Another Day Another Fire...

Saturday, I was headed back from shooting an assignment in Lake Stamford and decided to take a little different route home than I got there, and against my GPS's directions (because I'm not so sure she knows the best route). And, once again as I noticed the all too familiar plume of smoke in the air, and since I was headed in that direction anyway, I figured I'd just keep an eye on it. By the time I got back to Lake Fort Phantom it was really big and the scout plane and tankers were circling to make drops. I jumped out of the car real quick in time to get the big tanker making a drop. But, since the majority of the photos I've shot from wild fire lately has been from air units making drops I wanted to stick around and shoot some of the ground crews, hand crews, or the brush trucks. It sounds easy enough, but with the roads blocked off it's tough to get really good access. But, after waiting it out for a while the game warden who had the road blocked off took off. I'm not sure why, he just left, cool. I ventured down the road a little to one of the burning tree lines. I figured if I hung out there long enough one of the brush trucks would go work that area. And, my bet paid off, plus the field I was standing next to caught on fire too. It was kind of crazy, I got really good access here. I think part of it was standing next to one of the command vehicles, I figured if he was there I was ok too. I was able to get a few shots of the forestry service guys working the fire and decided to get out of there. I was happy with what I had and it was hotter than hell out there. It was time to go.

The Biggest Little Fire in Texas...

It is becoming commonplace to see giant plume of smoke in the sky outside of Abilene. And it always means the same thing. Most of the fires are thousands of acres and anywhere from 30-70 miles out of town (and yes you can see the smoke from that far away). So, when I saw the plume of smoke the other day I checked with the office to make sure someone knew about it and that someone was going to shoot it. The fire ended up being just up the road at Lake Fort Phantom north of Abilene.

I ended up getting there pretty quick, and was able to see the flames torching the cedar trees. It looked like the fire was burning right towards the lake. I was curious, the way it was burning if the fire departments would even bother fighting it that much, since it looked like it would just burn itself out going toward the lake. I was shooting from another cove across the lake with a long lens, so I had a great view of the flames, but no one fighting it. I sat and watched it burn waiting to see if I could get anything of the fire departments. After a while, I decided where I moved and ended up finding and old abandoned trailer that had a covered patio on the water. It was nice I had a great view and shade, which is perfect on a 100 degree day.

About the time I was starting to get bored just watching trees burn, I noticed a baby deer running around the fire. As I was watching the deer run around it almost became like a sport watching it dodge flames and try to figure out a way to get away. Finally, it went in the lake and swam around the burning grasses and ended up getting away to an unburned area. Just about that time, I heard the familiar thumping of rotor blades and then looked up and saw a helicopter flying in. Well, I guess my idea of just letting it burn to the shore wasn't going to happen. As I first watched the helicopter it was on the other side of the fire nowhere near me. Then after about 15 minutes it dropped some water on my side then went and hovered over the water giving me a clear glimpse of it doing it's job. Then it went out and made a drop right near the shoreline giving me a nice clear view. I stuck around and shot a few more drops before finally taking off.

When I got back to the office I found out that only one abandoned structure was destroyed in the fire. It's kind of funny, a couple firefighters I've spoken to call these "no glory" fires, since there isn't anything to save. It's not like they fight any harder to do their jobs, but people seem to give them less credit since there isn't anything to save. As long as no one gets hurt it's all good. So, another thing I had learned was the fire only burn 37 acres, kind of crazy considering most of the fires I've been covering the last few months were more on the 37,000 acre scale. However, that day must have been a pretty light day, finally, since the 37 acres that burned in Abilene was the biggest fire in the state that day. Hopefully it's a sign of things to come and not just wishful thinking.

Fire Season is Getting Old...

