RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!

cekkk wrote:
Tomman, no problem. If you take a look at the Hotshots, they are lean and mean, not very common to see a really big guy. The training he refers to is nothing more than the typical training a fire company in rural forested areas receive. There are no doubt some additions and deletions to achieve consistency so that an IC knows what he can expect from the people on the line. That part makes sense, as departments from all over the country will send in assistance. I just spoke to a firefighter in Arizona last week who said his department sent an engine and crew to Colorado Springs for the Black Forest this summer.

Our firefighters wouldn't be of much use to NYFD guys fighting a fire on the 66th floor. The tallest structures in our entire district are the 2-story houses, and not many of them. Similarly, those NYFD guys might be lost on an 11,000 foot high hillside, if they could even climb to the fire in that rare air.

Still, knowing that they were dealing with experienced wildfire firefighters, there was no excuse for stopping them from controlling the fire at least until they could get their people to the scene. As I heard it, the fire was allowed to spread when the locals were pulled and hours later a single engine arrived from 70 mountain miles away. Nobody attacked that fire until 2,000 hotshots arrived over the next few days. Just beaurocratic interference.

All I'd say regarding flying tankers is that as a pilot myself, he is correct that dumping retardent in mountainous country isn't like flying your Cesna to Gramma's house for Christmas. But he doesn't seem to understand that the guys that do that train and train and train some more. No one is going to give me a tanker and wish me luck.

Thanks for your prospective. Now the mod can toss us. What one, let me see if I can keep it .. Gas will likely have some water in it in Boulder CO for a while. How's that?