Well I guess its been about a month since my last post. In that time I rappelled a fire in the Strawberry Wilderness just outside of John Day. It was about 30 ac. at the bottom of a steep south facing slope when we got to it and despite our best efforts it got away from us. I returned later in the week with our national helicopter for 6 or 7 days and staffed helispots, did cargo and crew shuttles. I got another operational rappel on that same fire to extinguish a hot spot near the retardant line high up in the rock cliffs but then we promptly got pulled off due to lightning and had to leave our gear on the hill, paving the way for my 3rd operational on the same fire to retreive our gear! About the same time I rappeled a fire on the Umatilla NF and spent 2 days there, including a grueling 110 lb. packout through blowdown. On Aug. 15th I got dispatched with 5 others to CA. We've been
moving every couple days and are now on the Red Rock Fire where I saw this cool Fire Cobra.
