Base-Rats

Jun 7 - Jun 19
Hanging out at Base: Fixing Equipment

So today I am supposed to become an official university graduate. But I am missing my convocation because it is just not worth my time. Driving 9 hours to wait for hours while people I don't really know walk across a stage, all just to get my own 2-second special moment, where I shake someone's hand that I've never actually met before. That is my opinion, which may be just slightly biased and a teensy bit bitter, because I do wish I was there to celebrate with my friends. I will celebrate for you up here in Cochrane :)

The past 10 days have been a blur of monotonous days on the base. The weather cooled down for awhile, so there weren't many red alerts. Not to mention that our crew member stopped showing up for work AGAIN, which essentially renders our crew useless. On a positive note, there was a ton to do around base for the first week, because equipment was coming back from the fires, which meant lots and lots to do in the workshop. Each and every single piece of equipment needs to be serviced (taken apart, cleaned, greased, fixed etc) and tagged as such before it can be used again. Even if it still works fine. So that kept is busy for quite some time.

On Friday and Saturday night we had some epic times at Thib's tavern, which resulted with a very hungover bunch of fire fighters on Sunday. But we take it in stride! When Monday finally came around I felt rested and ready to get back into being healthy, but alas, when I got to the gym in the morning I found a completely shut down building. Apparently they pumps had shut down and the ventilators weren't working, so the pool was closed, and pool's fumes were intoxicating, so the whole building had to be shut down. I was angry.

Tuesday morning was exciting because I got to accompany my crew leader and crew boss on a thermal scan of our fire, Hearst 20. It still hadn't been called out, because there hadn't been three clean scans. This was the third one. They were both strapped into harnesses so they could lean out the open helicopter doors and look at the burn with the scanners. It was mildly alarming to see them hanging out of the chopper like that, but I got to sit in the front seat, so I was too excited to be nervous for them. The front seat is definitely waaay better than the back and I got some sweet views of our old fire. We smelled a smoke a couple times, but we were unable to find it's exact location with the thermal scan. This resulted in us being sent out to the fire on Wednesday morning to look for the elusive smoke.

Being back at my old fire was very strange. All the familiar landmarks looked different because there were no pumps, no camps and definitely no hose lines anymore. Everything had been pulled out and it made it feel very lonely. I kept expecting to run into another crew patrolling their area. After a long day of walking through the burn we found nothing. We smelled it a few times and stopped to see if we could smell it again and get a direction, but nadda. But there was one exciting thing about Wednesday! Our MIA crew member finally came in and quit!!! It sounds weird, but that is great news for us because now we can finally move on. We are officially a three person crew, which means we can go on dispatches anywhere in the district and up north, but without special permission we would not be allowed out of province because of the four-person crew regulations. So three things can happen now:
- they leave us a three person crew
- they hire an EFF to fill our vacant crew member position
- they split us up and make three five-person crews

Either way I feel very relieved!

Thursday and Friday were my days off, which consisted of a ton of biking, four-wheeling, fishing and partying. Erik taught me how to cast and I caught three pike! The pike are getting slimy now, so we didn't keep any, but I was still super proud :)
There were obviously lots of patio drinks, horse-shoe games and Thib's evenings involved.

Saturday I was back at work, super tired and what not. BIG NEWS today! We are going up north to do "Community Profiling". This basically means we have to figure out how much hose we would need to protect certain 'values' (houses, buildings etc). And when I say up north I mean allllllll the way up north! We fly to Fort Severn first (the most northerly community in Ontario), and then over the next five days we will work our way south until we hit Moosenee. Due to the dangerous territory we don't camp out there, so we will be staying in hotels the whole time. Sweet! We got all of our food and supplies ready, because once we're up there most things won't be available, and the things that are will be super expensive. Kiiinda excited!

Fire #1

Fire Numero Uno - 10 Days on Hearst 20

My first real wildfire fighting experience has now come and gone in the form of 10 days in a dense mossy bush, accompanied by my crew and the bugs.

As I mentioned in my previous posts, the weather has been crazy and I was bound to get a fire soon. After working 8 consecutive days, our crew was flown out to a 219 hectare fire in the Hearst district: Hearst 20. It was Friday, May 28th and I was ridiculously excited and definitely nervous. I had been waiting for this for over a month and I couldn't wait to get there. Everything couldn't happen fast enough: packing the truck, driving to the airport, loading the helicopter. Everything.

At first the fire was very unpredictable, so we camped at the Staging Area a short chopper ride from the main burn. In the morning we flew in to lay hose at a problem area and got flown back out in the evening. After our second night the fire had calmed a bit, so we were moved to a line camp right next to a dead part of the burn. This meant our hose line was only a short walk away from our camp. By this time there were multiple crew on the fire, so the normally deserted bush was invaded by over ten camp sites, a ton of firefighters and hundreds of lengths of hose. In the background you heard the dull roar of the pumps, the hand-held radio communications and the rythmic chopping sound of the two helicopters' blades as they moved equipment and crews to more remote parts of the fire. We spent the remainder of the fire patrolling our hose line and other parts of the fire, looking for hot spots and putting them out.

