RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!

The severity of fires and floods increases with global warming, so we should cut back building to keep people further away. People start most unplanned fires so give them less access. Also, limit housing to the traditional cabins and shacks that were allowed in disaster-prone areas, to limit losses.

Gasoline prices seem to have reached a point where most stations are the same at $3.59. Diesel, of course, is still hovering just below $4.00 a gallon.

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?

But they didn't have a permit.

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.

cekkk wrote:

tomman58 wrote:
cekkk, talked to a friend that has his kids in CO. He sad they were quite west of the flood area and you would be further west. Hoping this is so.
when I talked to him about your comment on the FS not using local fireguys he laughed and said it ain't Fred's garage down the street that was on fire and you need a guy that is trained and built like a gorilla to go into those situations. He may be quite right about that from what programs I've seen on the training.
He said same with the planes and the dumping of water and retardant that training is needed and if they make a mistake it can cost lives and further damage. Seemed like a correct statement.
I do know one thing if either of these 2 areas screwed up and local died and planes crashed there would be hell to pay also.

Your friend may laugh, but only because he doesn't understand what was going on. I've served on two volunteer departments in the area and know of many, many more who deal with wildfires almost one hundred percent, (traffic accidents aside) since structure fires are an insignificant percentage of fire calls. I can't recall a year when there were two substantial structure fires, and most years there are none. Remind your friend that we are surrounded by national forest, and point out that immediately after the Hayman, probably 90% of the volunteers got their magic red cards in the following six months.

His comment about built like a gorilla is proof he has no clue. Does he think the US Air Force pilots dropping retardent don't know what they are doing? As recently as last year officials were slow to get the Air Force involved. Item I don't need to comment further. No disrespect intended, but it sounds as though he has an ideology providing his response.

The plane remark was in repose to your "Air tankers volunteered but were also refused due to regulations requiring contract planes, inadequate in numbers, be exhausted first." remark. He was saying the wind currents in that area are something else and those pilots that deal with the fires are trained for that activity. I also don't hink he was being rude to your volunteers but there really is extensive training those fireguys get. I don't know what is correct or not but he spends a lot of time in CO so he isn't totally knowledgeable.
Just his opinion, never been to CO so I just go with the flow on this one.

The fire in your area was arson also wasn't it.

tomman58 wrote:
cekkk, talked to a friend that has his kids in CO. He sad they were quite west of the flood area and you would be further west. Hoping this is so.
when I talked to him about your comment on the FS not using local fireguys he laughed and said it ain't Fred's garage down the street that was on fire and you need a guy that is trained and built like a gorilla to go into those situations. He may be quite right about that from what programs I've seen on the training.
He said same with the planes and the dumping of water and retardant that training is needed and if they make a mistake it can cost lives and further damage. Seemed like a correct statement.
I do know one thing if either of these 2 areas screwed up and local died and planes crashed there would be hell to pay also.

Your friend may laugh, but only because he doesn't understand what was going on. I've served on two volunteer departments in the area and know of many, many more who deal with wildfires almost one hundred percent, (traffic accidents aside) since structure fires are an insignificant percentage of fire calls. I can't recall a year when there were two substantial structure fires, and most years there are none. Remind your friend that we are surrounded by national forest, and point out that immediately after the Hayman, probably 90% of the volunteers got their magic red cards in the following six months.

His comment about built like a gorilla is proof he has no clue. Does he think the US Air Force pilots dropping retardent don't know what they are doing? As recently as last year officials were slow to get the Air Force involved. Item I don't need to comment further. No disrespect intended, but it sounds as though he has an ideology providing his response.

cekkk, talked to a friend that has his kids in CO. He sad they were quite west of the flood area and you would be further west. Hoping this is so.
when I talked to him about your comment on the FS not using local fireguys he laughed and said it ain't Fred's garage down the street that was on fire and you need a guy that is trained and built like a gorilla to go into those situations. He may be quite right about that from what programs I've seen on the training.
He said same with the planes and the dumping of water and retardant that training is needed and if they make a mistake it can cost lives and further damage. Seemed like a correct statement.
I do know one thing if either of these 2 areas screwed up and local died and planes crashed there would be hell to pay also.

Thanks, great info. That was the lodge pole pine I remembered from Yellowstone. We were in and area that had burned about 5 years previously and it had seedlings very close together. Maybe 5 or so per square foot. They have learned (finally) to just leave them alone and nature selects the best ones.