Hello from Montana

I arrived in Montana in early May and spent the first week and a half at the Medicine Lake NWR. I worked at the refuge last summer and wanted to see my friends up there again. I showed up a couple of days after a 1000+ acre wildfire a couple of miles from the refuge, but despite the drought conditions we managed to sneak a couple of small grass burns in, which helped pay for my gas back to Miles City. I started working for the BLM on May 12th and have been doing training and orientation since then. I've gotten on one fire so far, a small (~10 acre) fire in ponderosa/juniper and grass. The Custer County fire folks had it pretty well under control by the time we got there at 1930 but we spent 4 or 5 hours improving the line around it and mopping up. Nothing spectacular but a nice break from the monotonous training. The above picture was taken on the fire by Toni Snelling, who works on a BLM engine in Miles City. Its been raining for the last week and the grass is starting to green up, so I don't think we'll get too many fires any time soon. My hope is that when our ship gets here at the end of the month we'll get sent out somewhere with more fires. Maybe New Mexico or Arizona. Or even Florida!