Overall I learned a hell of a lot, realized I love this job and can't wait for my next fire!! Here's some figures, followed by some details:

219 - hectares of burnt and burning bush
10 - days in the bush
9 - days I ate bacon for breakfast
9 - helicopter rides
uncountable - number of granola bars, steaks and packages of beef jerky I consumed

Thursday, May 27th - Red Alert - Glen was made Incident Commander of a large fire that started on Tuesday as a 15 hectare fire, but had blown up to a 175 hectare fire by Thursday evening. As he was our crew leader, our crew was to join the forces already on site. We were on red alert at the airport, but we didn't get to leave today becase the fire got out of control and all crews were pulled off the fire temporarily.Tomorrow we would be out there for sure, so Glen told us to double check our bags that night. Our preparation consisted of beer and a bunch of rounds at Thib's tavern - we would probably be gone for awhile, so a good night out was in order.

Day 1 - Friday, May 28th  - Around 1:30pm we left for the fire. The first glimpse of the large columns of smoke on the horizon made me forget any fear I had and as we flew over the burn I couldn't take my eyes off the partially burned, partially smoking forest. Once I got to the staging area I was surprised to see Jordan Pyette there - a guy I went to high school with on Manitoulin. He's on the Timmins fire crew. Six crews were already there, including Matt and Erik's crew from Cochrane and crews from Chapleau, Hearst and the visiting BC team. By now the fire was at 219 hectares, but we had to set up camp so we wouldn't get to the line till tomorrow.

Day 2 Saturday, May 29th- 7:00am wake up to heavy dew and the other two Cochrane crews packing up. After a bunch of bacon, scrambled eggs and a granola bar we got flown to the line of the Cochrane crews had started. The fire had jumped ahead of them, so we had to move some of their hose backwards and start laying it around the new fire perimeter. By this time the fire had calmed quite a bit, so we saw a few flames, but mainly everything was just smokey. Carrying the hose pack wasn't nearly as hard as I thought, even though the bush was pretty dense and the moss was super thick. Deep water-filled sink holes hid amongst the moss and under logs and threatened to not only soak you, but trip you up too. Once our hose line was laid and we had completed a return pass we started going 50 ft into the burn to put out hot spots. Stan, my crew boss let me nozzle for awhile. I got right into it and soon I was covered in mud from the backsplash, but those hot spots got killed! The pressure gets pretty hard to handle, especially when you're close to the pump. I definitely lost control of the hose at one point lol.
It rained all night, but the waterproofer I had sprayed all over my tent worked perfectly and I woke up dry and super rested. Even my feet felt fine, despite how sure

Day 3 - Sunday, May 30th - The fire was under control now, so we were all ordered to pack up camp and move to line camps (right by the burn). Moving all the crews and then setting up camp there took all day. The ground on the line was so mossy and wet that we ended up carrying all our gear 800 ft to a slightly higher, flatter piece of ground. At first it seemed like a lot of work, but it was totally worth it to be dry, especially because it looked like we would be there for awhile. I learned how to cut poles for the kitchen tent, dig a toilet hole and build a makeshift outhouse. We were lucky and had acquired an old toilet seat from a deserted outhouse near the staging area, so it really wasn't that rough at all.

Day 4 - Monday, May 31st- 6am starts now. This morning everyone was talking about the thunderstorm that raged all night, but I slept through it all lol. I woke up to one crack, but the rain pelting my tent put me right back to sleep lol. Many more crews had arrived now - another from Timmins and one from Haliburton, as well as a bunch of "Type 2" contractor crews. They are mainly hired for mop-up, so that the inital attack crews from the MNR can be freed to attack new fires. Our crew wouldn't be leaving though, because our crew leader was the inicident commander. By now I had fully adjusted to the early morning routine, followed be a briefing with Glen and hours of patrolling the burn for hot spots. I found a few on my own! We also caught some spruce beetles in coital engagement and basically walked right into a partridge. If Stan had had his throwing knives on him we would have probably had it for dinner, but alas, they were back at camp.

Days 5-8 -Tuesday, June 1st - Friday June 4th - An AGA scan (thermal scan taken via helicopter) revealed a few smokes, so Tuesday's job was to find the GPS coordinates and put them out. Our crew was flipped out to a previously untouched end of the fire to investigate some spot fires that had burned a half hour walk away from the main burn. Getting to these "bubbles" was brutal as the bush consisted of thick, springy Alders on boggy ground. We couldn't find any hot spots and eventually met up with the Haliburton crew working toward us. A thunderstorm was building and by the time it broke over us we were starting to worry that we would be stuck there, as the chopper wouldn't be able to make it to us. A couple hours later we were finally picked up, but that was enough to make me a little nervous. While I waited in the moss, I realized how much I had talked about Alex today and came to the conclusion that I was missing him more than usual. Thinking about him and wondering what he was experiencing made me forget that I was potentially stuck in a thunderstorm. It's been almost a month since I'd heard his voice!
The rest of the days were pretty similar. Essentially a long string of patrols through the bush, broken up by random duties such as cutting a new helipad. By now I am definitely super dirty...I'm starting to cringe when I put my Nomex shirt on lol. I would always cook dinner, and this quickly earned me the nickname "Martha Stewart". Stan even wrote it on the chinstrap of my hardhat!

