Things I learned on the night shift on a wildfire in California...

Things I learned after almost 2 weeks of working the night shift on the Ukonom Complex fires in Forks of Salmon, California:

-Scorpions sting and it hurt, but not as bad as I thought it would
-Getting stung on the neck, however, is psychologically disturbing
-I'm immune to poison oak; unfortunately, most other people are not.
-Poison oak can go systemic, meaning you get it in weird and often uncomfortable places
-Did I mention I'm immune to poison oak? ;)
-California has lots of weird bugs.
-People should be required to keep their boots outside of the mobile sleeping trailer
-The river by Orleans and Forks of Salmon is remarkably clear and refreshing
-Being told you can't go river makes people upset
-Being told you can't drink on the way home from the fire makes people upset
-Poor leadership makes people upset
-Even a "dark cloud" has a silver lining. You can see it better when you drink
-I do pretty well working the night shift. It's the vampire thing...
-When I wake up at 5 pm to work the night shift, I do NOT like it when people say "Good morning". It's 5 pm, I don't care that we are just waking up, it is the AFTERNOON
-Eating breakfast for dinner is better than eating dinner for breakfast
-It doesn't matter how old you really are, sneaking out of a hotel to the liquor store when you're told you're not allowed to still makes you feel like you're in high school...and not in a GOOD way
-Nate is a rageaholic. But not really.
-Even if you don't think you can drink a whole bottle of wine by yourself, once you open it, I'm sure you can find a way
-When you start counting down the number of days left on a fire roll by day 2, you know it's going to be a long one
-People that wake up too early and start singing and being annoying before everybody else wakes up at fire camp really pisses people off
-...Especially when you ask how they are doing, and they say, "I'm ALWAYS fine!" Don't ever EVER be that guy
-Yellowjackets will swarm and attack, even at midnight
-I'm glad I wasn't there for THAT...not that scratching your eye and not being able to see out of it for 24 hours is much better
-I wish I could have seen Andy freak out, apparently it was hilarious when he started getting stung
-You CAN get pneumonia during the summer in 110 degree weather
-Running a chainsaw for my job here at Rocky is WAYYY cooler than brushing out poison oak and manzanita on a fireline
-I need a new iPod
-Nate has the best taste of music of anybody besides maybe Tom back in Michigan
-It is possible to tend to a bonfire for 14 hours straight
-It is possiblyto sleep in the most uncomfortable positions ever, on really steep slopes, wearing a hard hat and a fire pack
-Don't try to sleep on top of a steel truck; it will NEVER warm up from lying on it
-Setting up tents of different styles, shapes and sizes in a straight line, no matter how perfect, will never look that good, so don't bother
-Getting injured, stung, or poked in the eye while doing some crappy task is the BEST thing you can do for yourself; I got to shoot the shit with Sheean and nap in a warm reclined truck seat while everybody was cold and miserable; it got Andy a hotel room; it got Ruth to go home!
-On that note, I recommend carrying a live scorpion around for when you're REALLY itchin' to get off the fireline
-I don't want to eat Skittles or drink Gatorade for a LONG time
-There's always a short, hyper, impressionable young man on every fire that will at some point drive you up a wall
-Having a big black dog come out of the night to keep us company on a cold spot fire really does make everybody smile.... I miss big drooling Jake!
-It's freakin' GREAT to be home... even though there were 5 huge spiders in my sink and my window fell out, and yes my windows fall out for no reason

I could go on and on. As I made it perfectly clear to those in charge, it was the worse roll I have ever been on. It has nothing to do with the work we did; brushing out contingency lines during the day in 110 degree weather was pretty grueling but it kept us busy. Poor leadership, miscommunication, and bad decisions all made for an unhappy group. Most of the crewhad never been on fire before, but those of us who had been "in the biz" for a while were pretty disappointed/frustrated/RAGING ANGRY. Yeah that was a joke. One of the nicer guys on the trip was threatened to be sent home for being a "bad influence" on our morale and he has "rage problems". I still can't get over it!

We were out for 21 days; 4 days in the beginning were travel days, as it was an all National Park Service Crew and 8 of us from Rocky had to meet the rest of the crew in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There were folks from other parks in New Mexico and Texas. From there we ended up first at the base camp in Orleans, CA. I ran a saw for a day and decided that cutting real trees down is much more fun than cutting brush up steep slopes on hot days. I'm just getting soft I guess, ha ha! We were soon moved to a spike camp that was actually nicer than the base camp in Forks of Salmon, and went from day shift to swing shift to night shift and all of us, our biological clocks were just jacked. At night we'd hold the line when they were burning out; which then turned into babysitting a COLD dead fire; which then turned into sleeping in a gravel pit all night, waking up for about 2-3 hours in the morning, then trying to go back to sleep in a mobile sleeper trailer (the "catacombs"). Blah. I'm done complaining about it, at least we all made it home safe and ALIVE. Two folks died while we were out there; one was burned over on the Panther fire, north of us; one was on the Olympic National Park fire crew and was killed by a falling tree. After we left, that helicopter went down and 9 more people died. It's been a bad year.

I'd love to go out again this year, just to make up for how unsatisfying this last roll was. Doubt it will happen until September or October, if at all, with the amount of work we have to do here at the park!

We are on hold with cutting trees down at the park while we do a site analysis for every front country area in the park. We should be done early this week; then I think we're just going to clear cut EVERY SITE. We're calling it a "buffer cut". It's the safest way to do things, given the high chance of trees falling over from the wind.

I have to move out of my crappy cabin by Sept 15th, thank goodness. My living situation will improve; however, there is a required class I need to take for grad school at Colorado State in Fort Collin every Friday. Surprise! I wasn't going to take any classes until January when I am off work so I can live in Estes and be around for school, and for pre-season work next spring. So now, once the road closes, every Thursday night I need to drive the long way around just for a 2 credit class on Friday. I want to get a place to live in Estes, but I can't pay double rent! I'll have to get creative...

Hopefully the east side crew leader gets that promotion they should be flying soon and I can put in for his job so I can get back over there and this won't be an issue, but we'll just have to wait and see!

Yesterday I finally went and got a new tattoo... actually, 4 baby sea turtles swimming across my back. One for myself and each of my siblings. Linda and I both wanted to get Galapagos Island-related tattoos since that's our goal to go there some day, which will probably be in like 20 years... 2 hrs 15 minutes and I think that's my max time I can sit under the needle. Very cute though! I'd like to add more water/bubbles/something to tie it together more and give it more "movement" but we'll see when I get the money/pain tolerance to hit it again. ;)

Other news is that I've been going through some very tough stuff lately; if you don't know what it is, then don't worry about it, I've got my mom doing enough of that as it is! ;)  But thank you everybody who has been supportive and kept my spirits up. Things aren't back to normal or "good" but I'll get through it...

From Ukonom Comple...

From Ukonom Comple...

This is how firefighters have fun in camp when they're supposed to be sleeping... shaving mohawks into people's heads