The journey into the abyss of no return

[SageHill]

, and - and thanks for the report - it is an eye opener for sure.
560 acres is a lot. Around here if it gets to 550 then it's a guess as to if it will be contained soon or not. Our terrain isn't easy - hills, cliffs, etc. What you did is what kept everything from totally getting out of control. From it becoming a major event the media swoons over. Thank god for all your when sh*t hits the fan experiences and knowing what and how to stay safe and ahead of the game. Hopefully you'll not have to do that again (though a "go bag" always at the ready would be helpful).
Good that you records of what you put in as well.
How much of your property burned?
And .... perhaps the community will start realizing what an resource you are.

 

[fuzzi]

I have to say now I have rested and had time to reflect back on what I just went through with this wildfire. Couple of times it got dicey to the point of dumping water bottles on myself and a blanket I had to keep from burning alive. Ran out of water and had to ditch the blanket since it caught fire.
With an open cab I got in some situations that embers were landing on me and I had nothing but boots and pair of shorts on as there was no time to "suit up"
Pushed the machine so hard I pegged the torque converter temp gauge and it stayed there for hours. There was failure in communication, but my gut feeling saved my arse as the embers were raining down on me and I seen we lost the line.
I knew on the other side was a community and my wife with no clue on what is going on and I had no clue on how far it went past the line, so I pushed the machine further in to the fire to get high as possible to send an evacuation order out to the wife as our property was the first of occupied properties to be consumed shall it made it that far.
To put it in perspective it was night time when doing this as I started around 1500 hrs, help didn't arrive till 1800 hrs. and we lost the line around 2100 hrs. With my tablet and Onx maps as the fire was enclosing I picked the best terrain and punched through 20 acres to the road leading to my home.
Got to the road and several agencies were on UTV's trying to evac the area and didn't know where to go which is where I pointed them in the right direction. Got home around 2300 hrs and started cleaning up my firebreaks I already had and started moving everything in the zone, wife was gone and so was the neighborhood. Started driving around the neighborhood plowing in firebreaks around the community to make a line best as possible till about 0100 hrs when I finally circled back to my place with the loader still pegged out on transmission temps.
One of the dozer operators is a private equipment operator like me in a D6 who was my preacher that married me and the wife showed up as I was about to shut the machine down and he said my place was best one to make a stand at in the morning with a fire crew. Plenty of water, perfect orientation of firebreaks.

At one time we had 3 dozers going, road grader, chinook, two jets dropping retardant, a cargo plane dropping retardant and 4 counties of firefighters with DNRC. Fire only got to 560 acres, but still it was a fight with shifting winds and steep terrain.

In the middle of this every person I have met out here was asking what is going on as no one had a clue, they didn't knock on the doors I told them to and I was keeping the community FB page updated while off grid with spotty reception.
Was a lesson learning experience that I can now look at other peoples property and when they ask my opinion, I can speak from experience not from what one read from somewhere or video they watched.

Drank 160 gallons of diesel, 5 gallons of gas, 15 gallons of hydraulic oil and the loader will need repairs after this and a few thousand gallons of water. I sacrificed one of my properties for saving many others.

It's unreal to think that no one in the local government set up some sort of command post and organized the response.

What did you sacrifice, one of your buildings?

 

[Weldman]

It's unreal to think that no one in the local government set up some sort of command post and organized the response.

What did you sacrifice, one of your buildings?

No, just trees and such. My main property is like a fort against wildfire, though there is always the .01% chance that I don’t take.

 

[SageHill]

It's unreal to think that no one in the local government set up some sort of command post and organized the response.

Actually that's more the status quo.
It's wasn't until the Witch Creek Fire (198,000 acres in San Diego county) that burned from the mountains almost to the coast that things here became more organized and coordinated. That has made all the difference. After that fire in north county, they have since used a park (100 acres) as 'fire city' - tents, food, etc plus command post - when there are fires in north county (the county is 4,300 sq miles about the size of Connecticut).
Sadly, up in LA county the story is not the same.

 

[Margali]

So glad you made it safely thru!!!

For future issues it might be wise to get a set nomex overalls and baclava. They could be stored in a ruck for easy access.

I wondered if someone from community government would willing to chip in some for the repairs? Or atleast sign a statement so you could write off repairs for taxes.