Okanse Lake

Hey Friends!! I promise I'm still here, I haven't written a post in ages. I was fortunate to make it home for my birthday and Canada day- spent most of my time in Restoule (my cottage) and I've been back in Red Lake for about 10 days. I had a great week, spent a few days in Bak Lake which I love because it's on a beautiful lake, accommodations are great, you can go fishing and swimming after work! Doesn't get much better. Then we came back to Red Lake to get ready for a trip to Okanse Lake. They've been working on a prescribed burn there for a couple years. I love it- I find what they're doing so interesting. There is a huge section that was hit by a tornado a few years ago and it's all blow down now. The point of the prescribed burn is see how blow down weathers, and eventually, how it burns. Currently there is limited information on how fire behaves in certain indicies in blow down fuel which makes it risky to be fighting a fire in it. They have one plot where they've been doing measurements of the height of blow down every year to see the changes. The other plots are going to be burnt at different indicies to see how the fire behaves. Our job this trip was to continue escape routes/ ATV trails throughout the plots. We couldn't have picked hotter days- it was 35 degrees celsius everyday, cutting in blow down for 3 days. I love chainsawing so it was amazing but WOWWWW it was hot. We got a lot done despite the heat but there is still a lot of cutting to be done. Depending on the fire season we'll be back for more cutting. I was talking to one of the managers who we were working with and I mentioned I would love to work during the actual burn- hopefully doing ignition. They expect the burn to take place sometime in September- they have a weather station and are monitoring the indicies to find the perfect time. My fourth crew member left last Sunday because he got his dream job as a nurse educator. Our crew is currently working as a 3-man crew until someone else gets hired. I've been on days off for 2 days and I've missed 2 very eventful days. We've gotten 8 fires in the last 2 days, a few that have substantial size. I'm hoping to get sent out tomorrow when I get back to work. Days off were really nice though- spent a lot of time at the beach- windsurfing! Looking forward to the rest of the summer- it's been going SO fast!

Cutting at Okanse Lake

Making a plan of attack