FOREST FIRE

it happened here a stretch of California forest country which until now was of no particular distinction like most the rich green of ponderosa pine stood in seen canyons at 4,000 feet were the winter rains fall heaviest the forest was thick with feathery Douglas fir an incense cedar mingled with pine along the face of the high ridges grew the Jeffrey pine in white fir higher still where it was steep and rocky and dry patches of Ponderosa edged toward the Sun and along the craggy tops of Sierra ridges where winter snows are stronger a few twisted hemlocks and Digger pines struggle for survival among the harsh scrub of manzanita brush nothing unusual about this forest unless you consider a tree somehow a miraculous thing it was here late in an August afternoon but it began [Music] assignment for the weekly award-winning report to the west produced in the community interest by K ro n tonight forest fire the story of the birth and death of a wilderness Holocaust which could have happened told with authentic films of several fires which did happen in the forests of California [Music] after its first flowing blaze the fire burned down to almost nothing being small and deep in the canyon and throwing off little smoke at first it had gone undetected through the hour of sunset and now in the night it appeared highly able to survive only a line of red glowed along the forest floor of dry needles and occasionally a few twigs were branch flared fitfully with a night's cold the humidity rose until it was close to a point of dew and even that much moisture might have contained the uncertain flame but as a night chill deepened the air along the ridges grew colder more rapidly than that in the canyons and the heavy colder air began to slide down the mountain sides this draft fanned the glowing line of red and the coals began to glow brighter and spread and then with a dawn and the warmer air of morning came a subtly breeze the fire took hold and flared the line was burning out of the trees now and into the brush along the rocky upgrade brush tinder-dry in the Sierra slopes of August and as it blazed it threw up its first thick smoke above the tops of trees but a stiffer breeze nine hundred feet above the canyon floor dissipated this multi for it could top the nearest ridges and for the moment the fire burned on unseen it was almost eight o'clock before the smoke built up enough to be seen above the misty ridges enclosing the canyon to the lookout high in a fire tower it was at first all but indistinguishable from the morning haze hanging along the horizon but experienced I studied it a moment longer no doubt now there was fire somewhere over that Ridge she cited in in the smoke quickly plotted its position and gave the alarm miss patches all this petty group lost partners you got a pirate head Township nine north range 29 west section 25 on the Cystic walk that's liable to be a bad when you all work the poorest you call the air tanker the air base is control to all stations control to all stations [Music] [Music] [Music] the blaze is 4 miles from the nearest fire road and these men will be hiking in it'll be 2 hours before they're on the scene the tanker trucks with their holes and water and cylinders of fire depressant chemicals will stand by in case the fire spreads to an area where it can be reached by Road or until heavy-duty caterpillar tractors arrive to scrape out of fire road meanwhile it'll be men fighting for time time it's on the side of the fire now but the firefighters have another ally the smokejumpers they'll be at the fire scene within minutes these are the elite shock troops of the Forest Service at 22 28 years of age already seasoned firefighting veterans all our volunteers who've spent months on the lines of forest fires of every type more months and intensive training in special techniques of their trade and more months learning the tough lessons of airborne attack [Music] with the airport attacked underway the pilot takes a turn over the fire scene and relays back to headquarters the first comprehensive survey the Sun higher now is heated the air at the lower end of the canyon warm air rises and this new draft joins the breeze from the south and help spread flames into the brush the burning away from the big timber but blazing fast for the scrubbing manzanita the trucks are almost had road head now men can see the smoke drifting from fire down the canyon by the time the ground attack force joined the smokejumpers the fires blazing hard and moving uphill it spread is not too fast that it's still moving away from big timber but it's highly dangerous the men will need reinforcements fast yet even if the flames jump their first line they can still catch it at the top of the ridge this is all reported back to headquarters by radio at the ranger station decisions of tactics are drawn the fire still small but in a bad place hard to get at with prevailing south winds blowing the flames uphill it's decided to set up a full fire camp and to hit the blaze with a second aerial attack one of the latest tactics in fire warfare only an experiment five years ago today one of the most useful weapons in the battle against flames aerial tankers loaded with fire depressant chemicals hit the fire area and a direct frontal attack they won't put out the fire but they'll slow it down its progress help contain it until the men on the ground can get it under