Fighting Fires

To combat fires, the crews used water, fire retardant and foam.

The publicity unit had to deal with comments from the public about fighting the fires. "Why aren't you water bombing and using Elvis?" Elvis is the aircraft which sucks up water and then drops its payload on the fires.

To drop water from an aircraft or to drop fire retardants and foam the area must have decent visibility. Most days, the smoke haze was shockingly bad.  At the local level, even to walk to the messhall or to walk to our motel room was difficult.

Here, Terry (Local Knowledge volunteer) gives yet another late night to helping the Commanders in the ICC.

Local Knowledge volunteer

 It sounds simple to use Elvis but the crews also needed to do backburning. When the area is wet, backburning cannot occur.