[PPRAANet] Waldo Canyon Fire info

[John Hooker]

Mick,

I know im new to this reflector, but I am not new to firefighting, I have 
been in the fire service for almost 30 years, and everything Mike says is 
true. I have been the responding unit hundreds of thousands of times, and I 
will tell you this it is not easy to go and put yourself in a position where 
you know if something even small happens that you may not walk out of the 
situation. I have been on the other side of that fence also, and it feels 
like an eternity while you are watching everything you have ever worked for 
go up in flames. There is always second guessing and blame being pushed 
around on everyone, the police, fire and EMS because they were too slow. My 
suggestion is that you put yourself in the responders shoes. I mean that 
literally, go to your local city FD, and do a ride along with them for an 
entire weekend. Spend the entire time with them, eat,sleep(if you get any), 
get an idea of what it is like every time that bell rings and the adrenaline 
pumps, and boy what a feeling that is......until.....you get that other 
feeling, the one that gnaws at you, the one that turns your stomach, the one 
no one wants to ever think about it, am I going to be able to go home and 
see my wife and kids at the end of this call. Everyone has it but no one 
ever talks about it. In the medical field there is something called Triage, 
and you place patients with the most severe injuries first, so they get help 
first, and so on until you get down to lowest level the bumps and scrapes. 
There are some times where you have to look at the severity of someone's 
injuries and determine weather helping this person is going to take 
resources that could save multiple others and possibly waste it on someone 
who may die anyway, that decision SUCKS, but it must be made, loose one to 
save many others. That is something most people never have to experience, 
and I am glad for that, but what you have to remember you only heard one or 
two sentences of probably hundreds of conversations that were going on all 
at once. Please until you have experienced what that actually feels like 
please do not make claims that someone ignored a call for help or resources. 
Maybe the resources were needed saving many other homes and or businesses. 
The Waldo Canyon fire had 90% of this country's airborne tanker planes 
fighting that fire, even though there were 2 other large wildfires burning 
at the same time in other states, so can't they say the same thing about the 
Colorado Springs area? Because of  all the resources were already being used 
our stuff burned and we suffered more than we should have.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "W0MU Mike Fatchett" <w0mu at w0mu.com>
To: <ppraanet at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, July 01, 2013 19:18
Subject: Re: [PPRAANet] Waldo Canyon Fire info


> On 7/1/2013 4:34 PM, Mick Sparling wrote:
>> After the evacuation, the resources left, leaving the homes undefended 
>> (no people in them)!  See the problem???
>>
> Comments like this are very offensive and I do not fight fire in Colorado 
> Springs or Colorado.  Colorado does not have enough resources to set a 
> fire engine up at each and every home that might be affected.
>
> I was watching the live streams from Montana and could see many structure 
> protection units in the middle of the fire saving houses. Prior to the 
> Fire Storm I am sure that there were strike teams and structure protection 
> teams paroling the those areas.
>
> What happened with the Waldo Canyon fire was that the smoke column 
> collapsed on itself and that was compounded with a large thunderstorm. 
> The collapse of the column caused the fire to quickly burn in nearly every 
> direction at once.  There is no way to predict or plan for these types of 
> events.  Units that were in front of the fire lines now found themselves 
> behind the flame front almost instantly.
>
> The majority of resources are fighting fire, not waiting for fire to burn 
> down to them sitting in driveways playing cards.  Those crews are working 
> their butts off trying to save homes and real estate.
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> PPRAANet mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/ppraanet
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:PPRAANet at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>