Day 9 - Saturday, June 5th - Another AGA scan today. It didn't turn up anymore smokes, so we had to start demobilizing the fire. This basically means clean up and pack, so we spent the day rolling hose, dismanteling pump set-ups and taking an inventory of all the axes, shovels and other equipment. There is a TON of equipment on this fire and I am cringing at the thought of it all coming back to the Cochrane base to be recycled (serviced). It was decided that a few crews would be pulled out and the remainder of the fire would be watched by the main initial attack crew and a couple Type 2 crews. Last night on the fire!!

Day 10 - Sunday, June 6th -We packed up our camp today and finished pulling the rest of the gear out of the bush today. We spent basically the whole day thinking of what all to do once we got home. A shower and a cold beer are definitely on the agenda!

Heat Wave = Escalated Fire Phase!!!

SUMMARY:
0 - Fires for me
1 - Safety Audit
2 - Helicopter Rides (Loaded patrols)

So once again I've left posting for a lil too long and the post is therefore a tad lengthy. Sorry! Overall, the weather has really picked up and is actually way above normal temperature, even way above temperatures in southern Ontario. Consistently in the high 20s and 30s, with a ridiculous relative humidity and quite a bit of lightening, which all leads to a TON of fires. Most of Cochrane's crews are on fires, so crews from BC and Timmins have been helping out. I finally have a full crew now, but no fires yet! This is my first 8-day stretch and it hasn't even seemed that long. Woo! I've almost fully adjusted up here and made a bunch of friends, so things are looking good :)


Wednesday, May 19th - Yellow on Base - Weather is great (approx 25 degrees), indeces are high and fires are popping up like crazy, but I am finding it difficult not to be frustrated. Unfortunately, our other crew member has a bad habit of taking many unexplained days off, and now he has taken another whole week off. This isn't the end of the world, as we are still considered a crew because we aren't missing a crew boss or leader, but we're still ranked as last out because we are the only 3-person crew. Grr! O well, patience is the name of the game in this profession, so I will practice mine. As calmly as possible. I spent the day recycling equipment and thinking about Michelle. Still no luck on the housing front! Also, our whole district is now a Restricted Fire Zone, which means no fires at any time. Kinda brutal for the May24 weekend, but better safe than sorry.

Thursday, May 20 + Friday, May 21st - Kapuskasing Airport - Both of these days our three-person crew was assigned to alerts in Kapuskasing (1.25 hours west). On Thursday we were yellow, second out, and on Friday we were red first out. There's been fires pretty much every day, and a small town near Timmins was partially evacuated because of a large fire that got close to town. Matt's crew went out on their first fire today, but after setting up some sprinklers (value protection for buildings) they got called off the fire, because the OPP had to investigate the scene. To put out the fire some bombers were ordered to drop foam on the area while the crew waited in a nearby cabin.
Dance, Dance - In the evening we went to a house party and then tried to get into Thib's, but it was at capacity, so we checked out the other bar in town called the Spinning Wheel. Good times!

Saturday, May 22nd - RED at Cochrane Base - We were second out today, but at the base. My crew leader and I laminated his new maps and I learned some random things around base. The weather is still super hot, and indeces are extreme (winds are high, temp is 27). On the news they said that fires have already burned 22 square kms in Ontario since the beginning of April. Because we are in an escalated phase the base has been feeding us dinner everyday. Less cooking! :)
A taste of the Long Weekend - This evening I went out to a camp at Silver Queen Lake for some long weekend festivities. Lots of brewskies, a sweet game called Apples to Apples, a ton of "washers" rounds (kinda like horseshoes), saunas and unbelievably refreshing dips in the lake. Tons of fun!

Sunday, May 23rd - RED at Cochrane Airport - We were first out for Cochrane today, so we loaded all of our packs onto the helicopter and settled down to wait for a dispatch. The picture below is stolen from Wikipedia...our helicopters look a lil different and def bigger, but the airport is the same.
Our other crew member showed up today and is apparently back for good, so I finally have a full crew. Wooooo! One of the managers was at the airport with us today and did a safety audit on us. We had to act as if we were getting dispatched and he watched us and then asked us safety questions about loading, boarding and exiting the helicopter. We all passed just fine. Later in the day we actually got a dispatch, but not for a fire. We flew over to a fire that three of our crews had been on since Tuesday, just to see how they were doing, then we checked out the status of another fire before going to investigate an area where smoke had been reported to the MNR.
Ciao Chimo! - We moved out of the Chimo motel today. Finally! Matt decided to live at the bed and breakfast 9 miles out of town (three other fire fighters are staying there temporarily) and I'm now living at Erik's parent's house. So glad they can take me in! Thank-you :)

Monday, May 24th - RED at Cochrane Airport - The temperatures are now consistently above 30, and with the humidity it is almost 40! Luckily the airport has A/C, but it was our luck today that teh power went out, so we sat there melting away. No dispatches till the end of the day, when we were sent on a loaded patrol to check out some lightening strikes out west. We didn't find anything, but at least I got another helicopter ride :)
Trailerpark Shenanigans - To cool off we had a few drinks at a fire guy's trailer and then headed out on a trike to a nearby field to watch the heat lightening zigzag across the sky. It looked amazing! And we definitely flipped the trike. Totally accidental and slightly shocking, but ridiculously funny.

