Unit 5, Thursday at work.

I am an Assistant Manager of a Idaho State Park and I thought I share my life at work and how crazy it can become at a moments notice. Last Sunday, August 22, 2010,  I get a phone call from a co-worker at the state park where I work stating there is a forest fire on West Mountain and it was getting close to the state houses and yurts.  Monday I call the park office to find out how the fire was doing and what may of started it.  My supervisor stated the fire was a hold over from a lightning storm that went through the previous week and the fire was still growing.

Wednesday August 25, 2010 the Boise National Forest had brought in a Type II fire team to work on the fire.  My supervisor and I went to a debriefing meeting at 5:00 pm. Which at that time they were explaining what could happen with the fire on Thursday August 26, 2010 because of the red flag warning that was in effect.  The area residences around the fire's location were but on Level 1 and 2 evacuation notice including our 4 campgrounds in same area.  On my compliance patrols that Wednesday evening my top priority was to explain the situation to our volunteer campground hosts that on a moments notice the evacuation notice could go to Level 3 and we would have to evacuate the campers in their campgrounds and them as well.  The fire was very active all through the evening hours on Wednesday.  Because of my previous fire fighting experience I worried all night about our campground volunteers and the fire activity.

Thursday August 26, 2010, at 8:30 am. My supervisor and I got a phone call from the sheriff office saying that some of the area residences were at the Level 3 evacuation stage because of the fire behavior and it was on a rapid growth. My supervisor and I decided to close the campground until further notice and evacuate the campers but leave the volunteers there for a while until we had to move them.  A co-worker and I headed to the campgrounds that were going to be affected and to tell the host they may have to move to a safer location.  As we were driving north on the highway I was watching the fire activity and decided to make the call.  We were going evacuate the volunteers along with the rest of the campers for everyones safety.  I called my supervisor and made arrangements for our volunteers.  The fire had grown from 100 acres on Sunday August 22 to 1300 acres Thursday morning August 26.  I have posted a picture of the fire taken about 1:00 pm MST Thursday.

The Hurd Fire. August 26, 2010 1:00 pm MST