2019 People of the Big River Field Class

7/10/2019 We went to the fire management area and met with Brad D. and Bob S. Brad over viewed the different levels in AFMO – fields, linguistics, and operations, they each have their part to do in their department. There are over 100 workers and in the summertime another 100+ volunteers. They have a 20 strong Hotshot crew that go all over the U.S. and into Canada, they are currently in Alaska. The fire management work with 9 different tribes on projects in the forest. Bob explained that the workers start at 8 with an hour of PT, though when they know that they are going out they will skip PT so that they are not exhausted. Their longest shift lasted about 46 hours in one of the worst fires they have seen in 1996. We asked about how they can tell how fires are started as they are mostly started by lighting. They explained that after they determine the area that the fire had started they close it off then bring in trained investigators to look over the area. They will look at the gr...

7/9/2019 We started an early morning with packing all our gear to head out to our next site in Warm Springs. It was a long day in the car and not much happened though on our way there we did learn of the water problem in warm springs over the radio so we pulled in to a Sonics and asked the manager to use his water faucets and he agreed. When we arrived at our camp site we learned that we were placed in the public park next to the community center. This was a bit uncomfortable for me as it was a public place and in Yakima I wouldn’t want people to sleep in the Green Way public park, I was a bit surprised though as to how many people I saw walking up the trails to hike, and then I saw them hike back down in the morning.

7/8/2019 This morning I was part of the cooking crew and we made pancakes with chocolate chips, then headed out to potato hill. On the way we saw a black bear in the middle of the road, it looked right at us before running away, I felt excited as it was the first bear that I had seen yet. The base of potato hill was very grassy and full of different flowers, Jessica warned us about the mosquitoes but they weren’t that bad. I am not an active person so the hike up potato hill was a real challenge but I made it to a spot where I didn’t feel bad that I did not make it to the top. Actually I was surprised by how far I walked up the hill as when I looked back down the cars looked so small in the distance. I was mad at myself however that the path I took ended up being the hard way. When ground water drains down the mountain it creates a path down the steepest slope and erodes away the surface so there is a clear path of dirt. This was the path that I took but this was the hardest path a...

7/7/2019   Jessica stared to wake the others up at around 7 and then Monet got breakfast started. I wanted to help but I wasn’t in the cooking group that time so I was only allowed to boil the water. While we waited for the food I was told that that night there were two loud bangs that people thought were either shots being fired or some kind of tree dropping, they were loud and startled more than a few people. I was assigned to dishes after breakfast and as we finished dumping the water at the road we came across another camp ground near ours that had branches nailed across different trees that we think hunters used them to hang their kill. This was very interesting to me as I didn’t think that they did that, I would assume that they packed up their kill to go home. My family has killed pigs before for special occasions but that was at home, even when catching fish it was brought home before it was eaten, it was not eaten at the site. We then got our gear together to set up ou...

7/6/2019 We arrived yesterday near Camp Chaparral at around 4 in the afternoon, I have never gone camping before so I was excited. The place was very beautiful, grassy and lots of tall white flowers, and we could hear the Klickitat River. A lot of people were very relieved that there was a portable bathroom near the camp. I had a lot of trouble setting up my tent so I had to have Alex and Xavier help me set it up. I don’t like where I set up my tent, I tried to set it up in a patch that didn’t have a lot of vegetation but as I have to walk towards my tent I displace a lot of bugs. I felt bad when I walked through the grass because all of the grasshoppers looked like they were fleeing from me, next time I’ll choose a place near the camp. Next I helped unload all the items from the back of the truck and set up in preparation for dinner. For dinner I helped Monet make spaghetti, I really like cooking so I wanted to be involved. The evening winded down from then and some people played ...