This past Saturday, April 19th, saw the first grass fire of the season for 2008. This fire, approximately 5 acres, was called into the tower at Flying Cloud Airport by a passing plane. The fire was relatively slow moving and there weren’t any structures in its path, both are good things.
Assistant Chief, Tom Schmitz took command and positioned himself at the old overlook spot off of Highway 212 just below the Airport property. Below is a picture of the fire off in the distance as seen from the “Command Post”, and also the makeshift command set-up including a rock to hold a map down so it wouldn’t blow away in the wind. This is a common in field set-up for grass fire operations and not too different than the many meetings I saw taking place over the hood of a truck while I was out in Burns, Oregon last summer observing large scale wild land firefighting.
Contrary to popular belief, most grass fires are set or are due to careless burning of brush or trash. This fire appears to have been the former, someone lit it and then ran off…..
