Post by joebill on Jan 7, 2020 2:30:31 GMT
Not uncommon here for locals who get paid pretty good bucks for fighting them to go out and "drum up some business". Like wrecker operators running people off the road, although I have not heard of THAT one. Would not surprise me much, though.
Sometimes when wildfires are within city limits, it is unclear as to who is in charge, and the local fire chief wants to run the show. Those guys are pretty well trained in structural fires, but most have no clue on wildfires.
Long ago, we had one burning on both sides of the San Pedro river, which is short on water but has a huge watercourse carved out over the centuries. Local fire chief showed up and started ordering my guys down on a shingle from which there would be no quick escape if they did not get the flammables cleared off before the fire arrived, and maybe no living escape.
I told the guys to hang tight for a bit, pointed out to the fire chief that the fire on the other side of the river was soon going to be burning around a huge natural gas pipeline that crossed the river high in the air. He went pale, ordered everybody to jump in our trucks and follow him. I already knew that pipeline could run through the depths of hell and never ignite, 'cause it had multiple layers of steel and concrete between the air and the gas.....has to be that way to keep people from punching through them with backhoes and stuff, and the grass around it had burned multiple times before with no problem.
We alternated between watching him nearly wreck his fancy red car as he screamed across the river bridge with his siren screaming and watching the shingle he tried to put my guys on ignite like it was soaked in gasoline, then burn itself out because that shingle had the last flammable material before the fire reached clean sand. Went out on it's own with no help from us, just like we knew it would.
He had his city guys on the other side of the river, "saving the town" from that exploding gas line that never in this world could have possibly exploded.
Got himself some jim-dandy headlines, though, and we got ourselves some good laughs......Joe
Sometimes when wildfires are within city limits, it is unclear as to who is in charge, and the local fire chief wants to run the show. Those guys are pretty well trained in structural fires, but most have no clue on wildfires.
Long ago, we had one burning on both sides of the San Pedro river, which is short on water but has a huge watercourse carved out over the centuries. Local fire chief showed up and started ordering my guys down on a shingle from which there would be no quick escape if they did not get the flammables cleared off before the fire arrived, and maybe no living escape.
I told the guys to hang tight for a bit, pointed out to the fire chief that the fire on the other side of the river was soon going to be burning around a huge natural gas pipeline that crossed the river high in the air. He went pale, ordered everybody to jump in our trucks and follow him. I already knew that pipeline could run through the depths of hell and never ignite, 'cause it had multiple layers of steel and concrete between the air and the gas.....has to be that way to keep people from punching through them with backhoes and stuff, and the grass around it had burned multiple times before with no problem.
We alternated between watching him nearly wreck his fancy red car as he screamed across the river bridge with his siren screaming and watching the shingle he tried to put my guys on ignite like it was soaked in gasoline, then burn itself out because that shingle had the last flammable material before the fire reached clean sand. Went out on it's own with no help from us, just like we knew it would.
He had his city guys on the other side of the river, "saving the town" from that exploding gas line that never in this world could have possibly exploded.
Got himself some jim-dandy headlines, though, and we got ourselves some good laughs......Joe
