Flotsam & Jetsam | Of beavers and bears, OH MY!

||| FLOTSAM & JETSAM by MAURICE AUSTIN |||

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
–Robert Frost

Alas, we seem to experiencing another late summer of blood-read sunrises and the horizon’s hills obscured by smoke, which is becoming a pretty predictable “weather” pattern in our little upper-left corner of the state.

While some fires in the past have originated in Canada, the current purple haze is native-born, and thus has eluded deportation by ICE for the time being. The Bear Gulch Fire is burning on steep slopes above Lake Cushman on the Skokomish River in The Olympic National Park (aka Staircase) and if history is any precedent, will not abate until we get significant rainfall.

What precedent, you ask?

Well, the Bear-Gulch Fire has a geographically immediate predecessor, after all: The Beaver Fire, which occurred on steep slopes above Lake Cushman on the Skokomish River in The Olympic National Park (aka Staircase) in 1985, and which did not abate until we got significant rainfall. Yep—40 years ago. Where does time go, after all, but up in smoke?

After I graduated high school in 1985, I took a summer job on a Forest Service trail crew and lived in a Forest Service bunkhouse near the Skokomish River. One Monday morning, expecting the crew from Shelton to stop by and pick me up as usual, they didn’t. Confused, I called Shelton Ranger District and was told my crewmates had been sent to the Beaver Fire, and that I was to report to the Shelton Ranger Station.

The thing is, I was only 17, and thus ineligible for fireline work. This must have been the 25th or 26th of August, 1985. I sharpened every axe, hoe, Pulaski, shovel, adze, &c. in the Shelton Ranger District Headquarters, and sanded all the handles and painted them with the color-coded rings, until on August 29th I caught a ride with a helicopter chase truck and headed to The Beaver Fire’s base camp.

My first fire! I was somewhat excited, having heard stories. Of course, some stories generate so much smoke on their own that they hardly need the help of mirrors.

Fire HQ was a mess of people running about, but one calm-headed individual guided me to the right person to report to and then, to my surprise, requested that I be assigned to his supply team, as he’d recently timed out a crew member.

Thus, I spent my first fire handing out Nomex pants and tops, distributing gloves, assigning cloth and paper sleeping bags, trying to keep track of saws and pumps and hose lengths and Neosporin and plastic canteens and web gear and files and 2-stroke oil and earplugs and sleeping pads and and and. The most dangerous or exciting experiences all involved yellow jackets in open drink containers.

The only time I went up on the fireline, I carried a light day pack with my lunch and a clipboard, because my instructions were to itemize by serial number every saw and water pump along the line. I’m still not sure if this was a joke—like sending a newb into the auto parts store for blinker fluid—but I quickly ascertained such an inventory was not only impossible, but unsavory. One crew member, after all, facing a recalcitrant Mark IV water
pump, dropped his drawers and pooped on it.

Smile while you write down that serial number!

Mankind’s actions to slow The Beaver Fire were inconsequential in retrospect, given that it took a serious change in the weather to fully douse the fire. I’m no expert—just a poopy pump-plaque-reader—but I subsequently spent time on several type-2 fire crews (including a 30-day tour in Yellowstone) and a couple years on a Hot Shot crew in California.

Hats off for what you’re doing, Zig Zag Hot Shots!

Once, we deployed to a fire above Index, burning in old growth on steep slopes. Slow going. It was all rock and duff—no soil to speak of. As if the substrate were all living matter.

Another Hot Shot crew attempted to lay down 100’ of “det cord” (detonating cord), expecting the duff to be blown apart by the blast. They tied together seven wrapped by one. …5…4…3…2…1…BOOM! We came from out our safe spaces, to see the duff completely undisturbed, except that the pine needles had been swept away as if by a broom. That’s the equivalent of 8 sticks of dynamite in 100’ leading to “no effect.”

Upper slope vegetation is indeed among the most tenacious nature has to offer, able to bounce dynamite off as if a strong wind. Thrives sub-zero for months on end. Duff as tenacious as tundra. Susceptible perhaps only to fire.
Nature also offers rain, of course. The gentle, slow change.

Not a boom. A drip. A series of drips. A flood.

It’s easy to be poetic about it now, perhaps. At the time, the more immediate threat was that squirrels were dropping pine cones on our heads every 20 minutes, whiz… whiz… WHIZ… THUMP! Sheesh. Keep on your toes and under the hardest hat you got! I mean, don’t they know we’re deploying explosives to help them?!