Tuesday, May 25th - Last out - After three days on red, we got dropped down to yellow. Our crew leader was training a new guy today, so we were last out and I spent the day sweating and completing my fire line safety course with my other crew member. Definitely learned a lot :)
So much heat and humidity - I am definitely glad that this basement is naturally cool!

A sad day indeed. I will always remember you Michelle!

Monday, May 17th - Fishing and Saunas! - Third day off now. It's Monday though, so we headed to the gym and then drove out to Erik's camp for some beach-side fishing. I learned how to cast, but I definitely need some practice! Unfortunately there weren't any bites, so we went swimming and then decided to sauna. While the fire was heating up we BBQed and then it was sauna time! He has a sweet sauna that gets nice and hot (220 degrees). After a few cycles of sauna and swimming we called it a day and packed up to go home. It was good we did, because the sun had left and the bugs were really starting to come out. In the evening I learned that Kyle's mom Michelle, which is fighting cancer for the 3rd time, was not doing very well and had trouble breathing. I was able to say hi to her, and spent awhile cheering him up.


Tuesday, May 18th - Sad news - Michelle passed away at 10:45pm last night. She was an amazing woman, probably the bravest and most caring I will ever meet, and she will be missed by many, many people. She fought hard for three years and lived an incredible life, full of family, friends, nature and beauty. I send my condolences to her family and encourage everyone to remember all of the sweet, happy moments in her life. Rest in peace Michelle!
I spent the day collecting myself and reflecting on all the awesome times I spent with Michelle, especially how she had accepted me into her family as her own daughter. I'm going to miss her.  Eventually I got around to some errands, but mainly it was a take-it-easy day. Here she is posing in front of some heather in Scotland, her favourite country, after she beat cancer the first time:

Fire Update - There's been lots! Matt and Erik went fishing again today, but the first lake they went to turned out to be right near one of the raging fires, and they ended up having to pick up a fire-fighter that was stuck on an island because the helicopter couldn't land between the torching trees (when fire jumps up the trunks). Apparently Cochrane had three fires today already and had to send Timmin's crews to that one.

Training, Wet boots and BBQs - May 7th-16th

May 7th-16th 
I'm on my first 7 day week now and thought I'd wait with posting until the end. I don't think this was acutally a good idea because it got a liiiiil long. Sorry everyone! As usual, I'll start with a quick summary and follow with the day-by-day blog :)

Animals I've seen:
1 - Massive brown owl
2 - Moose
3 - Bears (two cubs)
Lots of cranes, a few swans and even a couple foxes. One followed us around the golf course!

My feet are adjusting, and I got my first few blisters. Finally I've done some outdoor training and I even have my full crew now. I got put on my first red alert (my heart was racing almost the whole time) and am feeling like I am starting to fit in at the base. For the first part of our four days off I decided to join a couple people on a trip to North Bay. Lots of partying and overall a great trip :) Check out the details below and I apologize again for the length!


Friday, May 7th - Day off. I went for a morning walk and found a silly road sign typo: instead of reading "3rd Avenue", the sign read "3th Avenue". The really silly part is that the other side of the sign was correct. LOL! Later on, Matt and I had a gym session over 2 hours long - I stretched a ton and left feeling amazing. That evening I went out to have a few with some of the fire guys and ended up meeting some Cochrane girls. Finally! We played a ridiculous amount of FLIPCUP and at some point the leprachaun dance came out...Erik and danced it in tandem. O yes! Up here we don't use "Ole Ole" as a flip cup chant. That is just overdone. Instead the following occurs:

THE NEW IMPROVED FLIPCUP CHANT
*Clapping*
We are from Ontario, NORTHERN ONTARIO!
We are from Ontario, NORTHERN ONTARIO!! 
Huh, Huh, Huh, Huh (a loud, gutteral manly sound) 
*Starters clink cups and flipcup begins*

This is super intense and I vow to bring it wherever I go!
Later on we headed to Thib's Tavern and I tried my first legendary "purple helmet" - supposedly a tasty, but deadly combination of common evils. It's a pinky/purple colour, tastes crazy sweet and is served in an $18 pitcher. Apparently the following is in it:
- 1/2 pitcher of beer
- 1 wildberry cooler (or other berry cooler)
- 1 oz whiskey
- gingerale
- ice

Apparently another popular tradition is to competitively chug white russians out of a straw. I got 2nd :(

Saturday, May 8th - Back at work. SNOW :( Everyone was on blue alert, as the highs for every weather station in our sector were in the minuses. It was too cold to train outside, so we stayed at the base and started the day off by watching three training vids. One on pump set-up and maintenance which was very dry and we spent the time pouring over the detailed maps, learning lake names, checking out winter roads and mapping out hyopthetical canoe routes. The next one was a detailed hose-lay video, which was very informative. Before the next one our crew leader set up a mock fire in the training room sand-box and asked me to demonstrate how I would lay the hose - I got 100%. Woo! The last video was on how to properly load and attach a sling (a big net under the helicopter) and under what conditions you would use a short vs a long sling. A Queen-only soundtrack was used, so it kept our attention. Later in the afternoon I serviced a couple pump tool-kits.
Fire Situation Update. Snow had started to accumulate by the time we left work! It looks like we won't be getting a fire for at least a month, because even if it gets warm, everything is "greening". This means the vegetation is maturing, leaving very little dry fuel and delaying fires until the sun dries out the newly "greened" vegetation.
After work. There's another "Buck 'n Doe" tonight, for a guy that used to work fire in Cochrane, so pretty much everyone on base is going. I think I will start liking these, because it is the only chance I get to dance in Cochrane...Thib's Tavern doesn't offer any dancing opportunities. I aim to be much better behaved this time and not end up with any mystery bruises :)

