🚨 CSFD DRONE LOCATES LIGHTNING STRIKES 🚨
This morning, July 5, CSFD crews responded to a smoke investigation near Mt. Rosa. Our Special Operations drone team launched a drone and quickly located two lightning-caused fires burning in rugged, forested terrain, both less than an acre.
Our drone operator provided precise GPS coordinates to our partners with the @PSICC_NF allowing their resources, including Boise Helitak, to respond quickly before the fires had a chance to grow.
With the Aspen Acres Fire already burning south of our community, early detection matters. Today’s response is a great example of how drone technology, and the highly trained operators behind it, helps protect our community, our forests, and our firefighters.
Technology doesn’t replace firefighters. It gives them the information they need to act faster, safer, and more effectively.
🎥: Credit- Boise Helitak
The US Navy holds a special 50,000 acre forest of white oak under their care for the express purpose of growing oak wood to handle repairs of these old ships.
As thousands of wildland firefighters across the Nation come off the line this evening, eat a plate of food, and climb into their sleeping bag overlooking the fire they just burned 5,000 calories on, they know it will take more than a day to stop that thing.
From the bug filled Black Spruce swamps in Alaska, to the unforgiving timbered terrain of the Gila, the Sage brush fires in the Basin that go on for miles, across the deciduous fires out east, to the steeps of Colorado, into the tall trees of the Pacific Northwest, the WUI of California, and the sheep county in the Northern Rockies…. the work takes more than a day.
So, while today is National Wildland Firefighter Day, tomorrow is too. Because at 05:00, that very same sleeping bag the firefighter climbed into, will start to stir again. Boots tied tight, nicotine and caffine binge begins, and a hike back into the very same fire that provided a night light on the mountain top.
It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. And because it’s a marathon, you need to have people motivating and cheering for you for all 26 miles. Even when you vomit halfway through, or you’re bleeding from chaffing, those that watch from the bottom of the mountain are with you day by day. That’s how you make it to the finish line. Stay strong, stay savage, and stay together.
Happy National Wildland Firefighter Day.