Fire and Rain

Jake is on the left

My 24 year old son Jake is in his 5th year of wildland firefighting.  He works for the USFS on a Helitack crew called Malhuer Rappel Crew based in John Day, OR (http://www.malheurrappelcrew.com/index.html).   Rapplers are used for initial attack on wildfires in remote or steep terrain areas that would be inaccessible for ground crews to respond quickly. Currently he is working on the Whitewater Baldy fire in New Mexico (http://inciweb.org/incident/2870/) which is now the biggest fire in NM history at over 250,000 acres.  He called me this morning and told me he has been working with the aerial ignition crew dropping  PSD's to moderate fire spread and slow the fire speed to prevent uphill runs. The PSD is a machine mounted to the rail of the helicopter that dispenses ping pong type balls charged with some type of accelerant that explodes and burns.  He stands with one foot out on the rail to drop the devices as directed by the crew boss and describes it as what it would be like to fly.  He was as excited as I've ever heard him.

Here is Jake rappelling from the helicopter

Now getting back to Maine, no fire danger here.  It's been cold and rainy, in fact southern Maine got about 6 inches of rain yesterday.  We didn't get that much but it is wet and cold enough for a fire in the wood stove.

Wade hauled some firewood from the camp to the house.  The old dump truck come in handy!

We also put up an old sign that Darlene pulled out of the tall grass to mark our landing on the St John River.