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Post by nikeajax on Oct 11, 2017 14:15:37 GMT -8
HOLY-CA-CA! As of 2:52 PM 10/11/17, the sky has a sickly yellow cast to the soft gray, kinda like when the sun is about to set... The air-quality is at 186 (unhealthy) 50 being good, and 500 being hazardous. This is all coming from the fires in Napa and Santa Rosa: last I saw 15,000 structures had been lost. My mother-in-law's house is fine but I'm glad she no longer lives there. On the plus side: it should be really good for the native plants as most of the ecosystem of California has evolved around fire... It should also make for some neat sunsets... Speaking of which, did you know that the sunset in the Edvard Munch image "The Scream" (Norwegian: Skrik {shriek}) is believed to have been inspired by the eruption of Krakatoa? JB
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Post by vance on Oct 11, 2017 16:02:31 GMT -8
Good luck to all in the danger zone, and I hope everyone is OK! These fires are horrendous!
Was it really PG&E that caused this? I have a property up in the foothills that was nearly taken out last year due to their negligence, and now have many huge pine logs criss-crossed across my property because they won't put their wires underground! I'm now engaged in a battle with them to remove their mess. How is cutting and dragging off millions of tons of useless wood cheaper than burying the wires?
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Post by SeaRat on Oct 11, 2017 21:43:56 GMT -8
After the fires here in Oregon this summer, I have few words to describe my feelings here. Having been a smokejumper years ago (1972), and having fought fire for two other seasons in the 1960s, I kinda know what those fighting the California fires are going through. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected by these fires.
John
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Post by nikeajax on Oct 12, 2017 8:58:18 GMT -8
I just spent about 20-minutes outside figuring thing out with our contractor: I feel like I just smoked a really cheap cigar... Hack, hack, choke, choke, cough, cough! Dang, maybe I need to switch brands JB
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Post by SeaRat on Oct 12, 2017 10:59:34 GMT -8
I just spent about 20-minutes outside figuring thing out with our contractor: I feel like I just smoked a really cheap cigar... Hack, hack, choke, choke, cough, cough! Dang, maybe I need to switch brands JB Jay, Get a N-95 particle mask for outside right now. The air is unhealthy to breath. Either that, or wear your single 72 with a Healthways regulator when outside. John
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Post by nikeajax on Oct 12, 2017 11:13:32 GMT -8
Way ahead of ya buddy: using an R95 (oil-resistant!) for going outside...
Yeah, I actually thought about using my scuba gear if things get too bad, just as a way to get cleaner air into my lungs for a few minutes--SIGH!
JB
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Post by nikeajax on Oct 12, 2017 12:53:23 GMT -8
OH GEEZ! We had an electrician out here... He was smoking a cigar the size of a fire-plug!
JB
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Post by SeaRat on Oct 13, 2017 7:35:33 GMT -8
Way ahead of ya buddy: using an R95 (oil-resistant!) for going outside... Yeah, I actually thought about using my scuba gear if things get too bad, just as a way to get cleaner air into my lungs for a few minutes--SIGH! JB Jaybird, I have actually done this. Years ago, when my kids were small, we were living in our first house, and had a second-hand freezer in the garage. One day, we smelled smoke in the kitchen, and I opened the door to see our garage filled with smoke. I closed the door immediately, got a good breath, and went into the garage. I went straight for my single 72, put a Healthways regulator on it, and put it on. Breathing from the scuba unit, I found my facemask (probably my Scubapro tri-window mask), and put it on. Now with vision and breathing ability, I looked around. The freezer was on fire, and the bottom of the unit. I first unplugged it, then opened the garage door and rolled it out of the garage just as the fire engine rolled up. They said that they were surprised to see the garage door open, and dense cloud of smoke come out, and then a guy roll out a burning freezer through this cloud of smoke while wearing a scuba unit and mask. But they did come in handy that day. John
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Post by nikeajax on Oct 13, 2017 9:27:43 GMT -8
John, yeah, I remember you telling me that story I needed to run an errand this morning and I saw someone out jogging--that sounds like a neurosis to me When I got to the store I saw some birds: at closer examination I saw they were Western Bluebirds At the time I thought it was strange to see them. I told my wife because she really loves birds too: she pointed out that they're probably refugees from the fires These birds live in grassy canyons and valleys, so it would be like seeing a pelican in the mountains! Yesterday around 3:45 my wife noticed a red light coming through the front window, like someone's back-up lights, "Where the heck is that light coming from..." At first I thought it was the sun glinting off my maroon truck... NOPE! It was the sun: it was a big fuchsia ball floating in the sky! Respirator masks are all sold out everywhere in the area, so hopefully we can get some Sunday when we go to Monterrey JB
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Post by nikeajax on Oct 15, 2017 16:37:46 GMT -8
Geez, I was hoping to get away from the smoke in Monterrey: nope I was still hackin' up a lung the whole time we were outside - WHEEEEEZ! They're now referring to it as a mega-fire ummmm, sigh! JB
