Quote:
Originally Posted by Fly Rod
Excellent photos! Watched a documentory about you guys. Have you ever been caught in a fire storm where you had to dig in and cover over?
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You must be talking about a fire shelter or as we call in "sheltering up". Its made to reflect 95% of the radiant heat and absorbs the other 5% but CANNOT take direct flame impingement....its woven fiberglass with a SS outer-shell. Its basically made to protect your airway/lungs...your extremity's can survive some serious temps but lungs will cook/burn out around 180 degrees. Protecting the body's ability to breathe is TOP priority.
But to answer you question: No, we have never had to deploy fire shelters but have been very,very close on several occasions. A fire shelter is a last resort, after every other option has been exhausted....escape route and safety zones are cut off and no possibility of a aerial rescue. We often have to create our own safety zones by burning out/firing off the vegetation to create "hard black" letting the fire rip around you. That can be pretty interesting and sketchy at times but we do it often. We did this 4 times in Idaho in 2000 when 3.5 million acres burnt in the Northern Rockies...we were literary surrounded by fires....one lighting storm dropped over 600 bolts that started around 350 new fires in a 6 hour period in the Salmon-Challis area of ID/MT border. When you start to get fires that become what we call "plume dominated", they influence/create their own weather and you get what they call Pyro-Cumulus development, which is a smoke column that reaches so high in the atmosphere it creates its own weather/lighting..kinda of like a micro climate for itself. Depending on how big this fire gets it can influence other fires that are over 50 miles away, creating something like a vacuum,s#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g everything towards it in all directions. Spot fires 1-2 miles away,80mph winds,fire whirls...basically uncontrollable while this extreme burning condition lasts. We call it a "Kodak" moment! I take pride that our crew has never had to deploy shelters as most folks dont survive this experience. As the Assnt. Crew Boss I dont want to ever have to explain why/how I killed someone because of a bad decision. I get more cautious as I get older for some reason, but still like to take a aggressive approach when we decide to engage a fire. We base all actions/tactics off of the current and expected weather (kinda like striper fishing!) We are more like meteorologists in a sense as fire will do what the weather allows it too and we adapt our decisions based on that weather and how it will influence fire behavior.
Sorry Im so long winded here....I can get carried away with my explanations of things.
Is it beer time yet? This talk of fire and heats making me awful thirsty.