Sunday, May 9th - Pump training - After a long training session on Hospitality - what travel expenses you can get reembursed for and how to do so - I got to do my first outdoor training! All the crews packed into our trucks and headed to a lake 30 minutes west of base because we had a bunch of pumps to test start and we had about 3 set up at a time. My first two went pretty well, even though they sabotaged the second one. I had to retighten the pump-head vent cap, remove cardboard from the spark plug and reconnect the powere switch. They started racing and I was really nervous for mine, so figures something would go wrong and then I couldn't prime the intake hose, which I had done no problem the first two times. Arg! Turns out I was flogging it horizontally vs vertically. At the end I felt embarrased, but a lot more accomplished, despite the cuts on my knuckles and the cold water sloshing in my steel-toes. The logging road we took out of the bush was the bumpiest I have ever experienced - a normal car wold never even dream of making it through. Apparently the three trucks in front of us saw a couple baby blackbears, but they were gone by the time we got there. Back at the base, we recycled all the equipment and washed the trucks.These trucks definitely get really well taken care of!
Ribs - I had made them once before, but this time I was convinced to make them better. It was a success - the meat was delicate and the sauce just sticky enough.

Monday, May 10th - Hose Lay and Pump Training - Today we trained on setting up tandem parallel pumps in an old sand pit. Two pumps were started up at the bottom of a steep sand slope, their hoses running in parallel up the high embankment. Securing the pumps on the slope was an issue at first, but shovels and sash cord got the job done. A y-joint was used to combine the two hoses, increasing the pressure of the third single hose. This would allow the water to be pumped very far up a hill, or over long distances. Because we were just training, the distance was not very long and the extra pressure made the nozzle difficult to handle - I had to hold onto it like crazy, and some almost lost control when it got kinked. Later we added another pump half-way up the line and that added even more pressure. I was covered in mud after this. We then set up just the pumps at two other sites to learn trouble shooting. At the first the pumps got thrown in the lake - which could accidentally happen when unloading a helicopter. We had to drain the muffler, dry the filter for the carburator, get a new spark plug and then make sure the intake hose didn't suck anything from the sandy bottom. The pond stunk like loon shit and afterwards we all smelled like it too. Before the next one we set up the camp stove, made some lunch - I had ribs! - and then tried out some of the new freeze-dried camp meals that were in our 24 hour packs. The lasagna was amazing, the eggs pretty decent and the asian rice and pork too sweet. At the next pump-set up site (a deep fastrunning river) we practiced not having an foot valve (ie filter) and then not even having an intake hose. Pretty big problems, but we got them running no problem. My crew boss then made me carry the pump, tool kit, intake hose and gas can back to the truck. This was pretty heavy and the intake hose was akward to hold, but I managed. Half way they took the tool kit and then hose. Phew!

Tuesday, May 11th ­- FIRES! - Just not for me. A few things happened today. My potential crew leader took his pre-fit test, and if he passes then I will finally have a full crew, but we don't find out till tomorrow. Suspense! Other than that, I recycled a few items and then I was about to join a bunch of crews going out for pump training, but right as we were leaving a fire popped up, so all crews were called back to the base and the crew on red at the airport was flown out to the fire. It was a little one, but they were still there by the time we left work at 7pm, and everyone else had to stay close to the base incase we got more. Later on we went to go fix an MNR sign cautioning people to butt out their cigarettes. I couldn't actually get on the ladder because I don't have my ladder training yet - you actually need it! This safety business is good and all, but kind of frustrating at times. My nametags also got delivered today. I feel official now :)
Evening Golf - Matt, Brock and I went golfing after work today. Well more like they went golfing and I walked with them, shooting a ball randomly and failing miserably. I need some serious practice, but I think I will get it this summer.

Wednesday, May 12th - I HAVE A CREW!!! - So today was exciting for a bunch of reasons, but one main one: Glen passed his pre-fit, so I am now officially part of a crew. WOO! Glen and Stan (my crew boss) sat me down and gave me the crew speech. It was a little intimidating, but I already know Stan quite a bit, so it wasn't so bad. They told me all the hard fast rules of their crew, let me know what each of their responsibilities are and what my responsibilities are. My main thing is to make sure that we have the crew first aid bag with us at all times, even if we are just going training, but on the fire line as well. It is now my "baby". The other crew member is supposed to be responsible for our water jug, but he isn't there very often, so that is my baby now too.
MORE FIRES! - Around noon the crew on red got sent out to a fire, and spotted another one on the way there, so two crews went out to those and the rest of us were all bumped up to higher alert levels. Matt was on red for the rest of the day and got an hour of overtime. Glen made sure that Stan and I got our "crew bag" ready, which meant ensuring that we had all of the cooking supplies and other common items. We hit up the warehouse to stock up on what we were missing and pick up our freeze fried boil-in-a-bag food packs. We're picking up the rest of our food tomorrow, and then hopefully we get a fire!!
Rookie Initiation - Glen gave me a bell and told me I would have to wear it till he told me I could take it off. I obliged to this after some protest, but after wearing it for a couple hours, another crew leader saw it and took it away because he said no one should have to wear that. Phew!