It's almost getting to the point where 10,000+ acres burning is not news any more. In this case the White Hat fire in Maryneal, a tiny blip on the map in Nolan county about 50 miles west of Abilene, burned 36,000 acres. Sadly, 12 structures burned down, however, of the 12 I think only a few of them were currently occupied. Still, it was a pretty big deal so again I got sent up in a helicopter to fly over the fire to get some photos. Now, while hearing about fires constantly starts to get old, the chance to fly never does, I guess it goes back to me wanting to be a pilot when I was a kid. And I have to say, shooting fires from a helicopter is a helluva lot easier than shooting it from a plane, thank god we have a helicopter service in town that accessible and for the most part available. Plus, I think it helps with dealing with the forest service in them giving us access since a helicopter can maneuver around a lot easier, and with a bunch of planes flying around and all the windmills in the way as well, it helps and keeps us low enough to shoot some decent photos rather than the 4,000+ feet.

I was happy with the photos I got from shooting the fire, however, compared to the last big fire I shot they didn't quite stand up. I think a lot of it had to do with being a day late. When we got there we saw a lot of scorched earth and not a whole lot of fire. The tankers were dropping a lot of retardant and the bulldozers had fire lines dug out. It was a huge change from when you could see the smoke plume from 40 miles away. That was good and a testament to how good the forestry service and local fire departments are at containing these fires. I just wish I could have gotten there a day earlier. It may sound pretty crass with all the destruction going on, I never hope for any of this to happen. But talking to a firefighter one time pretty much summed up the way I feel, He said, "You never hope for this to happen, but dammit, when it does, I sure as hell hope it happens on my shift."

Texas, the Tinderbox....

It seems like the whole state of Texas is on fire right now, and from what I've been told that may not be too much of an exaggeration, I was told today that this week every county except two have had a wild fire this week... and it's only Wednesday. Since the beginning of the year more than 1.4 million acres have burned from wild fires and there isn't a whole lot of relief in sight right now. To put the 1.4 million acres into perspective, the state of Delaware is only 1.25 million acres.

On Monday, right after I'd gotten finished doing my taxes I got a call at home from my editor asking if I could go up in a helicopter to shoot photos of the "Wildcat Fire" in Coke County, about 80 miles southwest of Abilene. At the time it was the biggest fire in the state at over 100,000 acres.

Seeing these fires from the ground does almost no justice to how big these fires really are. As we were flying in you could see the smoke from about 40-50 miles away. As we got up close we had to go around the fire while waiting on approval from the command plane to let us shoot photos. It was amazing how much smoke was billowing into the air from the tops of the mountain. Looking down you could see all the carnage from the fires that ripped through.

After a few minutes the incident commander in the air let us in to get photos, we had to get high to stay above the helicopters dropping water on the fire. Then we moved over to try to shoot the ground units fight the blaze. From crews setting back fires to putting out hotspots, the thick uninhabited areas they just let burn to the tanker drop, there was no shortage of images to be made.

One part of the fire that I'd never gotten to experience was the radio chatter from the air units. It's pretty crazy how well run things are by the incident commander, who basically spends the whole time circling around in a spotter plane telling the helicopters where to drop and guiding in the tankers to the drop sites. Not to mention keeping us out of the way. However I'll say, my pilot Heath, owner of Polasek Helicopter Services, was awesome. He pretty much got me in position to get every shot I needed, and with a little help from the incident commander had us in near-perfect position for the tanker drop. After that we circled around a few more times to get shots of the ground crews before leaving to get the photos back. It worked out really well, and I think it did a pretty great job as showing the sheer size of the fire. Another really crazy thing I notice was how much the smoke blocked out the sun. All of these photos were shot within a 30 minute time. However, the tanker drop looked like it was shot after the sun set.

Grass Fires Galore...

On Monday I got called into the office to work. I was basically going to cover for the other two photogs who were working covering a huge grass fire (depending on who you talked to it was either 5,000 acres or 25,000 acres) near Colorado City. So, I guess it was kind of ironic while I was driving around feature cruising I heard a call go out for the Abilene Fire Department to respond to a flare up of a grass fire that had started earlier in the day. So, I headed out to Lake Fort Phantom and when I got there I found out there was pretty much no way to get close. The good thing, however, about having a police scanner is being able to hear what's going on. And, I heard the fire department calling for help from the Forest Service. That usually means, things will get more visual. When the forestry service comes in it's usually with a helicopter to dump water on the fire and bulldozers to make fire breaks.

