Fire Front by Carl Bowen

Author:Carl Bowen [Bowen, Carl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Capstone; Stone Arch Books; fiction; wildfire; firefighters; firefighting; chapter books; boys; girls; fire; firestormers; Carl Bowen; 9781496533081; 9781496533128
Publisher: Capstone
Published: 2019-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

When his crew had left, Lieutenant Garrett buried his face in his laptop again. His responsibilities as strike team leader gave him no opportunities to fall asleep, much less get bored. Although he wasn’t on the fire line himself, digging firebreaks, it was his responsibility to monitor the progress of his crew and communicate that progress to Incident Command. To that end, he had a few tools at his disposal — some of which he’d never dreamed of needing while working structure fires in the burbs.

The main communication tool was his radio. With a flick of a button, he could switch between three frequencies on which he carried out three different conversations. The main frequency was his channel back to Incident Command. From them, he got big-picture information about the overall spread of the fire, weather conditions, and the availability of supplies and air support.

The second channel connected him to his crew bosses. If they were straying too far from his fire line, he could correct their courses. If they were falling behind schedule, he could urge them to pick up the pace.

The third channel connected Garrett to his rangers. These Firestormers didn’t carry hand tools or chain saws. Instead, they carried binoculars, ropes, tree-climbing spurs, maps, and a five-gallon bladder bag of water with a hand-pump sprayer. It was each ranger’s job to orbit their crew, scouting the area for dangers. They also developed escape routes should the fire advance faster than they could contain it.

The two-way radio was the lowest-tech part of Garrett’s equipment. His tablet was more powerful than his personal computer. It was wrapped in a waterproof, shock-resistant casing. He could drop it down a rocky hill and expect to find it perfectly functional at the bottom. The tablet was the heart of Garrett’s capabilities in the field, as well as his lifeline back to Incident Command in an emergency.

Without it, he’d be blind to ongoing fire and weather conditions. He’d have to rely on hand drawing lines on paper maps as his crews and rangers reported their status. It could be done — it had been done for decades — but the tablet made everything so much easier.

Yet, despite the sci-fi level technology, everything came down to the sweat and toil of Firestormers on the front lines. Lieutenant Garrett could direct their efforts and watch over them remotely, but it was up to them to get the job done. And if there was anything his brief, intensive field training had taught him, it was that that job sucked.

Lieutenant Garrett knew the basic strategy of fighting a wildfire was simple enough. Map out the total area of the fire. Then surround it with non-flammable firebreaks, so the blaze couldn’t grow any larger.

When the area was accessible by roads, bulldozers could cut those firebreaks. In this case, however, that wasn’t an option. That left the work to Firestormers, who set to it with strength and obsessive determination. Their job was to clear lines that were miles long and dozens of feet wide of everything from trees to brush to grass.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.