My feet hurt too damn right now. God damn is the slope of this fucking mountain steep. We had to go up and down, up and down, all over the mountain, and by the time we had to go home, I was ready to give up and collapse.

It was a good day, though. We lined close to 80% of the fire, and we did a burn out near our anchor point, which helped us out a lot. I think tomorrow will be a better day. I hope so.

What a fucking day.

I fought two fires today, and I wish I could stop it there and have you all know exactly what happened during them, but that’s impossible without writing it all down.

We began with the same fire we went to yesterday, the Dayton Creek fire off the Rez. This fire was pretty much out, so my squad simply gridded up from the road, found and stomped out like 4-5 hot spots, reached the top, gridded along that line until we hit the top east corner, and we went and took a break. This is when shit began to hit the fan.

We had a Red Flag Warning in effect for today, and boy did the weathermen get it right today. A storm cell rolled into our fire with thunder and lightning lighting up the sky. Our entire crew was called off the mountain. I led my squad down and to safety. On our way down, we started to get reports that the storm was lighting up the Rez with fire after fire after fire. We rolled on the bus and headed our way back home.

Three starts started around Sloan’s bridge, and that’s where we headed out to. It was hot when we got to the staging area, but just as quickly, it got cold. We could hear over the radio that the faster storm many weather guys have ever seen was rolling through over us, and sure enough, they were right again. The storm lit up the sky and our fires. It was beautiful.

Once the storm passed, we shuttled our crew back up toward the fire. My squad boss trainer had to be a sawyer because he was our only qualified sawyer, so I had to step in and become the leader of our squad. We hot lined this reported 29 acre fire like a bunch of bad ass mother fuckers. It was hot up in there. Really fucking hot up in there. But we completed our objective, got off the hill safely, and are heading back home now.

I’m having the time of my life now, and I don’t want it to end.

What a god damn fucking hot day.

One of our crew members went down with heat exhaustion today, so I made sure to give my squad members enough breaks to rest up and water up, and they all performed wonderfully. It was hot, you guys, and we were mopping up very hot areas with very little shade. We did, however, complete our objectives and will earn our rest tonight.

I’m on the bus ride home now. The crew purchased about 5 pizzas from Pizza Hut, which they gave me cash for so I’ll be paying it on my credit card. We all deserve this. I want this. It’s been a long but amazing past ten days, and we’re all exhausted. I’m exhausted. I’m getting better being squad boss, making today go much smoother and easier stress-wise. There’s still a lot I have to learn and be cognizant of, but I know that stuff comes with time and more experience.

I’m having the time of my life, and I know I’m going to miss it tremendously because this will be my last fire of the season. I have to get back to work next week.

What a long day. It’s 10:27 PM, and I’m still at it. Turns out, I’ve a lot to learn as squad boss. I didn’t take the initiative when I should have, and I instead did what I usually do, which is work on the fire. I needed to look at the big picture, though, which I didn’t do, unfortunately. Maybe tomorrow.

I took my first squad out today.

This fire has been one of the best ones I’ve ever been on. And by fire, I don’t mean like any particular fire, but the entirety of the time I’ve been out. I left last Tuesday, and here we are again on a Tuesday and three fires later. We went from the Couture Fire in Arlee to the Elk Fire in the Bison Range, back to the Couture Fire for a few more days, and now we fought the Garceau Fire in Polson. It looks like we can milk this fire for a few more days, which is awesome because I’m finally making Squad Boss wages, which is $2 more an hour than what I was making. I’m so happy.

I was really nervous today. It was all on me now, and I really let that get to my head, but after a bit of working the fire and getting back into the groove of things, things settled down and it was really fun being a boss again. I was a boss in McDonald’s, and now I’m back at it. A lot of those lessons still apply. It’s great.

But yeah… It’s late and we have to wake up early. Good night y’all.

I’m home.

We finished containing the Couture Fire today. Actually, we contained this fire on Thursday and have been milking this fire since then. We got off the hill early and waited at the staging area for hours. Half our crew watched Portlandia skits on YouTube. That was fun. It wasn’t until we drove back to the Division of Fire that shit went down.

While we waited to be demobilized, a thunderstorm rolled into with winds of over 40 MPH. We listened intently on the radio as report after report of lightning strikes hit the Rez all over the place. Instead of going home for good, we’re coming back tomorrow at 6 AM to see what fire we’ll be going to. So I’m at home and ready to go to bed. I’m actually in bed as I write this on my iPhone. Since I’m still firefighting, I’m going to post all of these once I’m officially off.

This is going to be fun.

We did a whole lot of nothing today. We were supposed to grid the same area we did yesterday, and we did for a little bit, but then we took a break, which turned into a lunch break, which turned into a get off the mountain break because a thunderstorm rolled in above us and it was too dangerous for us to work. The whole fire there has been a downed power line right smack in the middle of the fire, and the power company has done nothing about it. Over the past week, the power pole holding the last piece of the line up is falling forward, and one bad fall could ignite that line and potentially spark a new fire.

But it looks like tomorrow will be our final day on this fire, unless something sparks tonight. There’s supposed to be high lightning activity tonight, so we’ll see. Another short entry but I am tired and it is late. Only 29 more days to go.

Another day, another dollar.

We spent the entire day gridding the bottom of the fire to the very top. And we didn’t just grid, we gridded. That meant our entire crew lined out on a line with about five feet between us, and we dug the ground and felt the dirt with out hands. We did this for hours. I wish I could explain how slow and tedious and back wrenching this work was. My back is killing me. And I know this entry is going to be short again, but I should be sleeping and not writing right now. Firefighting is hard work.

We had a pretty slow day today. We finished fighting the Elk Fire, which didn’t take very long. We thought we were finished, but we were told earlier in the day that we were going to go back to the Couture Fire in Arlee, which is where we’re at now. It looks like we won’t demobilize until Sunday, maybe even Monday. More days means more money. I’m fine with that. I did get injured yesterday, but it wasn’t that bad. Just cut up my shin.

You know what? I’m exhausted and sitting here in my tent is making me more tired. I will write more once I’m back home; I promise.

It’s been a long day.

I’m lying down in my tent out in the Bison Range on some pretty hard ground but comfortable enough for me to sleep on. The stridulating of the crickets provide the only sound and it’s so peaceful. I love camping. I love nature. I love today.

We were sent out on the little fire that broke out yesterday, which was awesome, but we had strong gusts of winds today — upwards to 30 MPH — which caused a tree to torch and then create spots all over the place. We all started running up the hill to where the spots were, and in my clumsiness, I fell and cut open my shin. I immediately got up and resumed my run up the hill again. We were able to contain the spots, fortunately and were ecstatic right after. Our adrenaline went down, as did our heart rates, and we have good stories to tell for years on end.

Unfortunately I’m exhausted, so that’s where I’ll stop today. I’ll write more about today later; it was quite memorable and fun.