I was heading up to the Bully Fire west of Redding with the lab, although we were not exactly invited. As we drove north, I searched the web for information, waiting to see if any of my friends posted on Facebook that they were also going to the fire, so that I could ask them where camp was. Since it belonged to Cal-Fire, and all my friends are Forest Service, no one really stood a chance of going. Politics that drive everyone nuts but nothing ever changes.
As we neared Redding, we pulled into a Walmart parking lot to launch a weather balloon to get a vertical profile of the atmosphere. Since it was my first balloon launch, the guys let me release it. After letting it go, we verified that it was sending data to the laptop in the front seat and headed to the grocery store for the day's meal. Neil, the PhD in our group, outlined his plan. Richard would help set up the Lidar and Radiometer and I would "run interference" with the fire folks to make sure we were allowed in and didn't later get discovered and kicked out. That made me nervous.
As we approached the road block, I rolled down the window as the guys on road started to wave us through (we look pretty official in our fire chaser truck). "Do you know where drop point 2 is?" I asked. They looked back with blank stares. "I'm sorry, what?" "Drop point 2." "Uh, we don't know anything about that... but the fire is that way..." and pointed me in the direction of the large plume. "Ok thanks!" I laughed as we drove past the road block and into the fire.
We passed by the heli-base trying not to be noticed. Neil spoke up from the back seat. "Carrie, this isn't actually something we could be arrested for is it?" I considered for a moment. It was possible, but probably unlikely. We weren't going to be in anyone's way and I had enough fire experience to most likely keep us all safe. I thought about the consequence of an arrest record with the new route my life was taking. It's not like I was going into public safety or anything, so.... is it ok to be arrested for trespassing on a fire? I decided it wouldn't be too bad, my boss would probably bail us out, and I'd have a story to tell Candace's kids.
I had Richard pull over when I saw a gathering of green pants so that I could get our hand-held radio cloned with the fire's frequencies. But....they were all cops. Huh. And we were trespassing on a fire. Interesting.
I hopped out of the truck as I donned my yellow fire shirt and approached the officers. "Do you guys have a cloning cable?" I asked.
One wise guy responded "A what? A cloning table?"
"No...cable. Cloning cable...for the radio." I waved my radio at him.
"Oh, uh, no. But I know how to stick my knife in to short circuit the programming mode".
Great, good for you. So do I. "Well do you have the fire frequencies? Is that an IAP?"
He looked down at the rolled up packet of papers in his hand. "Yeah."
"Can I get the frequencies from you?"
He stood over my shoulder as I scribbled frequencies in my notepad and continued to make comments about a cloning table. Fantastic. I had a new friend. I wondered why he didn't wonder why I didn't have the frequencies or an IAP. We thanked the officers and Richard drove off as I manually programmed the frequencies into our radio.
We drove through the fire and out the other side to a nice pull-out with a view of the fire. As the guys set up the equipment, I scanned the radio and took in the incident. It wasn't long before a truck pulled up and out hopped a yellow shirt and green pants. Here we go.
He had a camera slung over each shoulder. Hmm...media perhaps? He came up and asked who were were with. I explained who we were but left out the part that no one really knew we were there except a group of cops who were now lounging in reclining lawn chairs. Turned out he was with a news outfit out of Redding. He took some photos and our names and left to find better news.
Minutes later a land-owner pulled up and joined me in taking in the scene of the fire. I commented that they hadn't evacuated him. He looked over at me with a squint and said "I wouldn't go if they tried". I wondered about the power of mandatory evacuations but thanked my lucky stars that they weren't that strict, because here we were.
A sheriff SUV pulled up and asked if the fire had turned around and was coming at us. An odd thing being as you could plainly see it was not. I asked if they had the frequency for the new command channel, Command Nine. "Are you kidding me? I can hardly talk to my dispatch". How do these guys survive?
"So what's that thing do anyway?" Asked the guy in the driver seat. Oh no, we've been found out. I let Neil explain the instruments in the back of our truck. The cops offered us drinks from their cooler, but we said we were good, and off they went.
Richard slept in the driver seat while Neil went back and forth adjusting the Lidar. At times I sat in the air conditioned truck, other times I stood out on the side of the road and watched the smoke plume. I was glad I wasn't out there cutting line. Not having the new command frequency, I listened to Air Attack on the air to ground channel and picked up two tactical channels. They had lost a burn a couple ridges over from us. I picked at the dry grass on the side of the road and made fun of Neil when the Lidar was pointing the wrong way due to a glitch in the computer's code.
Finally Neil got tired of collecting data and we headed towards Clear Creek to take a dip, stopping at the local market for beers to take with us. When we walked in, we were greeted by the smarty pants cop shooting comments about a cloning table. Pretty sure he thought he was funny. I went over and chatted while the guys bought beers. The cop introduced himself with a name I couldn't understand. I shook his hand and gave him my name and he introduced me to his partner across the table from him. His partner was younger, sitting stiffly and looking nervously around. I gathered he did not like working with his game-show-host partner, did not appreciate his sad attempts at flirting, was too young to be doing what he was doing, or all of the above.
When the guys were done checking out, I said good-bye and we headed down to the creek. We changed into our suits (mandatory on fire calls) and found a spot to jump in. It was shallow but fast moving. As I dove into the icy current, my sunglasses rolled off my face and down the small rapids just down river of me. Neil made a half hearted attempt to locate them but they were long gone.
We swam around a bit and sat on the hot rocks while the guys finished their beers. Then we made the long drive home. After navigating traffic (what are all these people doing out so late?) and a massive Bollywood convention on campus, I finally made it home at midnight. I downed a protein shake, took out my contacts, brushed my teeth and crawled in to bed.
While we were on the fire and out of cell reception, I received a phone call from the public information officer on the fire, that we were good to go and could come to the fire, we just had to call so and so and go through the channels. I was going to send him an email, somehow explaining that we were already there and now home, and thanks....but now I think he can just see it on Twitter and wonder.
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