A Brushfire in the Foothills

It all started one Wednesday afternoon when my brother Everett and I had completed our daily chores, we were quietly enjoying ourselves in the basement when suddenly our Dad called us, we quickly ran up and he told us that he had been notified that there was a grassfire on the ridge, the three of us quickly gathered our gear, four fire extinguishers, a rake, and a leaf blower and left. On our way to the fire site we briefly stopped at the barn to get another rake, another leaf blower, and another fire extinguisher, and then we drove off again down the road and onto the lease, as we drove along the path we could not detect any smoke, none that is, until we got to a higher point in which the smell began to come in strong. As we drove up a particularly steep hill we could not quite tell exactly where the sent was coming from, we drove around a bend to a fence and stopped, as we had been ascending the hill we realized that we were almost out of diesel, this meant that we would have to go back to get filled up, but as we descended the steep hill again Dad spotted a hunter waving a large stick to get our attention, at this we headed over and by the time we had gotten there we could see smoke pouring out of the trees. We unloaded are supplies and went in, each holding one of the fire extinguishers, inside there was ash everywhere and smoke was coming out of it, several trees had been burned right through their roots and would likely die, there were also flames that would pop up everywhere and so we began to put out the hot spots, the ground was like a hot pan so it was a good thing that we were all wearing work boots overalls, and coats, the smoke was very strong and it was difficult to breath in, but as we were working an empty can of chilly was found half buried in the ash. After burning through three or four of the extinguishers we came back out and waited for the fire department to arrive, the hunter who had first discovered the fire had called them before we had even gotten there, which was probably a wise thing to do. As we waited we were able to thank the hunter for alerting us to the fire, if it had gotten windy the brushfire could have become a forest fire. From the top of the ridge we got a perfect view of the fire department arriving, it started when we just distantly saw flashing lights far off, a smaller truck came a few minutes before the large one and it began to drive up the trail. After a little while the truck pulled up and two fire men got out, and grabbed some tools, there was a shovel, a pitch fork and an axe/ sledge hammer, next they unloaded the hose and we began to pull it towards the fire zone. Once we reached it, the water was turned on and the firemen started to soak the outside part of the burnt area, Everett and I got the job of raking the dirt and ash, in the middle of the work we heard a loud bark and glanced over to see what it was and before long, out of the bushes came our dog Mavereck, evidently he had tracked us over a mile to that location, but it was good to have his company, along with him, my uncle who had been hunting nearby came to assist in the work. We carried on until nightfall, it was a cold December night, but we were actually hot because of the heat from the ground and the heat generated from our raking, towards the end we also got to use the hose, we mostly focused on areas that had the more prominent chances of spreading the fire or burning up again, at this point there were no flames to be seen, just smoke, ash, and sparks. Near the end we were low on water, so we used it carefully. Once we finally ran out of it the area was pretty much under control so we gathered our tools and headed out of the forest to our vehicles. The firemen told us that they would check the area again in the morning and that they would be watching for anything unusual there, so we said our fair wells and headed home for dinner.

            It was very exiting to be able to help with putting out a fire, but more importantly it leaves me wandering how the fire started, personally I think that someone made a small fire to cook some chilly and once they finished they attempted to put out the fire, even though they might have thought they did, the embers could have still been alive and they might have eventually caused the brushfire that could resulted in a lot of damage had it not been discovered soon enough.