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Apr 21st, 2005 - 21:10:55
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The Travels of our First Webmaster
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Voices of the Northwest
Fire Season in Western Oregon is coming to a close. I spent the last
couple of weeks at Oakridge Airport as a crewmember on N205BR, a UH-1 "Huey" type helicopter like I used to ride in and parachute out of in the early 70s when I was in the merry military.
Big Rabbit (official designators are Bravo Romeo) was a lot of machine for what we had going on the Clark and Happy Fires but somebody upstairs resisted the suggestion that we send it back to its home in Idaho and replace it with a smaller Jet Ranger with half the operating cost. All we were doing was recon after the Happy Fire sprang up in the wake of an early September lightning storm.
Big Rabbit, a Bell 205 plus plus, used its respectable lift capacity to dip 270 gallons a whack out of nearby Happy Lake and dump on the fire before it could get up and run. It was joined by the Duck-an old surplus UH-1 painted green and yellow-that was sitting at McKenzie Bridge. Big Rabbit can carry passengers while the Duck is restricted due to age and a few bullet holes and can not. The two helicopters seriously retarded the Happy Fire so that ground crews could get in and line it at ten acres or so.
Every morning and afternoon, we would pile into the Big Rabbit and recon the Clark Fire. Steve the pilot would start the Dash17 Cobra engine with a hiss and a roar and the bigger than stock rotors would slowly turn as the turbine blades gripped the primal maelstrom in the jet engine. The whole machine faintly reeks of kerosene.
The Rabbit would shake and hop in place and we would all bob and wobble like weebles on the nylon and aluminum pole seats until rotor speed built up and the low rpm warning lights on the dashboard went out and then Steve would pull pitch and up, up, up we'd go.
I could look down on the old West Fir High School Where Mom taught in the late 50s. She was an English teacher/librarian. Whop, Whop, Whop go the big rotors and we see the old Office Bridge. The dam for the old mill pond of the Heinz Lumber Company is gone. When I was 6 years old, Randy and I would walk down to the mill pond and fish for foot long trout. Our moms would instruct us to catch only enough for dinner. This would take half an hour or less. Things have sure changed.
Steve levels off at a thousand feet or so and we Whop, Whop, Whop 10 miles north and orbit the Clark Fire. Ted the manager in the front seat, calls the people on the ground and receives instructions on what they wanted looked at from the sky.
The Clark Fire is interesting in that it burned in streaks and runs. There are bands of green trees where the fire had crawled along on the forest floor and stripes of dead red where the fire torched through the crowns. We have a helispot in a nearby Christmas tree farm where we pick up Very Important People and fly them around the fire. I instruct Steve to do level turns so the passengers don't hurl and when I fly with them, I keep a garbage bag stuffed in my nomex shirt for emergencies.
I have been riding in the back of UH-1 type helicopters off and on for
more than 30 years now. I understand that some people have scientifically proven that a helicopter can't fly. I know that a helicopter is nothing more than a collection of moving parts flying in formation. The entire machine is held to the rotor system by one big "Jesus Nut." Most airplanes will glide if the motor stops. A helicopter supposedly will "autorotate." I think this is a fancy word for fall with imaginary control.
I am sitting behind Steve on the left side. The back of his flight helmet
has a painted buzzard carrying a fire fighter's pulaski and smoking a cigar. Underneath the buzzard are the words: Relax, You're Flying With The Lowest Bidder. Ted is wearing a white helmet with a sticker of the silhouette of the Challenger on the back. He managed a copter that looked for pieces of the shuttle this spring. Abe is wearing a plain white one and I have on a green army surplus job that the Bureau got brand new for free because the Army ordered thousands of them and then wanted an even newer model when it came available. Karen, a local artist, is going to paint it up for me one of these days. Big glaring eyes on the visor maybe.
I see "candles" smoldering but not much else. A candle is a snag with a
fire in the top. The Clark Fire is well contained. Ted tells the strike team leaders on the ground goodbye and Big Rabbit turns south and east and we clatter off to look at the south end of the forest. We look at Diamond Peak covered with its first snow and Waldo Lake and wilderness areas. I am always looking for the next level piece of ground with no trees to sit down on even though I am not the pilot. The 205 has only one engine. Turbine engines are very reliable but... I was in Alaska a couple years back when a Huey type with twin turbines had one quit and down it went. Everybody walked away so it was a good landing. 205
pilots alway joke "Why does a 212 have 2 engines? 'Cause it won't fly on
one."
We orbit some really fine falls and I see people riding motorcycles on
Highway 58 and feel a twinge of jealousy. This has always been the worst part of fire fighting. I am driving to or from a fire or riding overhead and see somebody riding their bike while my BSA and BMW gather dust in my shop.
We pass over the remains of the old Moolack Fire. Almost ten years past
now. You can see where a bunch of dead trees lay in a 20 acre spiral from the cyclonic action of a massive fire storm. There are sailboats on Waldo today. Little alpine lakes pass beneath us at 90 mph. They are clear and blue green and have little trash that you can see.
Steve orbits over the Happy fire and it is dead out. There are a couple
of people in yellow shirts looking for hot spots. The machine heads north and west and follows the Hill Creek drainage until we pass over the Hills Creek Reservoir and thunder over Oakridge. Big Rabbit's nose casts back and forth like a hound getting the scent as Steve turns west and settles toward the concrete pad on Oakridge International Airport. You can see my dead car trailer behind the hanger with a torched Toyota and a 36 Chevrolet pickup cab that I collected for the Forest Service when we were rained out last Tuesday.
The skids touch the ground and the rotors slow as Steve spools down. Ted calls Eugene Dispatch and announces that we are on the ground at Oakridge as N205BR transitions from a vibrant flying machine to a couple of tons of dead aluminum.
The screaming banshee dies to a sigh as Steve cuts the fuel and the main rotors turn on dying momentum. I get out of the back, fastening the seatbelt behind me and exiting to the front so the pilot can see me. I walk in a crouch until well out of the reach of the rotors and then remove my helmet and replace it with my Evergreen Helicopter ball cap.
The Batphone rings in the hanger. Somebody has made a decision to
disband us and sent the helicopter back to Idaho. The pilot, mechanic and fuel truck driver are ready to go. They have been on the road fighting fire since May. They look forward to some time off. This weekend is supposed to be hotter and drier but somebody has made a decision so we are history.
The rotors come to a stop and Joe drives the fuel truck close to Big Rabbit while Other Brother Steve, the mechanic removes inspection panels. We start packing up our junk in the hanger. We are out of here tonight. N205BR will leave Saturday as soon as the fog lifts. I don't think there will be any more major fire fighting this year.
Norm
Copyright 2003 by Norm Maxwell
Visit Norm's other writings at West By Northwest.org:
Norm's Notebook: From Forest to McMansion, How It Could Happen Here
Norm's Notebook: A Few Acres, a Few Chickens–Who Is Living on the Land Now
Remembering the 30 Mile Fire
Old Men and Fire
The Fire of South Canyon: Remembering Storm King
Wee-wee for BB
Norm's Notebook: The Story of the Spruce Tree, and Mosby Creek, a New Land Use Lot Adjustment
Norm's Notebook: Dead Cars and the Six Million Dollar Manx
(Editor's note–Norm's "Dead Cars" story inspired a feature story in the Register Guard, "Heaps of trouble in the woods.")
Mentoring Military Style
Three Dollar Hammer
Song of the Open Road
Remember Fire Road
Home, Home on Fire Road
and more.
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
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