On the Line

On the Line

Keith Nightingale

The tiniest moment of intense caloric value begins a growth as deadly and widespread as cancer. Yet this assault is not against a body but the broken hills, valleys and ridge lines that compose a discrete part of Southern California. Some portions are devoid of population while others are crammed with the various manifestations of an urban population yearning for both space and accessibility. In these contests, humans encroach on the wilderness, but nature extracts its own not so subtle revenge with the tools of drought and fire. Such as it is today.

Its initiating event is unknown, but the results are obvious. The accumulated growth of the desert for more than forty years was the host to the spark. At first, it is content to nestle in the deep desiccated detritus out of sight, hidden by the lush green top cover of sage, atroplex and the myriad bushes that constitute a desert. Quickly, it rises beyond its shading and becomes visible. The green brush, developed over eons of water deprivation and limited liquid, stores its vital juices under the thick green carapace of its outer skin. Released now by the heat and destructive effect, the juices pour out and explode-as volatile as if it were gasoline.. The oils of its life are quickly consumed in an explosive fury.

Very quickly, the effect of expanding volatility compounds the fire, and fed by an uplifting wind, quickly consumes the immediate ground. From obscurity to painful sight took less than five minutes to occur, and its growth moves with exponential speed. Very soon, the shaded shrouds of brush which softened the land give way to bare hard flinty earth. The truth of the desert topography is  quickly revealed.

The fire grows in an outward circle, its base direction indicated by the steady wind but not entirely. The years of accumulated dead underlayment combined with explosive volatility of the life oils, fed all directions. This immensely complicates the decisions needed by the fire direction center (FDC) now established in a nearby spacious city park.

Quickly, the small secrets of the once dense brush covered ground are revealed. The small trails used by the coyotes and deer, previously hidden from view, now lay in stark definition-the ash somewhat less opaque, marking the meander of the larger animals. Small spider lines radiate from these, showing the daily trails of the smaller mammals and snakes. Intermittently are displayed the root structures of the large vegetation. The intense heat ignites the roots under the soil tracing their courses with a dense white ash. The surface cover of mineral soil lays black and sooty-the ash not yet disturbed by wind or human encounter.

In very short order, the FDC is established and like a combat Infantry operations center, begins to organize itself for a long brutal combat. A large map covers one side of the command center delineating the combat area. On other sides are arrayed the key resource and intelligence points. Weather has a hugely important face in this effort and merits a priority spot next to the map. Wind direction drives all decisions and the temperature and humidity combine to indicate the explosive potential.

The pool of resources and their schedules of availability begin to cover the chartboard. CalFire crews, County crews, prisoner crews, Forest Service crews, “hotshot” crews of Zuni, Hopi and Navaho arrive with their Spirit Catcher and Kachina totems marking their vehicles. The great distances traveled to this spot indicate  the size and severity of the incident.

Tankers and other support engines begin to coalesce. While the predominate color scheme is red, yellows and greens are also visible. Quickly the area is organized with this disparate collection. Though diverse in background and location, they are schooled in a single purpose and easily meld and associate.

Sleeping quarters by element are staked out. Engines are formed by type and function in a wide parking lot. Tanker trucks, hose trucks, ladder trucks, transport and water tankers join their siblings in ordered rows.  The function is far more important than the source of the vehicles. Here, all serve a single purpose. The huge D8 and D9 bulldozers, residing on flatbeds, flank the park with spacious maneuverability. The shadiest spots are selected for the mess area as the food service vehicles align themselves near the public picnic tables. To the side of the sleeping area, portable showers and bathrooms appear. Any military organization would recognize the form albiet with different colors.

Ground crews, engines and aviation are the core of the combat resources. All the while, the mother fire licks and leaps across the ground ever expanding its voracious appetite feeding on the tinder of the dead and the residual oils of the living green. The sky becomes opaque and the heat and light generated by the fire become almost invisible except to those quite near. The smoke, dense, black and greasy reflects the fire running at full force. Wind direction, while a precursor of the fire’s likely path, is not totally in control. The fire follows fuel and fuel is in every direction.

