High Park Fire - Paul

[Fast Rider]

On a lot of large fires like this, radios are programmed with specific frequencies to be used during the fire, as state radios, BLM, USFS will use different frequencies between forests. This can also be used to isolate communication within divisions of the fire and keep chatter within crews seperate from overhead communication. Your radio may not be programmed with these frequencies (or to hit certain repeaters) which may be why you're not picking much up. There is usually a lot of talk going on during the day (and night shifts as well). EDIT: Looks like mtn-track beat me to it!

I don't know what the IC is offering up for info to those who may be in the danger zone soon or likely will be soon, but watching the weather it will be a while before this thing slows down. If anyone on this site (or knows of people) who are on the watch for home fire danger are planning on doing any site work to potentially help protect there home from disaster, I would like to offer up my free time to assist in site prep (dropping trees, clearing brush, and building prep). I am a certified wildland firefighter for the USFS and while I don't own a saw I've got lots of experience with them, and with structure protection in general. I'm sure a lot of the handcrews and engines are working on this, but I do realize there are a LOT of structures in danger. I've been side-tracked from this work for the last 18mo, but am certainly willing to help anyway I can.

Best of luck Bushy

 

[Hammertime]

Paul our thoughts and prayers are with you! Glad to hear you are safe and sound and always prepared as usual. We are awaiting good news on your house.

 

[bushy]

Thanks Dave.

My weather station is still uploading!

Drove all over this part of the subdivision but can't get a high enough vantage to see anything, other than that Sheep Mtn is burning pretty good. On my weather station, http://lamar.colostate.edu/~pblock/My Web Page.htm winds have been gusty and all over the place. Appear to be down calm now. Little thunderhead came through and blew up a good smoke plume. Radio reported a lightning caused fire in Crystal Lakes, by Red Feather, but they said they have it under control.

Radio works a lot better now that I foung the "Scan" button. Mostly getting the local chatter from GVFD. They did put up a portable repeater on top of my mountain a few days ago, but I don't think I'm getting any of that traffic.

All the local neighbors came over and said hi. One lady about started bawling, which made my guts knot up for a second or two. If she weren't married I'dve felt obligated to giver a big hug....Staaacked! Oh, I'm terrible.

One fella has a power pedestal off away from his house and insisted I hook up! That's good, cause my portable AC unit needs more juice than the Honda 2000 can muster. Now all I need is 100 feet of hose so I can take a good shower! lol.

 

[av8er]

flew on the fire for 7.7 hours today,

it was looking real good up until about 5:00 pm when a thinder cell camne thru and increased wind velocity, #1 priority now is structure protection, if your home hasn't been consumed yet, your chanceds for it to remain standing at this point are about 80% or better, the usfs is spending big bucks to protect what is still there, hopefully the lightening doesn't make any new starts, the conditions were too rough today with the thunder cell to drop any fire retardant in the pm.

 

[bushy]

Can't say thanks enough for all the hard work you guys are putting in! That cell that came through sure was packing a good wind. Glad it moved on through! Seems we're over-due for an all day blow. Not looking forward to what happens then. Any news on the Sheep Mtn. fire, north of the river?

 

[av8er]

Haven't heard anything about the other fire

just landed at 1600, the fire looks pretty good, you will see an increase in fire activity today, they are planning a burnout using a heli- torch on the backside of the biggest peak, they are burning out around the structures on the west flank, also we have 5 hotshot crews digging handline up on the southwest corner going uphill

 

[bushy]

Had a neighborhood meeting tonight with some of the officials and they explained some of what's going on and answered questions. Said the winds are supposed to come up tomorrow and the $hit could hit the fan.

 

[bushy]

Thanks to my sledding brothers for their generosity and kind offers of assistance. For now, I'm getting by in my camper and it's nice to be just a few miles from my cabin.

Today I thought for sure my house would get torched due to the high winds blowing the fire off of the Sheep Mtn hotspot a half mile WSW of my house. Took a drive with Jason (the property owner that invited me to plug in to his grid) and got to a spot I could see my cabin. To my amazement and great relief, all is well on my Green Mtn.

The fire is raging down in the canyon to the east near Poudre Park, and actually seems to be picking up speed on it's westward march, despite, or perhaps because of the SW winds hammering it's western front.

I should be safe here for, at least a few more days, until the fire gets far enough west to present the threat of getting blown back across the river towards us.

Gonna take a walk to a high point with Jason and his wife (Nancy) around sunset to check out the progress of the western front and hopefully aleve their fears some.

 

[FCR112]

I'll get some pics up in a little bit, the western front was big today. Good to hear it bushy!

 

[FCR112]

6/17

Posting from my phone hopefully this works

 

[egesledder]

Hey Bushy, just want to wish you luck and I hope they can hold the fire back.

I know exactly how you feel because I just went through all of this a couple years ago in the Fourmile fire. It was almost a week before they let us back in and the whole time we didn't know if the house was gone or not. Its an absolutely heart wrenching wait that can only be made worse if you actually do lose your house. I did end up losing mine and I had been away camping that weekend, so I didn't get a chance to save anything.

It is just stuff and as long as no one was hurt, you can always buy more stuff.

What I can suggest is moving anything that is semi-heat resistant out into the driveway away from the house or garage. The few things that were out in the driveway away from our house survived just fine, and our house burned hot as $hit (like nothing left but concrete and warped steel). I'm positive that if most of my tools/bikes/sleds had been outside of the garage, they would have survived mostly untouched with some possible warped plastic.

Hopefully the fire just doesn't even get near, but when you live in the mountains, its always good to be prepared for the worst.

Drew

 

[corpeleven]

Holy **** Paul, that is scary. Best wishes and stay safe! We're all thinking of you.

 

[Fast Rider]

Looks like this is Colorado's year for fire. With another blaze sparking up near Colorado Springs yesterday, I want to make mention that anyone around there as well looking to do site prep, feel free to get ahold of me. I'll help any way I can.

 

[Mtn-Track]

Here's the latest map (takes some time to load). The border of the fire that's in RED is where it's still advancing...

http://larimer.org/highparkfire/daily_progression.pdf


.

 

[SSWIM]

Paul, Sam here in GJ. Prayers are with ya. Hope all goes well. Nasty looking for sure. Talk about a valiant effort by all the fire fighters. With all the fuel on the ground I am surprised they have been able to contain it as well as they have. WOW.

Sam

 

[av8er]

the Chit has hit the fan 2day guys

just landed off the fire at around noon, it is super rough out there, dividion Juliet an Div. Mike on the northWest corner is blowing up today , we are doing everything we can to keep it away from the structures, we had 6 heavy helicopters, and 3 heavy air tankers working it 1st thing this morning, so far so good, but they are predicting a windchange out of the east later today

 

[vahillbilly]

You need any help?

Hay man if you need anything shoot me a message. I have a 26 ft storage spot just off of hy93 west of stanley lake. If you need to use it for a while it is there for ya!!

 

[Ryan-41]

Good Luck Paul! I will be Praying for you!! Hope everything turns out ok!!

 

[av8er]

new pics in Fouled Plug section

pics

 

[2mileshigh]

Hey Paul, Joe and Rita here. Hope this all works out , thinking about you.