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Post by nikeajax on Jan 10, 2018 11:42:28 GMT -8
John, your thread about your little water-bug and biodiversity reminded me that I needed to follow up with this thread for you... All of us know that our friend John Ratliff was a PJ in Vietnam, but something else he did was put out forest fires: he was one of those totally bad-a$$ Smoke Jumpers! I can't help but wonder if he ever wore something like this as protection: vintagehaberdashers.com/2017/01/13/1930s-us-forest-service-smoke-jumper-jacket/As for biodiversity, well, all too often we forget that fire is a very important part of a healthy ecosystem. It cleanses areas of exotic invasives like Foxtail, Ripgut and Periwinkle. It is also vital for a large number of plants that need it for their seeds to germinate. The areas where these giant fires burned are now healing: spark.adobe.com/page/qEAUzygcG5MT1/?bblinkid=76883484&bbemailid=6657131&bbejrid=510829919Jaybird
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Post by SeaRat on Jan 10, 2018 20:48:02 GMT -8
Jaybird, I spent the summer of 1972 fighting fire for the North Cascades Smokejumper Base in Winthrop, Washington. This included some jumps in Idaho and Alaska too. Here's a North Cascades, Washington jump to show you the equipment we jumped. The jumper is Larry Longley, my team mate. Smokejumper in the air. This was a training jump. The parachute is a 35 foot diameter parabolic 'chute, with a 7-TU cut in it for forward air speed and turning ability. Larry as he looked just after completing his rappel out of the tree. The tree suit consists of a top, with a bottom over it (trees would snag inside if it were the other way around). It is thick canvas with padding on the knees, hips and elbows. We wore a football-style helmet with a special wire face guard too. The bottoms of the tree suit had a special webbing sewn into it from the outside or one leg, under our boots, up the inside of the leg to just below the crotch, over to the other leg's inside, then down, under the other boot, and up the outside about a feet. This allowed us to take a tree branch between the legs without injury. Why we wear tree suits. Larry was caught by his suspension lines in the tree, and had to rappel out in order to fight the fire. The plane jumpmaster thought he had been injured when he went through about four trees on a wind gusting about 30 mph just over the ridge, and got the suspension line hangup. I laid out a triple-L designation that he was okay, much to their relief. Then we had to fight the fire. This photo was taken when we were back trying to retrieve our 'chute. Larry Longley after returning to our NCSB in front of the tail of our jump aircraft. You can tell that he's had two days of fighting fire. That is a "fire resistent shirt" Larry is wearing too. This was one of the technically most difficult jumps I have ever made. We were aiming for the meadow on the top or a ridge, and I was able to make that meadow. I had to turn into the wind, look back over my shoulder and gauge the wind drift just right, quartering into the wind to make that meadow. Larry missed the meadow, went over the top a bit and down below the ridge line, where the wind picked up and he was traveling with the wind (parachute forward speed plus the wind speed) when he hit the trees, which is why it took him four trees to stop, and he got the suspension line hangup. The fire was a lightning strike that I hated to put out, as only the top of a 250 foot tree was burning, and a storm was on its way into the area. But we were required to down this tree, maybe 500 years old, and "put out" the fire. We did, and it took us most of the day to fell the tree too. I tried to find the photo of me in the tree jump suit, but it is eluding me at the moment. These are photos I took in 1972 of Larry. The tree suit you showed in your photos from before WWII are really a bit rinky compared to what we had. John
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Post by nikeajax on Jan 11, 2018 9:37:24 GMT -8
John, thanks for sharing that with us! So I'm guessing that big collar is to help protect your jugular vein and larynx while crashing through canopies at variable speeds of descent... It's always fun to ask you questions; you never give me the answer I expect you to, and half the time it ends up as fodder for one of my stories! JB
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Post by SeaRat on Jan 12, 2018 14:10:59 GMT -8
John, thanks for sharing that with us! So I'm guessing that big collar is to help protect your jugular vein and larynx while crashing through canopies at variable speeds of descent... It's always fun to ask you questions; you never give me the answer I expect you to, and half the time it ends up as fodder for one of my stories! JB JB, Yes, somewhat. The high neck on the tree jump suits keeps branches from coming up under our helmet too; it provides another place for branches to bounce off of rather than go up under the arms, helmet and into the head/neck. Note that with this evening jump, the jumper has brushed the tree, and there are limbs in the air that he tore off while descending through it. Here as a photo of our entire North Cascades Smokejumper Base jumpers in front of our plane in 1972. I'm in the top row, second from the right of the jumpers. John
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Post by nikeajax on Jan 12, 2018 14:41:53 GMT -8
I'm in the top row, second from the right of the jumpers. John SNORT! Wait, you're the lady with the big hairdo?!?!? Sorry my friend, there was no way I could resist that one Yeah, I kinda realized that the collar acted as a very multi-purpose fairing so to speak: like an even more specialized turnout coat: JB
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