Knowing that the big fire to the west was going to be the news of the day, and this fire wasn't threatening any structures, coupled with the fact that I didn't have a whole lot of time, I spent about an hour out there and went back to file my images. It's always nice to shoot the helicopters fighting fires, it's a nice difference from having to try to get up closer to the fire and a lot safer. While you never wish for something like this to happen, if it's going to happen, you want it to happen in a situation like this where no one is hurt and no one loses their homes.

Fighting Fire With Fire...

It's getting to be that time of year again. Grass fire season. This year has been abnormally quiet as far as brush fires go because of all the rain we've had. It's was kind of ironic, I was talking to a friend of mine on Sunday who works at the fire department and he said "With the dry windy weather we're supposed to have next week we are primed for a grass fire." He was right.

On Tuesday, one of our other photogs went out and shot a brush fire in the morning... it didn't seem all that big at the time. About an hour after I came in to work there was a call that the wind picked up and the fire was starting to get out of control again. So a reporter and I went out to the fire. When I got there was of the volunteer firefighters was setting a back fire, a smaller fire that burned up an area in the direction the fire was heading. Basically, the back fire was meant to give the fire no where to go when the fire gets to the already burned area and not be able to jump over the road. While I was shooting pictures I had no idea who was setting the fire until he came up to me and thanked me for some photos I took a couple of weeks earlier. The person setting the fires was the Merkel assistant chief (top photo) who also works for the Abilene fire department. I had shot some photos of a high school kid doing a ride along for the day. It was going to be a really cool story and I was supposed to get to ride on a fire truck... something I've wanted to do since I was a kid. The problem was, in the four hours I spent there there wasn't one damn call for that station!!

Oh well. It turned out well, since have hung out with these guys a couple weeks ago it got me an in at this fire. Most of the time volunteer fire departments are pretty helpful but there are the occasional ones that just want to feel important. These guys were pretty good, but knowing someone really helped. It just goes back to knowing that in this business it's always good to be nice to everyone because you never know who you will run into somewhere down the road. This time it really helpd and I was able to make a few nice frames from it.

Yet another brush fire...

We had a few more brush fires last week. The only one I shot was on Tuesday. Area-wise this fire was pretty small, only about 200 acres. However, there were quite a few homes in the path of the fire, and a couple were destroyed. I shot this photo as I was walking down a road following a local volunteer fire department fighting the fires. I liked it because of the surreal look it had from the smoke rising up between the burned trees. It was also one of the last shots I took before everyone had to leave because the forest service was going to make an air drop on that location.

More brush fires...

I'm not sure it's ever going to rain here, and as long as it doesn't, these things are just going to get worse. The brush fire last Thursday was pretty big, more than 3,000 acres. It's just recently been completely contained. But, last Thursday it was huge. The fire was about 25 miles south of Abilene and you could see the plume of smoke from town. I was told there was ash falling from the sky more than 30 miles away. A reporter and I headed out there. When we got there the road to near the fire was shut down. So, of course, my natural reaction was to find another way in. We ended up driving all around the hill that the fire was burning on, trying to find photos of the crews that were working the fire. Pretty much everywhere we went we ran into roadblocks, we finally ended up getting to a road where a volunteer firefighter told us to go to to at least get a good view of the blaze. It was pretty amazing to see how high the flames were shooting up and the terrain was so rough, there really wasn't much of a way for trucks to get in there to battle the fires. The only way to do it was by air. The forest service had called in a couple of helicopters and planes to fight the fire.

After getting a shot of the smoke pouring out I figured it would be best to head back to Hwy. 277, the main highway that the fire was headed towards. I figured the best way to get photos of it was from there since the fire was headed that way. We got to a rest area at the top of a hill, where the sheriff's department had its temporary command center. This help both myself and the reporter who was able to get much of the info she needed. By the time we got there the sun was going down, which actually helped. The sunset provided for my favorite photo (top), a helicopter was refilling it's drop bucket with water in a stock tank against the sunset with a whole field of windmills surrounding it. It looked a lot like a scene from "Apocalypse Now" After I shot the photo I had this strange urge to pull up Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" on my iPod on the ride back to the office (yes, I really do have it on there!).