Red 26

I'm back from Red 26- it was a 2 hectare fire about 15 miles north of Bak Lake started by lightning. We got dispatched on Wednesday to a smoke report near Sandy Lake (northern fly in native reserve). As soon as we lifted off we saw 2 smoke columns- neither of them had been called in yet. We did fire reports for both of them- Red 26 (2 ha) 1 km hose lay to the fire through a swap, Red 27 (15 ha) 1 km hose lay to the fire up a rock cliff and then continued up to Sandy Lake. Red 28 was 20 hectares but it wasn't in a zone that we action so it was called a BOB (being observed) fire. By the next day it was 120 ha so now they have started putting crews on it. By then we'd been flying for an hour and a half so we had to set down in Sandy Lake to refuel and then we were instructed to go back to Red 26 as a second crew in. The hose lay to the fire was through a swamp where you had to hop from pile of mud to pile of mud- if you misjudged you sunk up to your hips in sludgy swamp water. New meaning to the word 'soaker'. The black flies were relentless- and we saw a bear twice when we were up at the fire but luckily he stayed away from our campsite. By the time I had gotten to the fire (after cutting helipads) it had been killed by the water bombers so there wasn't much left. We got pulled off Sunday morning- good thing because we got about 40 mm of rain last night. Glad I wasn't in the bush for that!

A is Bak Lake, B is Sandy Lake

Refueling H-36 in Sandy Lake My crew member's knee brace came today!!! That means he can join us and we're a full crew- good if there are any out of district/ province dispatches. With all the rain we're pretty sunk for fires for a while- the far north may still have decent numbers though. Missing everyone- I hear it's beautiful down south. <3