ATC on the Chips

I'm not talking about some kind of salsa on top of potato chips...

 

The Chips forest fire is/was located in N. California. It is unknown what caused the start of the fire, which grew to over 74,000 acres, threatened numerous communities, destroyed many buildings, burned up alot of trees, electric transmission lines. At one time, there were over 1,500 people working on the fire in various capacities, including Tower Tech, Inc.

Tower Tech is a private firm that provides air traffic control for helicopters and air tankers that are used in fighting the forest fires. I was one of the controllers (retired from FAA) to work on the Chips fire. We set up Tower Tech's portable tower, originally, at the Quincy, CA airport, then was relocated to Chester, CA airport then moved back again to Quincy...all due to the needs of the fire support and reduced visiblity from the smoke. Here is a website that can access information for the Chips fire, as well as others...pretty neat site to see what's happening!

 

 

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/3052/

 

 (the Chips fire site will probably be dropped from inciweb by end of Oct.)
 

One of Tower Tech's portable ATC towers, with Titus "Stretch" Gall,
owner, standing next to one of the F450 tow trucks

One of the helicopters used on the fire...Bell Cobra. It is used to
observe areas of the fire, direct air tankers and helicopters in
dropping retardant and water, and for mapping the fire area for
hotspots using an infrared camera system

Boeing CH-46 Vertol, with a long line and water bucket,
used to dip into lakes and streams and then hauled
to fire and dropped near the fire fighters on the
ground.

Bell Jet Ranger, used to observe fire areas that need to be worked
by the other helicopters. This one has an apparatus used to shoot
ping-pong sized balls with fire making chemicals in them. See this
website for more:   http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=129513&page=1

The Quincy Airport flightline with 7 helicopters

Another CH46 Vertol, outbound to the fire

Bell UH1, and long line with bucket, outbound to the fire

You might be wondering what my lovely, patient Karen was doing while I was working all day, slaving at the "office"....SHE WAS PLAYING!!!

 

My dear, feeding the deer!

 

   Karen spent most of her days relaxing, reading, shopping, riding her bike, cooking my meals and just plain enjoying Northern California in our new rv!



NOMADS at Rathdrum

So many projects and so little time...

(This should be the mantra of the NOMADS.)

You would think that, given 3 weeks to do the various projects, there would be plenty of time to finish them. Just like so many other jobs, I've noticed it takes a lot longer to do the task at hand than what I initially thought, but maybe it's just me.

You all think this especially applies to my blog production, don't you?

(enter a long sigh here, as appropriate)



Our 2nd project for NOMADS was at the Twinlow Camp, Rathdrum, Idaho.

 



Waterfront area, Twinlow Camp

 

Paul, Pat, Sandy, Ron, Kathy and Gary
Karen and Diane

Paul and Pat, Gary and Kathy and Karen and I were able to move right over to Rathdrum from Flathead Lake, where we met up with Ron and Diane.

The first thing out of the box, we were presented with our projects:

1. Finish the roughed-in rv parking area,
2. Trim out the interior of the Aspen Cabin,
3. Trim weeds/brush in various areas of the camp,
4. Paint benches, buildings, floors, and whatever else,
5. Finish building a seating area at the waterfront chapel,
6. Rebuild part of the deck on the manager's residence,
7. Organize storage areas in the laundry, shop, paint
shed and the "peace shed" (explanation later), 
8. Inspect some areas of Twinlow Lake at
night in a nice pontoon boat,
and, lastly,

9. Attempt to do all of the above without
really aggravating the adjacent land owners.

We succeeded in all of these projects except the last. I have to admit, though, that I contributed the most to the aggravation...

The Reader's Digest version:

Remember item #1?