control the ground tactics are different there is no way to extinguish the flames you merely confine them beyond the fire line and let them burn out big a fire line a few feet wide shot through the brush and scrape away the twigs and needles and duck so the ground fire will die for lack of fuel cut down overhanging branches slash through thickets and brush cut down saplings get a ring around the fire so it'll spread no further hard hopped tough work as the thick leaves of manzanita are withered by the fire's heat their oil is distilled and kissing sheets of white-hot flame shoot through the brush the bushes have tough twigs and when they're snapped the broken points are like a thousand tiny bayonets waiting to stab at your body meanwhile heavy equipment has been mobilized and is on the way men and machines are on the move along a half dozen mountain roads trucks are converging on a pre-chosen point which will become the fire camp the forward command posts for the fire fighters by afternoon camp has been set up this will be field headquarters until the blaze is out and because a battle is being waged it has a military look acres have been marked off for parking timekeeping supply dumps communications first-aid and sleeping grounds cooks supplies and equipment to feed hundreds of men at any time of day or night the weapons shovels wedges saws knives axes and special implements designed just for firefighting a portable shop for ordnance keeping the tools sharpened to a razor's edge disposable sleeping bags for crews already in the fire line and for others who are still on the way every essential for firefighting is here from pencils and shoestrings to canteens and timekeeping blanks the camp is ready from here come to commands organized like an army from fire boss bound through division boss sector boss to crew boss on the fire line word has come in the flames have jumped the line in three places decision fall back from the ridge and start a new fire line and the first cat has cut its own trail into the ridge itself now on building fire line will be fast as the blade cuts deep rocky soil and more equipment is on the way from lumber camps and construction companies and world building proves more men on the way to u.s. Forest Service men and firefighters from the state Division of Forestry will soon be joined by loggers and construction laborers farm workers men from nearby mountain villages Job Corps volunteers inmates from state prison forestry camps and trained crews of Indians among the most highly skilled and respected of the firefighters flown to the scene from reservations in the southwest a virtual army is being mustered to reinforce the fire line [Music] by late afternoon the situation looks good fire line is cut all the way around the leading edge of the flames and winds forecast for the afternoon haven't developed with a lot by morning they may be able to declare the fire under control but they're taking no chances and an equipment will continue pouring into Canada by early evening the fire line is completed all the way along the ridge the flames that just a couple of hours ago were blazing through the brush of all but burned themselves up down the canyon in what was once the fires Center men are already at work digging under cutline trenches to catch any rolling pinecones with snags that could spread the fire back into unburned areas but the casual I would appear to be all but over only an occasional wisp of smoke breaks along the scorched earth but the men who work here know the fire still lingers unseen buried deep underground in glowing roots or burrowed fire into a log feeding on its own coals and waiting for the wind that could start it on another rampage for men who have been relieved the Welcome feel of cool water the chance to wash the grime and grit and smoke of blazing brush out of your pores and food for the kind of appetite a man knows only after that peculiar combination of smoke heat and hillsides has burned out his energy the night they'll sleep under a sky smudged by smoke and the moon will be red a fine gray ash will filter down through the trees and the distant Ridge will glow all night with a false orange dawn night shift in the fire line this is when the most telling work can be done a time when men with miner's lights and their hats worked with some advantage in a smouldering land the temperatures go down like humidity goes up and the night chill settles into the canyons but night gives the fire some advantage to darkness can cover a telltale smoke when living flames eat along the forest floor or a gust of wind turned to glow from pink to red then to white in the cracks and crannies of a dead snag the fire boss will get no sleep this night for though the battle is going well in the fire line there's one factor bothering them the afternoon wind that was forecast the wind that never came perhaps it'll blow up yet maybe it's only delayed and the latest weather report doesn't look good a dome of cold dry heavy air approaching from the north and the barometer is falling this could mean rain which would be good or wind which could be disastrous he hopes are the best and prepares for the worst he'll send the day shift into the fireline early a puff of wind moves up the canyon high in the treetops darkness the branches of pine and fir begin to sway along the ground flames lick out a little brighter but more important for men in the