so many firsts!!

It's been a while since I've last written a blog, I don't think I've had a dull moment since. I haven't been to any more fires but I've been doing a lot of work cutting trails and helipads at Okanse Lake which is the location of a prescribed burn that Red Lake is doing sometime in September. It is a lot of work, the whole place is blow down and the part I was working on recently is shin deep water. It's great experience on the saw. One of the nights there I saw the Northern Lights for the first time ever. I don't think they were that spectacular but I thought they were AMAZING!!! They were green and really bright, I loved it. Then on my days off we drove to Steinbach in Manitoba and went SKYDIVING!!!! We flew to 11 000 feet, it was so crazy. I bought the video of me and it was hilarious. I had a minor freak out, I'm not sure what happened but I know that I was not in control of my limbs or my brain. It was so cool- as soon as I did it I wanted to do it again. I love adrenalin.

THEN, I went fishing yesterday and I caught a 35 inch northern (pike)! I couldn't believe it, I screamed so loud when it surfaced, I was not expecting it to be that big. It put up such a good fight, took me about 5 minutes to get it into the boat. Good thing I had people there, my friend helped me get it into the boat- he picked it up by the gills and brought him in. Northerns are slimy and uggggllly and scary!! It kind of scares me seeing such a big fish in a lake, makes me not want to swim in there anymore.

Now I'm back at work. All the crew members are gone so it's just crew bosses and crew leaders. It's really quiet around the bunks with everyone gone. I think there's 6 people left here, and then a bunch left who don't live at the bunks. There were 10 fires in the North West Region yesterday so I'm hoping to get on a fire before my contract is over. Hope everyone is enjoying the last few days of summer- the leaves are already turning and it definetly feels like fall up here. <3

Red 39

Red 39 Been back from Red 39 for a couple days. It was a human caused fire, there was a contractor crew doing logging and one of their machines started the fire. We weren’t the first crew on the fire, we were called in 2 days later to hit 3 spot fires off the main fire. The fire was originally small but it had a sudden wind shift and was now 65 hectares. We were just coming off 2 days off and I was in the shower at 9am when I heard someone knocking on the door- it was my crew leader saying we had to be at base right now because we were going to Red 39. Within the hour we were on the chopper heading to the fire. One of my favorite parts of the job is the unpredictability. The first 3 days of the fire were good- after we hit the spot fires spot fires we had to put in a line to stop the fire from jumping a creek into some standing trees. We were working around an area of new regen trees which burn really easily. One night at 10pm we saw trees torching (on fire from bottom to top) which is unusual so late at night. Unfortunately the 3rd night we got 60+ mm of rain which put an end to the fire behaviour pretttty quickly.

We were on the fire with 4 other Red Lake crews and we were all camped together which was fun. One night I was awoken at 630am to what sounded like something stepping on my tent, and then grunting. I somehow convinced myself it wasn’t a bear, and went back to sleep. I was telling my crew leader about it in the morning, and then the other Red Lake crews came over to see if our dining tent had been ripped apart by a bear as well. It hadn’t, but it proved that it had been a bear that trampled my tent. We all went on the line that day and the bear came back during the day and mauled all of our dining tents and garbage bags. The overhead of the fire thought it’d be a good idea to switch campsites to avoid anymore bear problems. Our new camp was wicked, right on a lake that we could swim/ wash in after work. Of course, the bear found us a few days later. I don’t know what he found so interesting about me but he showed up at my tent again one night at midnight. I woke up my crew leader who had the chainsaw in the fly of his tent and we started it up and chased him away. One of the other guys we were camping with had an air (bear) horn that he fired off a couple times and we didn’t see the bear for the rest of the time. My crew ended up being the last crew on the fire so we were there for 13 days. I got to do AGA scanning one morning which meant flying the whole fire looking through heat sensor binoculars looking for hot spots. They do it for bigger fires to make sure there aren’t any hidden smokes/ hot spots. My crew leader did the main part of it but I got to look as well- it was difficult to tell the difference between actual hotspots and rocks that had absorbed heat from the day. We went at 530am before the sun was up to minimize the possibility of the AGA showing daytime heat, but it was still hard to tell the difference. When we got back from the fire we went to Okanse again and cut a helipad for the prescribed burn that I was talking about last time. It was a lot of work but I always like getting experience on the saw. I just had 2 days off which was much needed after 19 days of work. When we were at Okanse we got A LOT of rain which has knocked down our hazard again. Looks like we’ll be slow for a while, but you never know when it’ll pick up again. I’ve added some pictures of our fire/ my crew.

My crew- me, AJ (crew member), and Jack (crew leader). They're amazing!

AJ and I built this bench- our first attempt.. worked out pretty well. Having a back rest in the bush is AMAZING!!
<3

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

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

McKenzie Island!

