Switching Hats

#2 Son and I came across this incident before the dust had settled. I have to say, old habits die hard. My fire officers hat was pulled from the dank, dusty recesses of my brain as I walked toward the scene. I'm glad I remembered to tell my son to grab my camera bag from the truck, it saved me a trip later.

There was some business to take care of, though to be honest, the best thing for me to do was provide support to the patient until the crews from 2s arrived. Once they arrived, a quick pass on to the Captain and that fire officer's hat was buried again, back where it belonged.

Out came another hat, one that fits far better than the one from my past.

 It was nice having the kid on scene, he was able to hold my camera bag, giving me one less thing to worry about.

 I kind of like this stabilization system, it sure beats a 1" life line.

There was some stuff that had to moved before the patient could be packaged.

The patient ended up coming out the rear hatch, it must have been nice to have that room.

A little slower shutter speed and this photo would have come out a lot better. A little blurring on the SUV would have shown the motion of the vehicle returning to it's wheels. Maybe next time.

This was kind of fun, I got to dust off some old skills and use my current ones. I must admit at this phase of my life, I am better suited to my newer skill set as opposed to my older ones.

Thanks for reading,

Schmoe

New News From an Old Fire

The Old Fire started on October 25, 2003 in the foothills just above the city of San Bernardino, Ca. Started during a Santa Ana wind event, it exploded into a raging conflagration that consumed almost 1000 homes and over 90,00 acres of chaparral and forest. Six people died as a result of the fire. mostly from heart attacks while fleeing or fighting the flames.

 Press Enterprise Photo by Greg Vojtko

The fire was determined to be an arson caused fire, Two men were seen in a van near the point of origin. They were identified and one was arrested for lighting the fire almost six years after the crime. The other was killed by gunfire three years after the fire. The convicted man, Rickie Lee Fowler was sentenced to death a few days ago. As a sidebar, a 25 yr. old man was convicted of recklessly starting a second fire while driving in brush in order to get a better view of the Old Fire. That smaller fire eventually burned into and merged with the Old Fire. It sucks to be him.

 Press Enterprise Photo by William Wilson Lewis III

As a result of the recent conviction and sentencing, The Press Enterprise (our local rag) dug into the archives and pulled out some of their best photos of the incident. I looked them over and found them to be of the PE's usual quality work. I love good fire photography, It's good to see shots by people who can really shoot.

The Old fire brings back a lot of memories. I watched it take off from 40 miles away. I was teaching a wildland interface class in a wildlife preserve and we could see the header building as we walked through the brush. It was an amazing sight. Though it brought home what I was trying to teach the cadets, it was also a distraction. It's hard to stay focused on Schmoe when the thermal columns from two major wildfires are building on the horizon.

Some friends of mine were on that fire, others lived in the fire zone and fought to save their own homes. Ash rained on our house for a few days, our days were tinted a golden orange hue that only the drift from a major wildfire can produce.

As often happened during events such as these, my lot was to stay in town and back-fill positions created by strike teams fighting the fire. The pay is the same and it's usually a better working environment.

Click on the link and check out the pics. For those of you lucky enough not to have to experience these things, it's pretty amazing. Great photos too.

Thanks for reading,

Schmoe

I Have Two Profound Statements To Make

First, Russell Crowe is not a great singer. He is a fantastic actor, but his vocals would probably not enable him to make a living on his vocals alone. I am uniquely qualified to make that statement as I can't carry a tune, a symphony orchestra cannot play loud enough to cover over my tone deafness. If I sang with the New York Philharmonic, some jerk sound engineer would isolate my voice and put it on You Tube. I would replace Yoko Ono as the worst singer ever on the web.

Second, I don't really care for musicals, I don't ever remember seeing one at the movie theater, except for Zep's "Song Remains the Same" and "Rocky Horror". Oh wait, does the "Blues Brothers Movie" count? What about "School of Rock"? I digress.

Therefore, it was with some reluctance that we opted to cross "Les Miserables" off of our Academy Awards Best Picture List, bite the bullet and see it.

The Saint and I were both in awe when the movie was over. What an incredible movie experience. We have seen five of the Best Picture nominees and will likely get to see a few more. Les Miserables was by far the best film that we have seen so far.

For the Saint, it knocked "Django Unchained" down a notch on her best picture list and for me, "Lincoln" was bumped down to number two. "Django", "Argo", "Lincoln","Zero Dark Thirty" and now "Les Miserables" have been seen, discussed and pondered over.  All were great movies but none attained the overall level brilliance of Les Miserables. Just my opinion mind you.

I'm saying that you have to go see this movie, I'm just saying that we did and loved every second of it. If you are even thinking about it, just do it. Put on yer good boots, a nice shirt and drive the good Jeep down there. A little culture might do ya some good.

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I started feeling sick on the way from the Calico Mountains yesterday. I thought perhaps it might have been a beer to many at the Slash X Cafe, a watering hole located in the middle of the Mojave Desert, or perhaps just being thrashed from driving and off-roading all day.

The Chills, a head that feels as if it is going to explode and violent sneezing fits have confirmed that I am freaking sick. I feel awful, these eight small paragraphs are  the only thing I have accomplished today. I know it's only a cold, but it is soundly thrashing my ass. Somebody needs to get working on a cure for the common cold. Soon.

Thanks for reading,

An Ellen' Schmoe