Thursday, May 13th - Red Alert! - I was on my first red alert today. It was pretty hot and there were a few fires that day. Once the other crew on red left for a 10 hectare fire we got sent to the airport and loaded the helicopter with all our gear. I was so excited to get a fire, but didn't end up getting anything. The crew that went out ended up getting burnt out because the fire ran away (it was 50 hectares by teh end of the day). The fire jumped a creek and burnt out their pump site. They lost 3 out of 4 of their personal packs and most of the equipment and had to book it out of there. A rookie was on the crew on his first fire and his bag got burned - he's got a sweet story now! I think I will be slightly addicted to fire by the end of the summer. I'm already looking at different fuels and estimating how well they'll burn lol.

Friday, May 14th - Pump Training - Soo we were supposed to be on red again today, but it was pouring rain so we all got bumped to blue. My crew leader hadn't seen me set up a pump yet so my crew and I drove waaay back into the bush (like 2.5 hours) and they timed me while I set it up by myself in four different places. They were all pretty swampy, and my intake got clogged a couple times. Otherwise the pump had a lot of problems, so I had a ton of trouble shooting to do. It took awhile sometimes, but my crew leader was satsified with how determined I was, and how I fixed it systemactically. I was exhausted, soaking wet and frustrated, but happy to get experience and show my crew that I was capable.
North Bay - I was now on four days off, so right after work I went with a Jessie and Erik (a girl I had met earlier and a guy I work with) to North Bay for some partying. We arrived around 11:30pm, met up with some of their friends that go to school there and played a ton of flipcup before going to a bar called the Zoo. We all danced like crazy! Awesome night

Saturday, May 15th - North Bay Hiking - Once we were all up and had recooperated enough to be active we went to Burger World, had delicious bacon cheeseburgers and poutine and then a bunch of us went on a hike to some really pretty falls and then to a lookout far above the city. It was a ton of fun, but I lost my camera while scrambling around the rocks in the river :(
We brought some wine and spent a couple hours at the top enjoying the view and fighting blackflies - the bugs are definitely starting to come out. Walking down was interesting lol. Later we went to the Zoo again, but stayed on the other side where there was a live band playing 90s hard rock. Great times, but I wished I had Alex to dance with. Speaking of, he found out that he got waitlisted for med school in Ottawa. It makes me think that its impossible to get in. Seriously. O well there's still a chance he can get in this year, and if not then there's always next year :)

Sunday, May 16th - Visiting the Balts - Got to have lunch with Danielle and Jon today and see their new house (they just got married last week). It's awesome and they have the cutest little kitty called Ross. He scratched me right in the centre of my chest...def looks a lil weird. The drive back was shorter than I expected and we listened to a lot of this rapper called Atmosphere. I recommend him to anyone that likes hip-hop! It was great to get out of Cochrane...I feel like I've had a holiday and I still have two full days off! We'll probably end up going to a camp and spending most of the time outside. Excited! I have to find somewhere to live ASAP though, and it looks like I'm looking by myself now because Matt is moving in to a 1bdr apartment 9miles out of Cochrane at a bed and breakfast. I will probably end up couchsurfing for awhile :s

Learning the Ropes Part 1: Apr 26 - May 6th

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for coming to check this out! I've decided to send out my first update...it doesn't promise entertainment of the rapturing kind, but its what I've experienced so far and I'd like to share. Below there is a quick summary and the details follow:

0 - Fire Count

0 - New blisters from my steel toes (just tenderness so far!)

1 - Live moose I've seen

2 - Days it SNOWED in Cochrane

Overall, I'm pretty impressed with Cochrane and the fire base. The town is larger than I expected, with quite a few stores and the base is also large, very clean and there's a lot of personal storage space. All the people that work there seem pretty chill, and Matt and I have gotten to know some of the newer crew members pretty well. The work itself isn't exactly what I expected, and even though we've done quite a bit of in-house training (videos and such) we haven't done any field training and I'm itching to do some. I'm getting adjusted to the lifestyle here and find myself in the typical cycle of gym, work, cook, relax, sleep repeat. We're still living in our not-so-bad, but super-expensive apartment at the Chimo Motel, but we've been informed we can get a refund if we find a place before our month is up, and we have some good prospects so far. As for the landscape/weather, it is definitely colder up here (temps usually only reach 10-13 degrees), but the trees aren't shorter than usual. The animals are different though - barely any raccoons or skunks and no deer, but lots of caribou and moose. Hopefully I can get some venison and other wild meat up here!

Day 1 - Monday, 8:00am start. We filled out a ton of paperwork to get hired, but I managed to forget all forms of ID in Waterloo. Ah! Luckily my mom had my birth certificate and was able to fax it in...otherwise I couldn't have started training. Then we watched training videos on health and safety and bear safety. Polar bears are the only animals that will hunt humans for food - I had no idea!

