Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

We are gathering up the yearling replacement heifers to work them. My girls were holding up the yearlings in a corner when I rode up. The picture with the so big sky was really intriguing. Taken 8/22/2007.

I see in the paper that a Type 2 Management team is coming in to take over the Eastern Montana fires. The actual quote is;

A Type 2 management team from California is arriving to fight more than 20 fires in Custer, Powder River and Rosebud counties. Management of the fires will be transferred at 6 p.m.

When I read this my first thought was, "Oh no, I feel sorry for the landowners in these areas." Why you may ask?

About four years ago we had a big fire in this area that when all was said and done burned almost 40,000 acres around here. We had been fighting it for about 3 days and wasn't getting it under control, it was about 5000 acres at this point, when they brought in guess what, a type 2 management team from California to take over the fire. In the first twelve hours they were on the fire it ballooned from 5000 acres to 20,000 acres and then 3 hours later ballooned to about 40,000 acres. I to this day and will always blame the idiots from California for letting this happen. So that is why I feel sorry for these guys. The words "Type 2 management team from California" strike fear in my heart. If there is a way to screw things up, I'm sure they will find it.

Let me say at this point that I understand why they bring in a team like this after a while. The local resources are stretched to a breaking point and need a rest. The Type 2 management team comes in and hires engines and crews to fight the fire under their direction. The Type 2 team does not have any equipment to fight fires on there own, they have to hire the crews to do the fighting. So when I talk about the incompetence of the management team I am not talking about the firefighters themselves. They did a wonderful job, it was just their bosses that didn't have a clue.

There are a lot of things I remember about this fire but two things that I vividly remember about this Type 2 team are the meetings and the insistence that I couldn't fight the fire. Every day from 5 in the morning to 10 in the morning there was not a single fire fighter on the fire. They were in town, 40 miles away, having there daily briefing on what the plan was for the day. Don't get me wrong, I understand the idea of briefing everybody on what was going on but was it really necessary to pull the night crews to go all the way in for the briefing, brief everybody, then send the new crews out and leave the fire unattended for 5 hours every day? More than once when the crews got out there the conditions were nothing like they were briefed on because nobody was there fighting or monitoring the fire so they would sit around until 3 in the afternoon while the Type 2 management team decided what to do and then when they finally decided what to do it was getting so late they wouldn't do anything. This got real old after a while. I never went in to their stupid meetings because I figured it was more important to be fighting the fire than pulling everybody off to meet about it.

The other memory is them telling me I couldn't fight the fire. I would be doing my thing fighting the fire and one of the management types would come up and tell me, "You can't be here fighting this fire." I didn't have the energy after so many days of fighting fire to argue with them, I would just say okay and keep fighting the fire. They would give me a funny look and say, "Everybody on the fire line needs to be wearing official clothes so you can't be fighting the fire." I again would say okay and keep working. The guy would leave at this point and about an hour later a guy higher in the chain would come along and we would play the whole charade over again and I still wouldn't leave. We played this game every day they were here. Them telling me I couldn't fight the fire and me ignoring them. They never got tired of telling me and the look on their face when I ignored them was precious. They couldn't figure out why I wouldn't listen to them. Why should I? They aren't God.

Now the chances that the people taking over the Eastern Montana fires being as incompetent as I felt they were on the fire here is slim. Like I said though the words "Type 2 management team from California" strike fear in my heart and always will. Stupid, I know, but that's just the way it is. I hope everybody fighting fire the best of luck in the world and hope they get them under control. I hope you have better luck with your Type 2 team than my memories leave me with.

I have memories - but only a fool stores his past in the future. David Gerrold

Here is why it has been so smokey lately in Montana. We keep talking about the fires in Montana but it looks like the ones in Idaho are really big and nasty.

I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping. Mark Twain

There is a slew of wildfires in Montana and here is a roundup of stories about them.

Church camps evacuated due to fire threat

Buildings lost in eastern fires

Fire officials fear wind shift south of Big Timber, Livingston

Wildfires dump ash, smoke in Montana cities

Jocko Lakes fire flares up

Winds die down on fire lines

Dry forest feeds Seeley blaze

This is by no means all inclusive, just a quick roundup.