Yesterday firefighters from the Albuquerque Fire Rescue Wildland Division dealt with a wildfire on an island in the Rio Grande River. They used an airboat to access the 1/4-acre Bosque fire.
Photos are from @abqfire
The first LARGE wildfire I was on was the Safety Harbor fire in Washington when I was with the El Cariso Hotshots. After flying from Southern California we loaded onto a chartered bus which dropped us off near an apple orchard. From there we took a boat across Lake Chelan to the fire. We were actually initial attack on the blaze. It grew much larger than seen in the photo below; we spent two or three weeks there at a spike camp. They fed us Continental Cuisine — frozen meals in plastic hairnet bags that were heated in large tubs of water, seen in the second photo below. Sometimes the frozen food was thoroughly heated; other times, there were still-frozen chunks.
Firefighters — tell us YOUR story about using a boat to get to a fire.
Len Kosup.
El Cariso hotshots 1961. Left Ontario via commercial carrier and arrived in Boise Id. Boarded USFS DC-3 to North Fork Id.. Boarded school buses and rode down dirt road along the Salmon River past Shoup to end of road. Waiting there at a dock were a fleet of inboard excursion craft. Seemed like more than a mile we were let out at fires edge to start building line up a steep grassy ridge with many rolling baseball and softball sized rocks. After several hits and near misses, retreated to less hazardous area and constructed a helipad for future use. We had no radios or maps. Just followed the fire each day and retreated to sandbar each evening. Food and water dropped in by parachute. Trapped one night on large rockslide. Remember being very hungry. After 5 or so days saw a local district ranger who brought us a packset radio and map. Inversion layer kept it smoky so difficult to see crews or fire from air. Sand bar spike camp was it for duration of fire. 14 days w one day of r and r to wash clothes in metal water cubs and relax. As best as l remember it. Lk