Page 16 - The Silver Fire

THE BLACK RANGE RAG - WWW.BLACKRANGE.ORG
The Silver Fire - As It Happened - Part 6 (Con’t)
dip types and one sky pumper.
On the dip type, the basket holds about 250 to 300 gallons. Sometimes they lose water out of the bucket if the wind is strong. In the wind today the helicopter rocked in the air, had a hard time keeping level, and made dozens of flights over the tank before they had a full bucket. They look like tiny bugs flying into the smoke.
The sky crane holds 2,000 gallons: 16,000 pounds of water. The suction pump is at the bottom end of the hose. Instead of sucking water up, the pump shoots it up. If you have the pump at the top of the straw, the whole pipe has to be filled with water in order to create suction. If the pump is submerged in the water, it can push the water up into the tank.
Everyone feels distracted.
This was a fun moment. The catering crew are handing off boxes of food in a bucket line. They would report the lightness or heaviness of the box. “Heavy!” “Medium!” “Light!” went the call up the line. But some of the boxes that went up the line as “heavy,” being handled as if they were heavy, were actually light, and some of the “light” ones were actually heavy. It was funny.
The firefighters arriving for their meal last night.
Two of our Jims (red T-shirts) with “Bubba,” one of the caterers from Mescalero. (see photos above, taken from this post)
The sunset tonight.
June 21
The Silver Fire - As It Happened - Part 7 (Written on June 19)
A post and photographs by Susan D. Roebuck of Kingston.
This is the map from this morning. The fire is much, much bigger now, and the map covers much more space. It becomes hard to read at this small size. The pink outline at the top left of the map is the border of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness.
The fire munches on. We did not get to go back to Kingston today. Even though it was reported that sparks fell on Kingston this afternoon, it may be safe enough to return tomorrow. If so, it will have been 10 days since we were evacuated. On Friday the Forest Service will drive tours up the closed highway toward the head of Drummund Canyon for residents to see the new world up there. The highway will be closed to all other traffic for weeks yet.
Larry (Black Range District Ranger) told us this morning that “Kingston is still a green jewel.” “The fire took a big bite yesterday,” he said, burning 5,000 more acres. They dropped many thousands of gallons of water
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IN MEMORY OF THE GRANITE MOUNTAIN HOTSHOTS