Great pictures. It’s almost a yearly occurrence watching those guys work up close and personal when you live out west. We’ve been under evacuation orders before and I’ve extricated family during a couple wildfires. It’s an extremely weird experience being on a dark country road with no moon while the sagebrush burns on both sides of you, no one else on the road except for an occasional brush truck. I have the utmost respect for wildlifes and the destructive force with which they indiscriminately devour everything in their path. I’ve fought on a couple of wildfires and served on a statewide task force for others. I had zero interest in fighting wildfires. I don’t agree with the terrible policies that have caused the mismanagement of our western forests and the overgrown and over-fueled fuel load densities those policies caused. I wasn’t going to bust my ass and risk my life for something that was better off burning, structures and people SURE but not liberal protected overgrown forests.
My team on the “task force” provided in town fire/EMS coverage for the town or city so that the local teams could focus on their primary fire. Leavenworth, Chelan, Wenatchee, etc we’d cover or augment their crews.
Fighting wildfires is brutally hot, extremely physical work. I have the deepest respect for those that choose to do that work but it ain’t for me.
