Harold Crane Rx Burn

Thursday we had a great opportunity to go out to Harold Crane and do a phrag management burn. Phragmite is awful stuff. It overtakes the water and spreads like crazy. The idea is to spray it and then come in a year or two later, drop the water down and burn it. Then the next day or two flood it with water so it chokes it out and doesn't allow as much of it to grow back. We were out on Harold Crane where we spend a lot of time duck hunting. Phrag management is a great thing for duck hunters! We combined hunting conservation and fire fighting all in one day :)

Its really hard to get a prescribed burn to go. You have to have all the air clearances, have the right winds and temps to be allowed to do it and have the right weather forecast for the day. Thankfully we had pretty decent windows and a short amount of time to get it done.

We all meet at Harold Crane boat launch at 8am. The DNR guys were our air boat drivers. Their two bosses came out for the briefing and hoping to see some fire before their meetings.

We had our morning briefing and took some weather. It wasnt quite where we needed it to be so we worked on getting everything set up and trying to kill a little time hoping the humidity would drop.

 Dusty, Spencer, Morgan and I ran around to the far south side down the dike that separates the two bodies of land. We had to build a fire line to stop anything from going to the south JUST IN CASE

We took the ranger down the canal road and all those black specs you see out the window are ducks and geese! The place was FILLED with them.

 We drafted and lit a small burn to create a line. 

 My job was to create a wet line and soak anything close that might catch

 Thankfully it was still pretty green and didnt want to burn.

 While we were doing that the guys were a ways away doing a test burn.

The BIG cloud is out far away at a private b urn and you can see our little smoke cloud from the test burn next to it.

Test burning to see the winds and how the fuels react before we light a BIG fire

 From there next we went to the far west end where they had matted down phrag and did a control burn for a fire line. This stuff took off pretty good. Phrag burns really hot and really fast normally.

Chris lighting some fire

Me supervising haha

 We only needed to burn the east side of the road to stop the fire from crossing to the west if our burn went really really good.

 Dan lighting

 Dusty

 Chris

 TJ, Colton (with DNR) Dusty and Chris

 Little Hubby/Wife selfie

 Tj and Spencer

 Once that was done I was paired off with Jason (DNR) and we went out in the airboat to light the east side. There was one other airboat with Colton (DNR) and Morgan lighting the west end. We were hoping for a strong burn that would tie together in the middle.

We started out with fuzees and fire ignition pistols.

The flare guns are so much fun to shoot off the boat

 My driver for the day

 We were able to get a decent line by shooting a bunch of flares and throwing a bunch of fuzees but it wasnt taking off like we needed it to. So we ran to shore and got a drip torch to try and get a little more fire on the ground. 

This is a shot of my boat for the day and the fires I just lit.

 West end crew working on some fire and the road crew (that Chris was on) lighting along the road.

 Even with the drip torch we were having a hard time. Our boat didnt have polymer on the bottom so we weren't able to get as close to the weeds as needed. If we were getting in close on some stuff the push of the airboat getting us out was putting out some of the fire. We only had so many flare rounds and fuzees. We eventually had to pick pockets of land to pull up next to. Jason hopped out of the boat (he was in muck boots and I was in wildland boots..) and lit some fires from the ground.

 The other crew was having to get out on foot too and hike through the marsh to light their fires.

We didnt get quite as good of a burn as we were hoping. We had some spots that it just wouldnt spread at all. So our airboat came back in. They switched out the crew in the second airboat and went back out.

Colton drove, Chris, Spencer and Morgan lit fires.

They lit for about 2 hours and then came back in for the day.

We got a decent burn. Hopefully this duck season it will be great!

Welcome back week...Fire class-Fire class- Strep

We came back Thursday because we had fire school Friday and Saturday. 

Chris had class all day Friday..8-5

Todd and I had class from 1-5 and 6-10

That morning Todd, Kennedy and I helped Grandma and Grandpa load up their camper and take it to Early Park for their mission for the summer. After that we met Jana who was having breakfast with Kathy, Trish and Debbie at the Rusted Spoon. We ate at our own table to not disturb their girls breakfast ha and then dropped Kennedy off to them as we headed to class. Our first class was Modern Fire Behavior in Tremonton and it was really good! I learned a lot in that class. Todd and I went to dinner/lunch at The Grill because we had an hour or so to kill before the next class in Honeyville. We sat through was Fireground Operations and Tactics. The 4 hours on Friday was all Power-point. Tiffany brought treats and I always give her a hard time because she buys regular Oreos. I hate regular ones I only like double stuff. She made me my own special double stuff haha

Saturday morning starting at 8am we had to be at the training trailer in Honeyville. We ran through being IC and fire grounds command. Trisha and I rocking the headsets.

