Don't
want to plant any ideas in unformed minds, but it was kinda pretty...
About 5:30 p.m. Monday, May 22, I was watching the tacky but energetic
"Greatest Show on Earth" when
I heard 2 dynamite
explosions about a half-second apart. The power blinked off, on, and then
stayed off. Connection? I wondered, and called the power company. Then
helicopters began circling a mountain
top about a
1/2 mile away, then I saw the big DC-3 tankers flying around it dropping
slurry. Time to go to
the fire department.
2 Forest Service (Greenie) Fire Fighter trucks and a power company truck
passed me going the other way. There
were dozens
of cars at the Fire Station, and I could see roiling gray clouds of smoke
coming off Mt. Baldy. Everybody was excited. I remember thinking later,
"This is how they sucker guys into fighting wars-with adrenalin and fear
of being ashamed."
I ran into a
friend, Billy, he was ready to fight, but all the 'official' volunteers
were waiting to be 'released'. I said, "Billy, I think I know how to get
to this fire", so we jumped in the Toyota. After a quick stop at home to
get boots
and shovel,
we scooted toward the fire.
But there was another fire on the way, requiring no heavy climb, which
is where the Greenies had ended up.
It covered
about 3 acres, in 3 separate fires. The 15 or so Greenies had it
pretty well contained, so we just
helped them
scrape a bare area around the biggest one.
Don't
want to plant any ideas in unformed minds, but it was kinda pretty...
Up on top
of Mt. Baldy, there was an orange glow, occasionally it would leap into
flames about 30 feet high.
All the Walker volunteers had been
kicked out of that area by the Greenies, which meant that only the 5 of
us at our fire were actually doing anything. The wind was gentle, but when
it shifted into your face, it was
really bad. Most of the Greenies
had bandanas over their mouths. But when there's no smoke, you can walk
right across the burned area, it
feels like walking through hell. I'd love to do a computer game level
like that. We left about 10, Billy had to work the next day. One thing
we didn't have was water. There was no way to get anythingbut a pickup
truck up there, and the Greenies had to keep going back to the mother water
truck. I never did see any water in the 3 hours I was there.
The next day I climbed up to where the big fire was.
It
was still smoldering a little, about 25 acres in all burned there. A
helicopter was dumping water on a
spot in the next valley. Some Greenies from the night before were up there,
I wondered if they had been up all
night, I slept til 9.
They
posed before kicking me out.
It turns out that an unnamed person
was blasting
a road nearby, a tree fell on this
power line-
Which
just happens to power our entire town. Sparks flew, short circuits, and
in a drought
like we're having, places under lines
that shorted just caught like napalm. The power was out for about 24 hours.