LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 26 ever complain about the blackflies in the Adirondacks again. I found that a head net over my helmet and tucked under the collar of the Nomex shirt was the best defense to keep my sanity. However, my gloves were constantly getting untucked from my shirt leaving my wrists exposed. Despite this, I fared better than some on the crew. For most of the trip, we were walking or getting shuttled around in a helicopter to hot spots seen from the air. If the hot spots were near the water, we would bring a portable pump and hose, but if they weren't, we would just bring hand tools to "dry mop." This con- sists of exposing the burning organic mate- rial, smothering it, and mixing it in mineral soil. To accomplish this, we had to dig up under the moss. If a spot was very hot and not near the water, we would call in the helicopter to do bucket drops. The helicopter pilot was fantastic. We would lay an orange tarp on the drop spot and help guide him in on the radio. After that, it was all on the pilot. He was very accurate with his drops on such a small area. Due to the remote nature of the fire, the only spots the helicopter could land were the shrubby edges of lakes and rivers. The helicopter would do a power landing and only touch- down long enough for the squad to put our gear in the exterior basket and climb in. The forest in Quebec was fairly similar to the Adiron- dacks, except many of the trees don't get very big due to a short growing season. I counted the tree rings on a black spruce that we had to cut down, and it was over a hundred years old despite the diameter of the stump being only around a foot. Another unique part of the forest is the thick layer of moss on the ground. This proved to be a challenging aspect when fighting a fire. The fire would smolder in the moss, then when the moss was hot enough and dry enough it would ignite. The fire would run across the ground and could work its way up trees through lichen and dead branches. In this way, it was kind of like playing whack-a-mole, and we were never really sure where the fire would pop up. Most of the time we would smell smoke from a hot spot first, then we would spread out and search for the source. When the helicopter flew over with the infrared scanner, they would take a GPS point of the hot spot but also throw a roll of toilet paper out of the helicopter. For us on the ground, this was a huge help. The toilet paper roll would unroll and get hung up in the trees as it fell to the ground making it easy to spot. This technique helped narrow down where the hot spot was if it wasn't giving off any smoke. Plus, then we had extra TP if

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