout in the west coast US. Our goal is to save the streambed that houses the fish habitat. Restrictions on fire retardant and back burns are in place due to the fish. Northern CO is the Initial attack crew on the fire that is 60 acres and growing. Air support and Utah County crew are in route.

It is a Red Flag day. That means that the temps, relative humidity and winds will reach levels that can create volatile fire conditions. We hit that point around 2pm, 90 deg, 12 RH and 20+mph wind.

The morning we spent digging line around the downhill section of the fire. Around 2pm the helicopter kicked up embers from a spot fire that then blow up below us. Simultaneously a spot fire picked up were we hiked in sending embers and smoke in behind us. We decided it was a good time to leave by following the fire line back. At this point the IC (Incident Commander) choose to team us up with UT county and heliteck to dig line up hill from the streambed. Shortly after a grass fire started below us. In fear of loosing an escape route the IC called everyone off the hill.

That night we set up camp approx 3 miles from the fire in the grass lands. At 11pm we evacuated our campsite because the fire was creeping within a mile of us.

Then at 3am my squad boss Chris came down with what turned out to be a kidney stone. It was decided that he should be helicoptered to Salt Lake city for diagnosis. Somehow I slept during the whole thing and helicopter landed only a few feet from me.

Pilot Fire - Wendover UT

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The morning we arrived on the fire almost no smoke was visible. The lower half the fire is in UT the upper half is in Nevada.

Equipment Rehab. Finished with the Magpie fire. While waiting for reassignment we rehabbed tool, trucks and feet. To over come the long day we played shuffleboard with floor squeegees and turtle wax cans. We left that night for Wendover UT and a 60-acre fire. Our accommodations included the peppermint hotel & casino in Nevada. (Wendover is on the boarder)

Casino?

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Last thing we expected was a night in a casino. Let alone three. I didn't do any gambling but we did find out how many pictures you can take before they kick you off the gaming floor.

Hiking. Spent 5 hours hiking today. More mop up. One of our crew members got pneumonia. A replacement will be flown in asap.

Sun set over spike site

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Awww purdy

Lunch on Magpie

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Spike Out. A decision was made to have us spike out (camp over night) on a mountain next to the fire to avoid the hike in and riding the ATV's (two atv's rolled over the first day). We continued to mop-up and dig line around some small spot fires. Spent about 4 hours of our 16hr day hiking.

Water drop (from the cotton wood)

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The pilot hit his mark this time and we got a little wet too.

water drop

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A huge cottonwood was stubbornly burning so we order a few bucket drops that ended up missing the target.

magpie

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Magpie

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View trom the fire with a dust storm in the background.

Magpie fire. 660 acres. Considered a Type 3 fire due to complexity and the number of firefighters involved. Our duties are to mop-up the edge of the fire in steep terrain. The high light of the day was getting an ATV ride up part of the mountain. Our hike was still extremely long.

Dispatched. A 20-person dispatch was put together today. Including 4 Americorps, USFS, Larimer County and a few other organizations together forming the Northern Colorado crew. Our destination is a KOA campground in Fillmore Utah.

Dispatch? On Tuesday 9 of us got put on to the national dispatch list. Getting dispatched means traveling to any part of the US for two weeks to be placed on one or more fires. Our group is considered a type 2 crew that is initial attack capable. The national list has only one other crew similar to ours. Long story short that means that in the next couple days or hours I'll be going somewhere. The rumors are northern California is likely.

As for this week I've been working on different cutting units. Continuing the enhancement of the all powerful Aspen...