Fire!

ok... my lack of blogging is not due to laziness- rather we've been a bit busy around here. I will explain as I go!

So...backtracking to Monday. Yey for being back at the Ranch! I did chores and met Jeff, Ross, and Merle down by the corrals. It sounded like we had a pretty busy day ahead of us. We had a whole list of things to try and get done, and just picked and prodded at it all day.

Jeff went out to stack bales that morning after Ross and him took a pickup to town to get the rattling window fixed. Merle and I went out to put up hay on the bottom. The rake tractor still doesn't have a door, so it was a bit more "traditional" raking shall we say- haha. I managed to get all wound around and confused in all these little spots where you have to cross the crick and when it came time to go I had to ask how to get out! lol, not uncommon for me! We got that all done and headed back to the shed to fuel up my tractor and help Merle hook up to the square baler. He had some straw to put up in little squares south of Martin and he needed to get headed that way because the drive takes quite a bit of time pulling that baler with the tractor. It turned out that we didn't need the rake, he was getting help from the girl that was buying what we didn't put up in little squares from him. So, he headed out with the baler and Ross and I went down the hill and cleaned out the trailer so we could start stacking bales in the afternoon. We finished and I dropped him off at his pickup so he could finish up the windrower and I went in to grab a quick lunch.

So there I was, sitting in my house eating a 'luchable' (yeah, I serisouly needed to go grocery shopping) listening to the CB radio. All of a sudden I hear Delbert say "Merle your bale pile by the winter pasture is on fire". Um...not good. I could hear them but they were just far enough away that they couldn't hear me well. I didn't know where Ross was and Jeff was out with the loader moving bales. So...I quick put my shoes on and ran up the hill towards the fire truck (yes, Merle owns a fire truck, there are two here actually). I got it pulled out of the shed and realized that Ross was right there yet with the swather so I grabbed him and we headed out. I was really glad to see him, because I wasn't sure just where exactly this bale pile was. We took off down the road headed south about four or five miles and passed Jeff in the loader on our way. You practically have to have a loader for a bale fire so he just stopped what he was doing and came out way. Delbert flew past us heading the other way to try and chase down the car that he thought started it. He was windrowing down on a bottom and saw it go up in flames, die out, and then light again. He said it looked like someone put gas all the way around it and lit it.

So, Ross and I pull up and I was able to remember how to get the pump started (miraculously) and run the hose. The entire pile of 11 was entirely engulfed. We started wetting it down and right when Jeff pulled up we realized we also had a grass fire going by that time. We managed to get that out in a scramble and start back in on the flaming pile. Within a few minutes the fire department showed up and had Merle with them. He was still headed south on the road with the baler so they just picked him up on the way. Within a couple hours we had put 4,000 gallons on the sucker and strung all the bales out in the road ditch. Ugh, it was out for now anyway. We knew it would probably smolder for quite a while. The fire department headed home and Delbert eventually showed back up. He had tailed a car all the way to Wamblee just to find out that it wasn't the right one...just really similar. Although, they did figure out who did it almost 100% sure of the car and what house it's from anyway. Both Delbert and Merle saw it at one point and Delbert just thinks they cut off the road early and that's why he never caught up with them.

For those of you who are confused...For starters, government checks come on the first of the month so... the first few days of each month on the reservation are often (not always but often) spent with a lot of budwiser and some drugs mixed in here and there. This results in a lot of stupid behavior..like starting a random bale pile beside the road on fire. They just started it for the heck of it- to give someone trouble and get a rush, or whatever you wanna call it.

So, after we all left and went back home we headed back to work. We fueled the fire truck back up and filled it up with water. Then, hopped in the pickup that was hooked up to the horse trailer and headed south of town where Merle was baling. We picked up quite a few and then I hopped in the baler and kept on moving and Adrianne (the girl who needed the rest of the straw) came out and her and Merle kept on loading bales. We finished up and I dropped helped her move her baler home. Right about the time we were gunna take off Merle radioed and said to come back into the field and get him...our bales were on fire again and the neighbors were getting nervous. So, we dropped Ross off in town so he could call it a day, grabbed a pop (hey if it's gunna burn, let it burn), picked up the other pickup that was fixed that morning and headed back to the fire. As soon as the Risses' saw us come over the hill they headed home, it was our deal from there.

The fire had started up pretty good again and was really smoking, but you have to let a bale fire burn out. Jeff had dug in a pretty good fire line with the loader on one side, the road was on the opposite, an approach on another end, and Merle dug in a fire line on the last end. It was pretty well contained but needed babysitting and maybe to be strung out some more. He stayed there and I went home to do chores and brought the fire truck back with me. We sat there for a good 3 hours at least- probably four when it was all said and done- and watched it. Finally, it was about 9:30 or so and we were both getting hungry and tired. We called and asked the assistant fire chief his opinion and then decided to leave long enough to shower and eat supper and then probably just turn around and come back. Merle told dispatch what we were doing and not to page the fire department out if someone called it in. We were gone no longer than an hour- in fact I had just literally sat down at the supper table and the pager went off. They described a lightning fire 5 miles north of Martin and south of Scot Hicks. Well, that would be about five miles south of where our other fire was so we just hopped back in the fire truck and took off. I had a feeling about this...when we came up on our original fire there was a pickup and trailer parked on the side of the road- and the guy there said he had called the fire in. So, we were all after the same fire with the wrong description. This guy said that he had been beating it with a wet rag but it kept on relighting- um yeah duh! lol Anyway, he headed out and we radioed to everyone else that it was the same stupid fire but to come anyway and douse it so people would quit calling it in. We probably dumped another 1200 or more gallons on it and put out all the hot spots we could find in the dark. It was quite the deal. After an hour or two the department went back to town and we headed home. We got by without having to go back that night...lucky ducks.

Neeless to say, it was a very eventfull day full of fires and straw bales. It was pretty much my first time driving a fire truck and being the first person on scene...scary :s But it all worked out pretty good- at least I think so! I'm really glad I joined the fire department becase I not only learned a lot, but it is a great way to meet people and have fun once in a while. They like to give the east river rookie a hard time!

Basically, at the end of the day we could have saved a lot of time, energy, and money if it wasn't for one car load full of people being complete idiots! They probably won't ever get caught either- we'll see.