Pictures from the Seeley Lake Fire Crew

2004 Fire Season

        The 2004 season was very slow at the Seeley Lake Ranger District of the Lolo National Forest, and slow around northwestern Montana in general.  I was assigned to engine 616, a type 6 wildland engine with a 300 gallon water tank.  I was only on three fires all season, and spent about two-thirds of my time running a chainsaw on thinning projects or marking timber for fuels reduction projects.  The last fire I was on, the Dunham Ridge fire, was also the most exciting, as I got my first helicopter ride on it, and the fire itself was near the southern end of the Bob Marshall wilderness.  Seeley Lake is a small community of around 3,000 people located about an hour north of Missoula. 

Deer Creek fire size-up	Deer Creek fire ignition tree	Deer Creek fire digging line
Deer Creek fire Size-up 2	Engine 616 on Deer Creek fire	Crew in front of Monture Mountain
Crew hiking into Dunham Ridge fire	Dunham Ridge fire seen from below	Dunham Ridge fire seen from below
Helicopter 2CH coming in for a bucket drop on the Dunham Ridge fire	2CH dropping water on the Dunham Ridge fire	2CH dropping water on the Dunham Ridge fire
Helispot for the Dunham Ridge fire	On the helispot, waiting for pickup	Loading up and heading home

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"Courage is doing what you have to do even when you're afraid.  There is no courage unless you're scared." - Eddie Rickenbacker, WWI Ace pilot.