The initial soldiers of the line fall out of their trucks along a ridge line and begin to create a swath of bare earth-a wishful mark that will hopefully divert the heated flow to other directions. This is the infantry of fire suppression. Cloaked in yellow safety jackets and thick undergarments with safety marked helmets, they grasp their weapons-MacLeods and Pulaski’s, chain saws and brush hooks and begin to clear a small swath in the immense brush wall they face. They seem so insignificant and futile against the monster rushing at them.

On either flank, slightly to the rear on the highest ground are two tankers. One is from Visalia-almost 200 miles from this spot and another from the local County. Both brought together in common cause for an incident well beyond any single department to manage. Each has two men with extended hoses flanking the line. Like well-trained border collies, they guard the crew and watch the path of the fire as it moves closer to them. Occasionally, they will use the fogger to spray a welcome breath of coolness to the laboring troops.  They will be the last resort if a spacious retreat is no longer possible.

Working on an adjacent ridge within easy view, are two D8H caterpillar bulldozers. As with the cutting crew, each has a tanker hovering nearby like pilot fish on a shark. The dozers can cut wide swaths very quickly, but they harbor a danger other instruments do not. Their sheer weight can crumble the loose desert scree underneath. That weight combined with the extreme slopes in the area make driving a highly dangerous undertaking. Mindful of the delicate nature of their ground, the dozers content themselves with widening the ridge top to allow more vehicles to participate in the effort.

The line crews continue their work in a steady rhythmic manner. Like human metronomes, their actions seem choreographed efficiency. The combination of heat, intense effort and adrenalin quickly soak the interior clothing of each worker. Even the extremely low humidity will not evaporate the sweat, pouring into the interior of the work uniform. Lips quickly crack and tongues lay dry against the pallet.

The line crews are used to this scenario and do not panic or hesitate. In three rows, they begin to work in a practiced rhythm, eating the elephant one small chunk at a time. The first row cuts, the second pulls and the third removes the cuttings to open ground in the rear. They work intently with heads down, sweat pouring from the few visible patches of skin. They are like a well-practiced chain gang and steadily eat into the wall of vegetation widening their margin of safety.

The ethnic or gender identity of the crew is almost indiscernible. Hands are shrouded in gloves, heads covered by helmets and faces cloaked in running sweat rivulets and the fine powdered dust exposed with each blow of a tool. Providing only a hint of femininity will be a small stature and the glimpse of a tight blond hair ball, partially visible under the helmet as the person bends over to the task.

Gauging the state of his crew, the team chief blows a whistle and shifts the work line. The pullers now became the cutters and the cutters shift to the pulling. In time, every line will do every task. The movements are as efficient as the realignments of rifleman within a British Square at Waterloo.

While moving, each person takes a quick drink from the canteen, replaces the cap and then bends to the new task. Everyone understands that the only salvation and safety will be a wide belt of naked disturbed soil between the encroaching fire and themselves. To their rear, the team leader observes this and examines the forward progress of his enemy. The spiraling smoke drift and occasional flash of explosive flame reveals the strength and direction which he must assess and anticipate. He has the luxury and responsibility to look beyond the immediate work. His troops do not. They are fixed on the root mass immediately underneath and depend on their leader to consider the larger issues.

In time, the ground begins to reveal the truth as it will affect the line. At first, birds fly uphill and upwind, disturbed from their natural refuges. The moment finds them mixed in species-something that would not normally occur. Uniformly, they fly up the hill and over the line crew. Scant notice is taken if at all. Then, several large deer explode through the brush and vault through the crew-oblivious to their normal avoidance of humans. This causes the crew to stop for a moment-not by order but by individual choice. These are experienced combatants and understand the sequence of events as it imperils them.

Quickly, behind the deer, snakes, lizards and rodents emerge in a panicked exit. They pass through oblivious of the crew’s existence-intent on satiating their internal instinctual panic. The crew looks toward the boss who remains calm and analytical. They quickly return to their labors mindful of their confidence in him borne from previous experience.

The team leader works his radio and informs the FDC that his team very soon may be irrelevant to the issue. He replaces his handset, looks down the steep hillside and the now steadily and thickly coursing smoke and quietly orders a withdrawal to the higher open ground and vehicles.