Part of the rv site work required putting in the electrical and water service for the parking area, which required the use of a small excavator to dig the trenches, that I volunteered to operate. Of course, things don't always work the way you plan. There was gnashing of teeth and hair pulling once it was discovered that "your's truly" dug through and severed the main water line from the 50,000 gal water reservoir up the hill to the neighborhood below. Lots of running up and down the hill by several folks finally got the pump system and various valves shut down. It still took a couple of hours to stem the water flow enough to inspect the damage at the start of my 4' by 200' trench.

A day later, a few more grey hairs for Tyler and me and we were off and running to finish the rv park. Thankfully, we never had any more major incidents. Ron, Gary, Dave (camp maintenance supv) and I spent almost the whole 3 weeks finishing the site. Thankfully, Tyler had given free reign to rent the necessary heavy equipment to get the work done.

We used a John Deere tractor for some of the initial leveling of the site

I am on the other backhoe...leveling out some of the
upper area of the site. We are about two weeks into the work and
1/2 done with the site in this pic

Tex (a camp employee) sitting on my offending excavator

Let's see...this pipe should be about right. What a mess this pipe break
caused, not to mention the un-neighborliness we saw for
over 3 weeks. Tyler (probably in tears) is looking
into the trench, with Ron above me, shaking his head.

Ron is clearing the trench at the power pole site. It
sure helped that he is a retired power company lineman!

 

Gary did most of the compacting on the site
and helped lay the pipe.

I tried to stay out of everyone's way. Ron and Gary installed most
of the water lines and electrical conduit.

Electrical conduit from the power pole...

along with the repaired water line, electrical conduit was installed
on the rv pedestals. The contracted electrician came later to help
with "fishing" the wire into the conduit and installing the power boxes.

Almost 100 yards of material was hauled in to finish
the surfacing

I had the driver set the tailgate chains to spread it
out and make the leveling easier

Almost completed...someday, we'll have a final picture,
once it's done. The camp board of directors is embroiled
in a dispute with the neighbors over the site, so as an "olive
branch," they had us stop work until a meeting could be
held. Evidently, the neighbors aren't too happy about the
prospect of NOMAD rv'ers parking near their homes

Meanwhile, in more tranquil areas of the camp:

Aspen Cabin's needed upgrade included the trim around the windows, door and floor, as well as new bunk beds built, painted and installed. Paul and Pat, with Karen's occasional help, completed this project. It really turned out nice!

Pat and Paul replaced the mattresses in Aspen...

painted the parts to the future bunkbeds...

and with Karen's help and Tex's supervision,
the beds were assembled.

Sure was nice when it was done

There was a lot of help with the weed and brush removal: 

One of the many loads of brush hauled to the burn pile

Then there was some organizing of one of the laundry rooms:

 The paint shed and garage were huge tasks we accomplished, but no way did we have time to tackle the "peace shed." By the way, it got it's name in a round-about way. Evidently, in some circles a person needing to use the restroom would say they were going to make "peace..."  Well, it appears the jumbled mess in the "shed" kinda reminded someone of the end result of making "peace".

Moving on...There were painting projects:

Redoing part of the cafeteria floor

Diane removing the edging tape. She had recent shoulder surgery prior
to arriving with Ron at the camp. I'd say she was a "hurting camper"

Kathy painting the benches at Morning Watch

First, Karen learned how to install floors, and then added
painting to her list of skills 

Kathy is a sign maker

Karen is also a sign maker now

Paul painting the windows on the Lodge

The new waterfront chapel benches were built:

Karen sanding down the edges of the future board seats

I do what all good supervisors do...ensure my employees don't slap
me upside the head because of too many suggestions

The deck railing on the manager's residence was in poor shape:

Removing the old railing

Part of the new decking, with the old posts still in place

Some of the railing and decking on the rear of the porch area

 And the 4th of July evening fireworks on the lake were spectacular. You can sure tell who the Northerners and the Southerners are (Gary, Tyler and I wore shorts and bare feet:)

Gary and Kathy

Pat and Paul

Tyler, Karen, Lizzy and Noah, the one in hiding

 

Karen and Arlo, making friends and enjoying each other