Right Place Right Time

Back when I was a volunteer firefighter in my teenage years I had my first experience with a wildfire.  It was actually more of a small woods fire, but the way it came about was very odd.  I was driving home one day and saw smoke, now as a volunteer firefighter you love seeing smoke in your jurisdiction.  I investigated, and found a small patch of woods behind a house was burning.  I knocked on the door and a lady cam to the door and said her husband had been burning it, but went to work.  I told her it was approaching her house and that I was going to call it in, she agreed.  So I was sitting there waiting on the trucks to arrive watching the fire burn.  We put it out in no time with hand carried water suppressant tools.  We were quite erratic resembling a headless chicken, and had no real game plan it is probably a good thing it was not any bigger.  Here in the south it is so wet most of the year that very rarely are we in conditions conducive to create fire, so we don't train for it or prepare for it.  We have plenty of fuel but it is just to wet for any oxygen or ignition to really matter.  A fire triangle is only as powerful as its weakest link.  With high moisture content in the fuel you can rest easy that you probably won't have a natural wildfire.  Below is a picture of the best forest fire tool we had, no polaskis here.