The fire becomes a specific entity here not through sight but sound. At first, the atmosphere is indiscernible, shrouded in thickening smoke down the ridge.  The sounds of the crew cutting initially masks the advance, but that abruptly changes. A slight crackle and snap is the precursor for the main body. Very quickly, the sound increases and becomes omnipresent. Then it becomes overpowering as the crew retreats to the furthest open ground. Soon the cacophony of a hundred grinding locomotives overwhelms all other senses in a shroud of sound-overpowering and omnipotent.

The crescendo is highlighted by towering gouts of twisting swirling red and orange streams of pyro plastic-heated flame-their internal core reflecting a bright yellow and white of intense heat disintegrating any trace of vegetation. The smoke from the tips enshrouds the crew as they sit on the ground in a disciplined manner literally in the face of fire knowing that oxygen and life-if it exists-will be low, not high. The noise is so overpowering that only hand signals can be registered and those have to be passed along due to the depth and thickness of the oily black smoke.

The FDC, warned of the impending peril on the ridge, quickly marshals the only plausible reserve reaction force, helicopters and aerial tankers. Reflecting the eclectic mix of aviation assets, the airborne forces begin a sequenced stream toward the line crews and equipment in the threatened sector.

Vietnam era UH1H’s, now configured with stronger engines and underbelly water tanks, swoop less than 100 feet over the crew and release their water cloud as combat close air support. Some pilots, veterans of Vietnam and the desert wars, see the hot LZ's of their past.

The water quickly dissipates in space and saturates the leading edge of the fire wall. The effect momentarily converts the black smoke to steamy white providing a very short respite from the wall of heat. But only for a moment.

Immediately behind the UH1H is a converted heavy lift helicopter. Trailing under it is a long suction hose, its end now almost parallel with the tail. Hovering over the ground crew at about 500 feet, it slowly moves forward centering its delivery to the previous pass. A huge stream of water quickly spreads into a wide swath saturating both the crew and the leading edge of the fire wall. Again, black turns to white and evermore slowly reconverts to grey. The fire is beginning to consume itself.

Flying in this environment is one of the most challenging tasks a pilot may encounter. By necessity, he must negotiate a very delicate and dangerous path between efficiency and self-destruction. Flying too high renders the water into ineffective steam. Flying too low creates a small impact zone and highly endangers the craft itself.

The heat and erratic winds combined with the weight of the load greatly hazard any passage. The fire makes its own weather, and it greatly varies in direction and intensity throughout any target run. The ridges often harbor power and utility wires as well as microwave towers. These are often obscured by smoke forcing pilots to seek a higher and perhaps less efficient altitude.

Immediately behind the now empty helicopters, a large fixed wing aircraft appears. It winds a slow path paralleling the ridge offset to compensate for prevailing wind. It releases its load of PhosChek in a large red stream covering more than a kilometer of distance.

Released, the mixture spreads in a wide thick cloud that appears as a single bulky red blanket. As the material impacts the ground, it grasps everything it touches with a thick gooey paste impervious to flame. Some droplets drift over the crews and equipment spotting them with tiny red dots. This is almost a badge of honor to be later related at the rest camp. “I was there and it was close.”

The large fixed wing aircraft lead a highly dangerous existence. Many are older than the pilots. If they were people, they would be well into retirement. Their wings absorb huge loads of rapidly fluctuating stress as the planes skirt the canyons, the prevailing airstream and the contrary directions of fire-produced winds. Fires create erratic updrafts and downdrafts, and only direct exposure reveals the meteorological truths. In some cases, wings simply drop off.

The passage of the tanker signals a now quiescent fire, but only in this small discrete spot. The brush is totally consumed and now fuel starved, the flames die to flicker and glow--no longer a mortal threat. The crew stands and re-loads their trucks. The mixed convoy slowly snakes down the newly plowed road, its job here done.

The experience only reinforces what each member of the crew already knows.  The fire determines its fate, rarely the fire crew.  They can contain discrete places, but they cannot except in the rarest of instances, conquer-only the fire can do that by eating itself into submission.  Only 33,000 more acres to go.