A Break in the Boredom

I actually got to do something today! The East Creek fire is a small fire burning in a wilderness area about 15 miles away from the Ely helibase. Two smokejumpers jumped the fire our first day in Ely but the USFS officials decided to manage it as a wildfire use fire and just monitor it. The first couple of days the fire didn't really do much and stayed at about a half acre. However today we got some 30-40 mph winds that pushed the fire to somewhere near 30 acres. This afternoon our helicopter did a recon flight to see what the fire was doing and see what its potential was and I got to tag along. It was nice to get out of the helibase for a while and find out what smoke smells like again. The fire had made a run to the top of the ridge and spotted a couple hundred yards down the other side. The fire behavior was fairly moderate and it looked like it wasn't going to grow very much so they decided to keep letting it do its thing. I'm glad to see managers using wildfire use as a fire management tactic. I hope to see a lot more fire use in the near future as part of the changing face of wildland fire management.