4:00pm finish. Matt and I went to our hell hole hotel, scarfed some food and hit the gym for the first time. Terrible gym! No squat rack, very few DBs and a trainer with an attitude. Matt definitely butted heads with her.

Day 2 - Tuesday, 8:00am start. More training videos on WHMIS and grow-ops/meth labs...apparently we come across these in the bush sometimes. Take home message: Kids, meth is bad! And dangerous. Ughhh! We also got sized for our fire-resistant uniforms today. Dark green pants and a bright orange shirt. Pumped to get these in :)

4:00pm finish. Off to the gym again. I've decided to switch from a 3 day work out to a 4 day workout, seeing as I have no dance classes and nowhere to climb now. Matt and I are getting along pretty well so far. Its his first time living with a girl, but he's doing well so far and I think there's a good chance that we can get through the summer without hating eachother at the end.

Day 3 - Wednesday, 10:30am start. Our first day starting at our normal start time (we will work 10:30am-7:00pm every shift from now on). Wednesdays are "common days", which means everyone at the base works. There's over 50 people on crews so the base is pretty packed. Some of us met our crews, but my crew leader - he's from Manitoulin too! - has yet to pass his fitness test, so my crew is up in the air. Today we also got all of our materials for our packs. It's like free shopping: you go to the warehouse and pick up your tent, sleeping bag, first aid kit, mosquito spray, sunscreen, gloves, safety glasses, foot powder, headlamps etc. We also started on our schedules, which meant that I had the next two days off. Matt's crew is on the same schedule as mine, so we will have all the same days off. Yay? Main duty for our days off was to pack our 19 day pack with our personal belongings (socks, underwear, spare boots etc).

Day 4 + 5 - Days off. Thursday I spent exploring the "downtown" core of Cochrane while Matt went golfing. Exciting stuff! But I did check out the bulk food store and was pleasantly surprised. No bulk PB or wasabi peas, but plenty of fruit and nuts and MEAT! I also saw a Farquhars truck, which was really exciting, because that means my local ice cream is available in Cochrane. Yummm!

Friday night we went to a firefighter house (5 guys live in this 3 bdr house!) for a pre-drink. Tons of fun and lots of euchre and "pyramid" games later we went to the local pub "Thibs Tavern". This is a small, crowded place with a large bar, many trophies and a pool table. It was alright, but I preferred the house party.

Day 6 - Saturday, 10:30am start. We weighed our packs and I was way underweight! :) I then set up my tent and waterproofed it to no end...there will be no leaks in my tent! *fingers crossed*

In the evening we went to a party and then hit up a "Stag and Doe" at the curling club. It was a ton of fun, but I had a feeewww too many jello shooters. There's a mysterious bruise on my chin now...

Day 7 - Sunday, 10:30am start. Matt definitely had to wake me up for work...thank god he did, because I would have totally slept in. Slllightly hungover lol. While my crew got sorted, I was placed in a different crew while one of their members was away on a course. I was informed that we would be doing wilderness orientation today, which involved learning the local landscape. Looots of walking, in STEEL TOE BOOTS. I thought I was doing ok, but the next day my heels were definitely tender. I also got training in how to set up a portable propane BBQ. Delicious!

Day 8 + 9 - Mon +Tues. Our crew was on yellow alert in Kapuskasing both days (means you have half an hour to start leaving for a fire; Reds have to leave immediately), so each morning we loaded the truck with all of our equipment (pump, hose, tools etc) and our packs and crew food bag. The 1.5 hour drive took us through a series of small northern towns, like Moonbeam, which is obsessed with aliens. It even has a spaceship as the town mascot! In Kapuskasing, we went to the airport and waited in the MNR locker for a fire call. Unfortunately the weather wasn't very nice, so we didn't get anything, but we did get to practice our hover exits from the helicopter. I had never been on one, so I was pretty excited and slightly nervous to open and close the door on a hovering helicopter while balancing on its skids. At this point I was getting a little frustrated, because as exciting as it was to be waiting for a fire, I still hadn't done any outdoor pump/hose training -while on yellow or red alert we can't do any of this training because you need to be ready to go. This made me feel pretty useless to my crew, as they hadn't had a chance to see what my capabilities are.

I have to be honest that I had expected things to be a little different, with a more structured training program, but I'm starting to realize the unpredictable nature of this job makes structure pretty much impossible. Alex helped me understand that the work culture is probably just different here and that not everyone is a young keener like I am, wanting to learn as much as I could in the shortest time possible. I still sulked all evening. To cheer up Matt and I watched Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up routine. It definitely worked :)

Day 10 - Wednesday. Another "common" day. I'm starting to recognize most people and know about 40% of people's names. This will definitely take awhile as there are 4 Daves, 2 Curtis', 2 Dans etc. The big boss was in today and the regional manager was visiting, so everything needed to be whipped into shape. I spent the morning in the gas house making sure all of the gas cans were properly labeled and tagged, and then while all the crew bosses and leaders were in a FireSmart presentation, some crew members and I tested and serviced three pumps. I'm feeling much more comfortable with these small machines now that I've taken a few apart.

In the evening we went to Erik's camp - he's on Matt's crew. Driving there was super pretty as the fog had rolled in and his camp was pretty awesome as well. Beautiful log cabin with neat landscaping, surrounded by two lakes. The boys shot some golf balls into the calm lake as heat lightening flashed over the trees across the lake. Once the sun set we headed inside and had a pretty chill night.

