Hiking into our last IA of the season, a little "escaped" campfire 6 miles up the Entiat River Trail. It had snowed a bit over the week and a pair of hikers thought they could get a campfire going better if they lit it inside of a root wad.
Chris Fezer was working as a Type 5 IC trainee. He's filling out the paperwork that describes how the fire is burning, what caused it, resources at risk etc.
The fire took us only about 30 minutes to mop-up. We moved most of the burning material over to the actual fire ring for our own warming fire.
We stopped by Myrtle Lake on the way out. Two of the guys thought it would be cool to go for a swim...
Myself, Chris Fezer, Ryan Shull, Matt Lamb, Chris Eakle.
The Domke Lake fire had been burning since late August. Several of our crew finally got to go up later in the year to complete the rehabilitation process on the fire. We had the great fortune to stay up at Holden Village. The Village is an old copper mining outfit that was bought by the Lutheran Church after the ore supply dried up.
Holden manages to stay nearly completely self-sufficient and is a good example of how a community can live cut off from the rat race of the outside world. I would highly recommend coming to the village sometime in your life. It will breath fresh air into your soul.
This shot show the superstructure of the actual mine's plant for processing and chemically separating the ore removed from a shaft that dives deep into Copper Mountain.
Burto gives a call back to our district on the sat. phone. He had been working as Domke's IC T4 for awhile before our group met up with them.
The shaft dives into the mountain side over half a mile. The loads were then carried up from the vertical shafts on elevators and sent out in rail cars.
All along the bottom of Copper Mountain lie these orange piles of mine tailings. They used arsenic as one of the primary tools for stripping the ore of it's valuable minerals. These piles of caustic chemicals will undoubtedly take generations to mix back into nature.
Funky outdoor chess board.
The community uses a small, hydroelectric dam to produce electricity for the village. This shot shows the old one, partially submerged in alluvial flow.
Some of the locals having fun with a burn pile. Holden runs primarily off of volunteer labor. People can come up and work in the kitchens, the sawmill, or... play with fire.
Who you looking at?
There is a fairly sedentary population of mule deer that live amongst the village houses. They have absolutely no fear of humans and do a fine job of keeping the grass mowed.
The village housing originally sheltered the mine's labor force, providing everything from offices to a rec room (complete with bowling alley.) We were told there are approx. 40-60 folks that live in the village year round. During the summer they can expect 200+ to come in for weekend retreats, mountaineering, or biblical study.
North end of Lake Chelan
(third deepest lake in N. America.)
Railroad Creek down in Lucerne.
Most of our work involved doing rehab. There was lots of random brush laying alongside the fireline that needed to be burned. Some of the firelines needed to be covered back with dirt and brush while others that they intended to keep needed water bars dug in to keep them from eroding after a heavy rain.
Looking west further up into Railroad Creek from Holden.
The entrance to the mine is now sealed off, although it does support a hefty flow of water coming out of the mountain.
We crossed Railroad Creek on one of our last days to do some line rehab on the other side.
I like it on fires when you don't work the same piece of ground every day. It's cool to keep checking out new places.
Boats at Lucerne.This is another little vacation community alongside Lake Chelan. There are no roads to it. All goods must be brought in by boat or float plane. Lucerne is the drop off point form Holden Village, which is another 8 miles up Railroad Creek.
Trigger and his friend.
Our last day took across Domke Lake to do some cleanup around Sid's fishing cabins.
Thankfully, the cabins made it through the fire. A little bit of fire shelter wrap doesn't hurt either.
I'm standing inside a hollowed out tree trunk.
Aaron, Jory, Ryan, Chris, Casey, Bob, Trigger, Toby, and Roberto.
The Lady of the Lake heading out of Lucerne.
To keep all the old miners happy the company supplied them with 8 pool tables, foosball, ping-pong and a set-it-up yourself bowling alley.
Much to my enjoyment they also had some intruments upstairs... I jammed with a couple of recovering alcoholics mt first night in the village. The drumset needed some work but you'd be surprised at what you can do with a little bit of string and tape.
Burto gives 'er on "Enter Sandman."
Jory with elements of his Holden Village Fan Club.
Lakeside near Lucerne.
Surprisingly, the water wasn't as cold as you'd think. Still, I was a bit shocked when I dove in. If you look closely you can see our football stranded out in the water.
Chris and Jory happily on the way out. While I and a couple others only had six days on the assignment, these two were on day 19.
Pyros Unite!
Cam looks on as we fill our torches with 3 : 1 diesal/gas mixture as we prepare for our first day of lighting this burn season.
The Entiat Hotshot Crew joined us for awhile before they got shipped off to Kentucky.
By staggering out across the hillside and laying down strips of fire we can control the intensity of the prescribed burn. The weather of course plays a huge role in these operations. If your not in prescription the fire will tend to go out with out burning enough, or sometimes, it'll burn too much.
These fires are designed to burn off a lot of the under brush and younger trees. This gives a survivors a much better chance at growing faster and more healthier. Fire is a natural process that humans have been fighting for far too long. Hopefully were getting better at recognizing these faults and can at least try to fix what we can.
We use this offroad ATV, called the "Mule," to deliver extra slash fuel and torches to us as we move through the burn unit.
Occasionally we want to save a tree.
I was able to work on my firing boss taskbook during these burns. What that means is I was in control of how much fire we put down on the ground and how fast we did it. Beilieve me, it's a lot harder than it looks. I'll admit, it got a little hot in places. Trying to get my guys from putting down too much turned out to be the hardest part. What are ya gonna do when everyone out there is a dyed in wool pyromaniac, myself included?
