Fire

Too much excitement around here for me. Monday afternoon the hired hand come running home saying there was a fire. Boy he was excited about it. We went running over to see where it was and what we could do. I told My Darling Wife I didn't want to call it in yet because I wasn't sure where it was. The hired hand wasn't making much sense.<br />n<br />nI kept looking over to where he said the fire was and I couldn't see no smoke so I figured it must be pretty small. We finally got to where we could see the smoke and fire and it wasn't to big and I figured we could get a handle on it. I started up the sprayer and had the hired hand drive and we took off to spray down the fire and get it under control. We didn't go very far and all of a sudden the wind came up and off to the races the fire was, running out ahead of us at a fast and furious rate. About this time the hired hand was having all kinds of trouble with the pickup. The clutch wasn't working right. He couldn't get it out of gear, was having a hard time getting it into gear and one time when it dies, it barely wanted to start. <br />n<br />nWith pickup trouble and the fire running with the wind I decided to radio home and have My Darling Wife call for help. She called the different fire agencies in the area and the neighbors to come give us a hand. I then tried to figure out what was wrong with the pickup. It was real easy to figure out, the hired hand had overheated the engine. We were idling along spraying out fire and he had the air conditioner on which causes my pickup to overheat. I popped the radiator cap and watched the steam plume all over and filled it with water from the sprayer and we were off again with stern warnings about the a/c and radio staying off.<br />n<br />nAt this point I backed off and regrouped. The fire was really going so I had to come up with a plan. I started by trying to get the west side of the fire out up to the alfalfa fields. There was a couple miles on the east side before the fire found any timber but we were all ready only about 100 yards away from timber on the west side so I wanted to keep it out of the timbered hills. That's really hard to fight once its in the timber.<br />n <br />nI just was getting that done when the helicopter arrived to start helping. Boy was I glad to see it. That meant more help was coming. The wind had died down by now so it wasn't to bad fighting the fire and we kept working around it as more and more people showed up and we all got it shutdown. What a relief. Was I ever exhausted by this point. It's amazing how hard a person can work when doing something like this and not even relize it. My throat still hurts from the smoke I inhaled. At times it was so thick that I couldn't see or breathe very well and it really got to my lungs. That's what happens though.<br />n<br />nIt burned around 50-75 acres of grass. The hired hand and I have been taking turns sitting on it making sure it is staying out. Put out any smokes we see and monitor the situation. I am feeling pretty comfortable that it is out now and we can relax a little. Now if I just don't get any more thunderstorms around here. That's how we figured this one started, we heard some thunder of rumbles on Sunday night so there must have been a strike that we were not aware of. Hoping for no more.<br />n<br />nI would like to thank everyone that responded. Neighbors, county, BIA, all the help was appreciated to stop this.<br />n<br />n<strong>We consider the beauty of nature and art with pleasure and satisfaction, without the slightest movement of desire. Moses Mendelssohn</strong>