Just had 2 days off, spent them on McKenzie Island!! After a week of rain/ snow/ freezing temperatures and windddd, we got 2 BEAUTIFUL days! Gorgeous. My crew leader lives out there- it's an island about across from Cochenour. There's a person ferry that goes to and from the island. You can get cars there on the winter roads, other wise it's boat access only. 125 people live on the island, there aren't any stores or businesses there. Real estate is really expensive in Red Lake because of the mines, but the island is a little more affordable. There are a bunch of fire people who live on the island and boat to work every day. I got to shoot a gun for the first time!! It was so cool :D I asked what kind it was 5 times but I still don't remember.. I know it was a shotgun- a 12 gauge. My first time I hit 3 targets in 3 shots- a natural. It had pretty good kick back and it was LOUD. We also went fishing- I bought my fishing license. A guy on my crew caught a walleye but I didn't catch anything. Then we went back to my crew leaders house and had an amaaazing BBQ dinner. I even tried a deer burger- my crew leader shot the deer in the winter. Everyone talks about how good game meat is and one of the main reasons I don't eat meat is because the animals are kept in little cages and aren't treated well while they're living. Game seems a lot more humane so I figured I'd try it out. I'm glad I tried it because it's been about 10 years since I've eaten meat and maybe I'd changed my mind. Nope- I'm not missing out on anything great... it tasted alright but I didn't like the texture. I'm good with my veggie burgers :) We had a campfire at night and played darts- I can't aim darts like I can aim guns apparently though, got beat quite badly. I'm hoping the weather stays like this and we dry out... crews are starting to come back from out East so hopefully we're out next!

Crew member and crew leader playing darts.

Brewski, crew leader's dog <3

Red 18

Had my first fire of the season on Wednesday- Friday! We got dispatched at 230 in the afternoon on Wednesday, from the air it looked pretty good- my crew leader scouted it as 0.1 hectares with a 1000ft pumping distance (from water to the fire) and even commented "the walk doesn't look to bad". Wroonngggg. Ended up being 3000ft through alder bushes and swamp haha. It took us a bit to get hose to the fire and I got to see some decent fire behavior! Trees torching off which I love the sound of! Once we got the fire wrapped it was easy going. We stayed 2 nights in the bush (swamp).. I had a really good time. Got to do a lot of cutting and more experience on the saw which is always a good thing. It was a lightning fire- from the day before. Our indicies were really high but we just got POURED on today!! Think that'll put us back in low hazard for a while. I've got 4 days off- thinking about going to Kenora or Winnipeg for a night or two... don't know what to do with myself for 4 days! Hoping we bounce back to high indicies quickly!

All trained up!

I've spent the last 2 weeks in classrooms, various courses. The first week was my S200 course (crew boss course) at Vedette Lake which is Fort Frances' forward attack base. It felt weird to be back there, but it's a beautiful spot for the course. We were in the sauna every night and I made it in the lake twice. (It was freeeezing). I got to see a lot of the people I have met on fires for the past 2 summers, which was nice to catch up. I really enjoyed the course as well. We went more in depth with indicies, what they mean and what they predict. More about the weather and how to read weather maps, and how to tell whats going on with the weather from looking at clouds and the wind. We also learned how to read and use a GPS (as a crew boss I carry one now), how to convert basemaps and block numbers to eastings and northings. I learned about that stuff last year with my crew leader but it was a good reminder. We also talked about our responsibilities on the fireline and on an initial attack. Crew boss is responsible mostly for nozzling the initial line and ensuring the crew members know where the escape routes and safety zones are. After the S200 I went to Dryden for Occupational Health and Safety Supervisor course... since I'm a crew boss I'm considered a supervisor so I took this course to find out all the things I could potentially be liable for. It was only a day but it felt like I was there forever. I didn't enjoy that course as much, SO boring. It's pretty hard to make Health and Safety an interesting presentation. Then Thursday and Friday of this week I was doing Standard First Aid re certification on base. That was a little better than the Occupational Health and Safety course but not by much. I'm so glad to be done with all the classroom learning. Next week we're at the forward attack base Monday to Friday. It's called Bak Lake- I haven't been there yet but I've heard it's nice. We had a bit of rain last week but our indicies are slowly climbing so maybe we'll be dispatched to a fire from there. Usually that's where they cover alerts for the Far North regions- Pikangikum, Sandy Lake, Deer Lake etc. We've had 9 fires so far, mostly in Pikangikum a few weeks ago there were about 7 in a weekend- all human caused. I've got the weekend off and it's beautiful out!! I did laundry and some errands today and might be going golfing tomorrow. Tonight is the wedding social for one of our techs and everyone on base (and probably in town) is going. I'm looking forward to that, should be a good time. Happy early mothers day to the best mom and grandma in the world! <3 Love you both. And to all the other mothers out there. You're amazing.