Dry Creek Fire

I am at fire camp. My brother owns several hand washing trailers that he rents to the forest service during wildland fires. This time I am operating a station at White Salmon, Washington, for a fire called the Dry Creek Fire. Fires are almost always named for a geographical feature near where the fire starts.

It took me six hours to drive down to the Columbia River Gorge. I crossed into Oregon on I205 and headed east. Traveling back into Washington at Bridge of the Gods I continued east on Hwy 14 until turning to drive up to White Salmon, a sleepy little town on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River that boasts an Ace Hardware, Hi School Pharmacy and a surprising good Natural Foods Market. The placard upon entering states 'White Salmon, where the sun meets the rain.'

Donald already had the trailer set up when I arrived. This fire camp is at the high school and we are camped on the baseball field on grass. GRASS! Usually we camp on dirt so the luxury of grass is amazing. This is the nicest fire camp I have ever been stationed at. In addition to the grass we are right next to the track and each morning after the fire crews leave for the day I walk two miles around the track to get my exercise. I share the track with the cross country team and the cheerleaders. I have developed a deep respect for the cheerleaders. They are out on the track at 9 am, and they spend 6 to 7 hours every day practicing their cheers and dances in 90 degree heat in front of the empty stands. Sometimes in the afternoon the football team scrimmages as well.

This fire camp uses inmate labor. The inmates cook and serve the food for everyone, and there are several inmate squadrons who are actually fighting the fire, as well. Apparently the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) uses a lot of inmate labor. There are guards supervising but I imagine that being allowed to participate in something like this would be considered a privilege for the inmates and I have not observed any problems.

Fire camp reminds me of summer camp, just for adults. Friends are quickly made and when a crew is demobilized there is a sad farewell. Now that I have been doing this for awhile I occasionally see a familiar face. At this fire one of the camp admins is a teacher from school!

My day starts at 4:30 am when the kitchen crew washes their hands before starting work. When I feel the trailer start rocking as they push the soap dispensers I stumble out of bed and start the generator so they have lights. By 5 am there is a steady line of firefighters washing before going through the breakfast line. I hurry around wiping and cleaning sinks and refilling the paper towel dispensers and by 7 am most of the crews have left and then the potable water tanker comes and refills my 400 gallon water tank and the gray water truck comes and empties my 500 gallon gray water bladder.

I typically do another deep cleaning and then the afternoon is mine to nap and read. At 5pm I do another cleaning and dinner starts. The admin and camp crew eat. The firefighters start rolling back in around 7 or 8 pm. They are dirty and grimy after their hard work and once again I am busy, cleaning and bleaching and replacing paper towels. After dinner I am refilled with fresh water for the morning and lights go out at 10pm.

I turn off the generator and shut myself in for the night and the drone of the kitchen reefer truck lulls me to sleep.