Crooks Fire
My community is under threat from the Crooks Fire. It started Monday morning. We'd left town earlier on Monday for a 10 day road trip. We got 7 hours from home and had to turn around to get back.
1. Fire started Monday
I'm the fire chief in the community where I live, so as soon as it got to the point of "might be serious" we knew we had to turn around.
We were evacuated yesterday, only 24 hours after it started. A few in the department, including me, are staying behind as long as we can until the crisis is averted or we have to cut and run.
2. Extreme multi-tasking
My days are filled with a combo of briefings, being the fire chief, putting out information to the community via Facebook, doing actual fire work and trying to prep my property a little bit. That's me in the white helmet.
3. Self-sufficiency
This is pretty much ground zero for everything I believe in and write about. Being physically capable to do tough work. Yesterday I dug in a 5' wide fireline along where the fire would be most likely to come from and helped with structure protection. In terms of trying to prevent/solve our own problems. This is suppression equipment that can be tied into our 2500 gallon water tank.
4. Today
Similar work on all fronts will continue today and I bet tomorrow as well.
I get too many texts/DMs to be able to reply to 1/2 of the them but thanks to everyone who reached out.
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