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Sunday, 5 May 2002

So, just as we started to close down from the Snaking Fire, here we go with yet another one. This one was called the Black Mountain Fire, and it started between Conifer and Evergreen. Tracy and I saw the first reports of smoke on the news on TV, discussed between us our involvement, and we volunteered to help out District 23 with this one.

A staging area was set up at Conifer High School, and we were directed to go there. Once we checked in with the staging area manager, we got our assignments for the evening: I was to do traffic direction, while Tracy got to be the shadow for the staging area manager. She had a little trouble with her HT (a Yaesu VX-5R); the speaker mic would not stay plugged in. She had to use a rubber band to keep the thing working.

Other than that, things went pretty well; calmly, this time. Around 8pm, the Salvation Army rolled up with a Canteen, and served everyone burgers and hot dogs for dinner.

At some point, the decision was made to attack the fire the next morning, since fires typically "lay down" at night, and this one was no exception. So, we packed up, called it a night and went home.

Monday, 6 May 2002

When I checked in to the resource net on Monday, they said that they needed someone to hold down the communications station in the ICP for the night shift -- 2000 hours to 0600 the next day. I volunteered for that, and showed up at the ICP, which had been set up at Elk Creek Fire Station #1, at the top of Richmond Hill.

There, I met Chuck Duey, KI0AG, of D23 fame. He had everything pretty much together -- they had a laptop there, with the D23 cache of fire radios (Bendix Kings), and a master radio. They were assigning radios to those who needed them, and cloning them with the channels in the comm plan. They were coming off their shift as I was coming on.

My duties were really just to kind of babysit the lone Bendix King radio there, listening for the single fire crew which was out driving around the fire line, making sure there were no flare-ups, etc. Pretty standard stuff, quiet as all get-out. They checked in every hour, I logged it and continued to pump in the coffee, Mountain Dew and Pepsi.