Skies only look like this because of one thing. WILDFIRE!
Seeing this yesterday all day long and then going for a hike in the evening, got me thinking about all of my fire memories. As I perused my pictures and videos, I found myself smiling as I remembered all of the experiences (even the bad ones) I had over the 3 years I worked as a wildland firefighter. I decided I would share a bunch of my memories.
Seeing this yesterday all day long and then going for a hike in the evening, got me thinking about all of my fire memories. As I perused my pictures and videos, I found myself smiling as I remembered all of the experiences (even the bad ones) I had over the 3 years I worked as a wildland firefighter. I decided I would share a bunch of my memories.Ash covered faces. Nobody cared.
A torching tree on the other side of the fire line...oops!
Falling asleep in the most awkward positions, and being very comfortable.
Burnouts. (Talk about being hot!!)
Watching in awe every time a skycrane dropped 1,000's of gallons of water!!
Our helicopter 27S and my rappel partner Adam.
Falling asleep with this view.
Calling in bucket drops.
Working with and looking up to an ex-convict. John Case you are awesome!
The face only a mother could love.
Wrangling Crickets in Nevada. Jeff, you always could make everyone laugh!
Rehab every single day...every single day...every single day.
Acres of ash.
Amazing view...even with the smoke.
Rappel gear.
Rappeling 250 ft. - I love how Adam always put it, "We are Dope on a rope!"
Being grateful to have a good clean burn instead of a dirty one that is hard to mop up.
200 ft. rappel - So you get the idea of what it's about
Crew Pictures - Can you find me? (Clicking on the pic will help)
First year - UFRA Hand Crew Type II - 2004
Second Year - UFRA Hand Crew Initial Attack - 2005
Third Year - Provo Helitack/Helirappeling Crew - 2006
None of my wildland buddies know about my blog. In fact, I only keep in touch with a couple of them. Either way, going through all my pictures and videos felt great. Wildland is it's own world. Kara, I'm sure you can relate. It's a world I was so grateful to have been a part of. I'm finding myself getting somewhat emotional as I consider the fact that I'll probably never be a part of wildland again. I remember the hardwork, the aching body, 16+ hours of hard manual labor, sleeping in fields, getting so angry with people, laughing so hard at people, and remembering the trust I had with each person. Despite the less than optimum language, personal grooming, and background, I trusted the people I worked with. They had my back. And I had theirs. We were in dangerous situations and stretched beyond what we thought we were physically and mentally capable of, but we always came out feeling great about a good hard days work. Thanks wildland. I owe you one!
11 comments:
I think it is sooo amazingly cool that you did this! How in the world did you get involved with that? It is the craziest thing to see those pics, even though I knew you'd fought fires I could never totally picture it. You're awesome. Ha and I love how you're the only female in most of those pics. Girl power to the max.
Alyssa, you rock! I was all set to start training to fight wildfires...and then I met Jason. Long story short, it never happened, and while I don't regret it, I've always kinda wished I'd had the chance. I totally admire you!
I always knew you were a rockstar! Now I've seen the pictures to prove it! AMAZING!
WOW! Alyssa, I'm so glad you posted this...I definitely need to talk to you more about this one...perfect conversation for our run tomorrow! I'm excited!
Wow I had no idea you got to experience that! That is awesome and it sounds like you learned alot. and I second Angie-"girl power to the max!
How ironic, Alyssa. I've been thinking about you this week because we are having so many fires here in SoCal. I was wondering what it must have been like for you in fire country. And now you have all these pics about it! Those are some amazing pictures and experiences. Rappelling out the helicopter looks like so much fun!
So is there a special title that you have now? If you wanted to, could you go and fight any fire out there?
Thanks again for sharing. You are so amazing!!
I really liked your pictures. It makes me now think back to the days of playing soccer with you when you weren't out fighting fires.
Alyssa, K i have many many butterflies right now lol:) The fire world is great. Thanks for posting you pics, they are so fun to look at!!
Jo, I find out super cool stuff like free bowling day (and a lot of other cool stuff) from the website www.slickdeals.net. Check it out.
Yay! I'm so glad you found our blog- so that I could find your blog! I love all of your pictures! Where are you guys now? Are you still in Houston? We're in Dallas if you ever want to come up and visit. We would love to see you!!
Your so cool.
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