Day 11 +12 - Days off. On Thursday, Alex left for Germany. He won't be back for six weeks and I'm ridiculously excited for him to go backpacking, but I will definitely miss talking to him all the time. He does have a skype account now (thanks Glen!), so hopefully we'll be able to talk a few times :) I won't be able to help mentioning his Europe antics in here from time to time!

Other than saying bye to Alex, I spent the day relaxing. Matt and I headed to the gym and watched our first movie in the Cochrane movie theater: Iron Man 2. Woo! I thought it was pretty good, but Matt wasn't too impressed. Later on I found out that it wasn't supposed to come out till Friday...guess we saw it a bit early! Today we went to the gym earlier and had a nice long workout. I did my ballet stretches, which I hadn't done in ages and my body feels soo good! Later on we will probably head back to the camp and hopefully go fishing :)

Thanks for reading!

Introduction

My name is Jaana Mielonen and I am now an Ontario Fire Ranger.

I fight forest fires.

This blog will describe my experiences as a rookie. Please check in whenever :)

***This post covers the basics of how I got here, but the rest will describe my actual experiences and mishaps.

Officially I am a Resource Technician, Type 1 for the Fire Management Headquarters - a division of the Ministry of Natural Resources. I am based in Cochrane, which is slightly north of Timmins. Click here to see it on a map.

Cochrane relative to where you are:

• Mindemoya - 547 km (7.5 hrs)
• Toronto - 724km (9.5 hrs)
• Sudbury - 403 km (6 hrs)
• Waterloo - 802 km (10 hrs)

So you may ask how I got into this. It was simple: I saw a booth at the University of Waterloo, asked them a billion questions and after a couple days of thinking, I signed up for my 5 day training course. I've always wanted to do something challenging and this sounded perfect. But I was nervous. Very nervous indeed, but even more determined to do it.

Preparation Courses:

In order to apply, I had to complete the following:

• SP 100 - This is a 5-day training course you are required to successfully complete. We learned the all the basics of a forest fire itself, how to set up pumps, lay hose, set up camp, load enter and exit helicopters, navigate using a compass, as well as the basics about safety and nutrition.
• Standard First Aid - Learning what to do with various injuries...hopefully I won't have to use it!
• Physical Readiness Exam (PRE Fit) - A test of your cardiovascular endurance and strength. I passed with flying colours :)

Getting Hired:

In March, I applied online to EVERY base in Ontario (there's 15), but this didn't prove to be very useful, so I called EVERY base multiple times and sent most of them my resume and cover letter. By middle April I still didn't have a job. I got nervous.

Then on the 15th of April I got a call from the Cochrane base. They didn't have anything available, but we had a phone interview and he asked if I could start on the 26th (just ten days away!). My manager agreed to let me end my contract early and on Monday, April 19th I was offered a job. Woo! Now I started to get excited.

But I had less than ten days to do a crazy amount of stuff including buying all my supplies, packing, moving all my belongings into storage, and finding a sublet, all while working and training the person taking my job. So I got stressed.

Purchases:

I had never worked in construction or anything, so I had quite a few purchases to make to get ready. Here's a brief overview:

• Steel-toe work boots
• (Spare pair) steel-toe work boots
• Wool work socks (24 pairs!)
• Hunting Knife
• Compass

Getting There

As you probably saw above, Cochrane is in the middle of nowhere really. And I didn't have a car. So I had three options:

1. Flying - $300 and only about 2 hours
2. Bus - $178, but a full 14 hours
3. Train - $140, only 12 hours

Before I had time to decide I found out that I could get a ride from Barrie, due to a crazy coincidence. A guy I knew from first year just got hired by the same base, so we drove up together. We did it on one tank of gas! Once we arrived we checked out the town and found the following:

- a large polar bear statue

- a destitute looking trailer park

- the Ontario Northland train station (it runs the Polar Bear Express)

- a sprawling residential area (approx 3000 people live in town, 5000 if you include the surrounding area)

- the short main street which has a bulk food store (yes!), a couple clothing stores, a video store, small movie theatre (which serves Farquhar's ice cream), some cafes and other random small thins

- a surprising amount of chains (KFC, Tim Hortons, Best Western, Canadian Tire/Mark's Work Wearhouse, Giant Tiger, Guardian Pharmacy, ValuMart, HomeHardware, M&M Meats, Timbr Mart, Esso and three banks)

Finding Somewhere to Live

There are like nooo places to rent in Cochrane (not that I could find online and in the newspaper). So we settled on a 2bdr apartment we found at the Chimo Motel. It was expensive, but the pictures didn't look too bad and it had cable/internet included.

BAD IDEA. Total false advertising.

The place stunk, it was super tiny and had no closets or dressers not to mention that everything was really old and overall it was a shit hole. We convinced him to give us a slightly better unit for the same price, but we immediately started looking for a new place. This was hard.

At this point, I still couldn't quite believe that I was in Cochrane, about to start a job fighting forest fires, and that Matt was there too. But I had to believe it because we started work at 8am the next day!

That's it for the intro. From now on I'll be posting summaries every once in awhile (approx every week) so make sure you check in!

- Jaana