Monday, January 24, 2022

Reflections on Big Sur (CA) and Wildland Firefighting

In my wonderings in my news feed and elsewhere, I found out about the Colorado Fire  burning near the Big Sur coast in Monterey, County, California (see this Jan 23rd article from the Mercury News ( https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/22/rare-terrifying-winter-big-sur-fire-burns-down-to-iconic-highway-1-bridge/ ) and Bill Gabbert’s recent article on Wildfire Today I have heard varying reports of acreage burned from 700 to 1,050, but according to CAL FIRE’s update as of 7:52 AM PST on Jan 24th, the fire has burned 700 acres, one structure has been damaged and the wildfire is at 35 percent containment. 

Reading about the Colorado Fire brought me back to the summer of 2008 before I had decided to devote the blog to aerial wildland fire fighting and related issues. The Basin Complex Fire which burned 162,818 acres. It is hard to explain but through hearing media report about this wildfire I became interested in learning more about wildfires and how wildfires are fought. So, I decided to take my readers along on this journey and a few months later, thanks to the help of some friends who helped me to learn the ropes of wildland firefighting and aerial wildland firefighting in particular, I devoted this blog to aerial wildland firefighting and related concerns. That was almost 13 years ago now. 

Writing this blog has been and continues to be an adventure. I am still learning and I take you along as I learn. There is much that I can never know because I am not a wildland firefighter and am a non-pilot aviation enthusiast. I do care about the wildland firefighting community in the air and on the ground. I hope that comes across. I am grateful to all you, my readers, thank-you for reading me and following me over the years. 

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