A Difficult Decision

This post is fire related. 

On July 13th I wrote about the loss of the lodge at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, it got burned over in the Dragon Bravo Fire. My wife and I have been up there probably a dozen times and we were due to be there this week too for short visit. 

As a matter of circumstance with personnel, Walker Fire was not available to send an engine up to that fire until today. That the fire is still going on all these weeks after it started is really something. 

Engine 83, pictured above headed up there today. 83 is a Type 3 Engine and for these types of assignments it can go out with either four or five firefighters. We only had four going and I anguished a bit over going in the fifth spot. 

In that July 13th post I used the word magical to describe the North Rim area. There was a calm and peacefulness to it that is hard to adequately describe but I think everyone feels it. Do you remember David Darst? He worked at Morgan Stanley and was on CNBC all time. The picture is from 2009, it was my only encounter with him and before we went on, we had a five minute conversation about the North Rim. He loved it too. 

This is the Supai Tunnel, it is about two miles down the North Kaibab Trail. My wife said she saw where the fire burned down to this point. It's about two miles down from the trailhead and parking lot. 

If the fire did burn as far down as the tunnel, then just about all the trees in this picture from Cathedral Point are gone.

The next picture is from Imperial Point. This area is a short distance from the lodge and North Kaibab trailhead and it too was burned over. The view wasn't impacted but the picture is taken from a forested area that is now gone.

Although the main area, the lodge and guest cabins are lost there was a real pull for me to want to go be part of the solution someway, somehow and while it may bug me that I didn't go, there are more reasons for me to have not gone. 

Day job related, this assignment would have been out on a truck doing structure protection (per the resource order that requested us) and the cell signal up there is almost non-existent. That contrasts with my two assignments as a liaison officer which is 90% in an office and if there is no cell signal the bring that in via a cell on wheels (COW) or lately with Starlink. When these assignments come in, personnel need to be prepared to stay for two weeks. Two weeks with internet every day would be doable, two weeks without internet would not. 

Walker Fire related, we have had what seems like a pretty weak rainy season, right now things are very dry and the Forest Service has the current fire danger as extreme. As the chief and living less than a mile from the station house where I can quickly get a truck out the door, taking off for two weeks while the fire danger is extreme seems like a bad idea.

In almost 23 years on the department, we've had three what I would say were legitimate infernos including this one in June which was the diciest of the three. We had water flowing on it within ten minutes of finding out this was happening. The smoke was much blacker a few minutes before I took this picture. 

Can a decision be both right and regretful at the same time? This one is.