Chris was in class from 8-5 again that day too finishing up his cert.

Then Sunday it was back to work for me!

Monday we spent all night at the fire station fixing the seals on the ladder truck

 and changing the brakes and rotors on the squad. This is how volunteer depts do vehicle maintenance

 We started about 6pm and I ran and got pizza for everyone. Kennedy rode her bike over there and played at the park. By 830pm her and I headed for home. It was a school night. The guys didnt get home until almost 10.

 Bright and early Tuesday morning I had APCO conference in Clearfield. The first day of class was really good.

 Todd and Jana met me for lunch at the Philadelphian and we had amazing subs.

Tuesday night our station had to teach the Firefighter 2 class for the ones training. We had to be there by 6pm. Each one of us had a station and ran them through skills. At the end of the night we did one big group skill. They have to have ALL their turn outs on and done up and masks on and on air in 2 minutes to pass the test. We put everyone in a circle and ran a few timed tests.

 Everyone passed and did great!!!

 Tuesday night, well technically Wednesday morning (which was also our anniversary! happy anniversary to us) about 1 am Kennedy came down bawling. She said her head hurt so bad it was making her cry, her knees hurt, her throat hurt and she felt like she was going to throw up. She had a fever too. The poor peanut was absolutely miserable. I gave her some meds and made her a bed on the bathroom floor. Shes normally content with that but asked me if I would sit with her. I rubbed her back and face. She told me "thank you mommy for comforting me" and I stayed with her until she fell asleep. That next morning she was still miserable. I stayed home from my second day of APCO conference and we cuddled all day. This is how she was when she wasnt sleeping. 

We stayed up on the Tylenol every 4 hours to keep her fever decreased. She ate nothing. I checked her throat that morning and it was just red. She said it felt swollen and like a thousand needles were stabbing her. She constantly kept randomly crying because her headache was so bad. 

Im always hesitant about taking her to the Dr the first day. I usually wait til day 2 because she rebounds so fast just to make sure its not a bug that they cant do anything about. By that first night I knew we were going to the dr in the morning. I checked her throat and it had red spots in the back and a few white pockets. At this point I was pretty sure she had her first case of strep. She woke up in the middle of the night and was trying to throw up. She had nothing in her belly and just heaved. 

 We were able to get in at 1030 the next morning to see her Dr. Surprise her test came back pretty quickly positive for strep. It also was causing her to burp constantly. Like a hiccup almost. She couldn't keep anything down at all. No medicine. No fluids. No food. I havent seen her this sick in a long time. We got her prescriptions for antibiotics and some zofran.

 She threw up not long after we got home and spent the day on the couch and sleeping.

When Daddy got home from work he went in and got her prescription filled.. and he also brought her some 7up and apple juice (in their own little bottles to help stop the spread of germs) crackers, Lysol, some more fever meds and crackers. She lived off one small pack of crackers and apple juice the next 2 days. Its all she wanted.

We started drugging her up and cancelled all our plans for the weekend. We had a bunch too. Her Dr said she shouldn't be contagious by 24 hours after she starts antibiotics but to be safe we should quarantine for 48 hours.. which is exactly what we did. She missed school Wed, Thur, Fri. I stayed home the whole time and inside the whole time ha! It was nasty horrible weather outside. She slept...slept.. and slept.. watched some movies and I pretty much cleaned and organized every square inch of the house. I filled a whole garbage can with stuff. I Lysoled the house about every 4 hours. I washed the blankets and pillows once a day she used. I overdosed on vitamins, drank lots of water and took naps hoping I didnt catch the nasty nasty bug.

Saturday she was feeling better but not 100%. She still spend the day in jammies watching movies and it was the first day she ate real food and didnt take a nap. She even did some homework. But Saturday night she broke out in a fever again.. She is full of congestion now and has a stuffy nose and is starting to get a cough. Lets hope we have this stupid bug done by the time Monday rolls around! I seriously do not remember strep being so bad!