lines see the flames bending around turning the other way another gust and the wind settles into steady 10 then 20 miles an hour and from the north the storm front is moving in and it's bringing wind not rain radio reports are in from all along the fire front and they look bad the wind has blown up the flames and turned them away from the carefully dug fire line away from the brush and the top of the ridge and into the heavy forests of pine and fir there's much to consider now length of new line required terrain and cover weather burning conditions number of men available and their quality and condition [Music] just before dawn down canyon breeze strengthens a prevailing wind then a sudden updraft along the canyon floor an 80-foot tree it's resins vaporized by the heat explodes in a torch of flaming gas within minutes of firefighters nightmare crown fire with flames towering above the highest trees and passing from one treetop to another this is forest fire its wildest its most unpredictable its most deadly every man every piece of equipment will be thrown against [Music] [Music] as soon as is enough light to see specially trained men are flown in by helicopter to join with those who have already left camp from the pre-dawn darkness the Scout copter from headquarters is up to mapping an estimate of the new situation feeding information back to the fire camp checking the rate and direction of the burn the pre-dawn norther is whipped over the ridges and with a tricky air currents of the canyon the spread flame in every direction what yesterday was the front of the fire had become the rear it's out of control in heavy timber as the Morning Sun cuts hot across the ridges flames spread fast before the updraft to the canyon floor the smoke billows to 15,000 18,000 20,000 feet people will see it a hundred miles away and say there must be a fire burning somewhere in the Sierra and on the top of the smoky pillar a white fluff of cloud rides like a camp a few minutes ago the moisture forming that cloud was part of the wood and leaves and pine needles on the forest floor turn to vapor by the flames it rides now as a white mist almost freezing just below the edge of the stratosphere and the higher canyons and along the ridges above them men are building a new fire line and building this one with fire the technique is backfiring based in the fact that what is burned can't burn again they're setting a line of controlled flame in the path of the main fire and letting the heat from the big place suck their back fire line toward it elsewhere in the fire line more heavy equipment has been brought up during the night it is battling against time and wind to cut a band of raw earth around the perimeter of the advancing flames as in any war there are casualties but with the safety precautions taken by modern fire fighters the casualties are more often machines than men [Music] and there are other refugees of the battle to those whose homes have been destroyed whose offspring have been killed animals routed from their nests and burrows by choking smoke and searing flames [Music] when night comes the wind falls yet the fire still runs while across hills and ridges presenting a thousand scenes from the imagination of a Dante it's a world weird in shades of red and black where you wince at heat and choke get a bit of smoke in your throat roar and crackle of flames mixed with the drum of diesel motors and thrash of machines crashing through thickets here on the mountain slopes the temperature hit 103 during the day and was pushed higher still by the fire but now there's a mountain chill at your back even as your face aches from the heat in the centre of the Holocaust the oxygen burns out of the air for a second trees glow like filaments of a lightbulb then as the air bursts in with a hot blast the whole half-acre explodes in a roaring cyclone of flame in the dawn the fire line scraped in bulldoze from the forest floor as again failed to hold the advance of the plane hours have worked by dozens of machine and hundreds of men has been ported by a half-hour of wind and so the orders to fall back to another Ridge build another line and this time hope it holds gets the men in the line though the fire will burn on for many days days marked by a Sun glowing through the smoke smeared sky like a blob of tarnished brass days when each breeze will carry flecks of ash and the cutting acrid smell of smoke [Music] [Music] finally like an in feeble giant exhaling dying gasps in red and yellow the forest fire begins to burn itself up in its wake black and twisted spindles spiking at orchard land [Music] [Music] perhaps a forest shall grow here again and in a time short that centuries are measured but scaled by human terms it'll be more than a lifetime before this earth again is green for now this land can bear only a harvest reaped in ashes from seeds of devastation sown in flames [Music] it began with a small act an act that will be repeated a million times this weekend but someone didn't take that extra second of time to be sure that match was out it could have been as easily a carelessly dropped cigarette or burning material tossed from a car or a campfire that was left smoldering this Labor Day weekend more visitors will be in the forests of California than at any other time in history and the woods are tinder dry fire conditions are explosive if you were in the forest this weekend your thoughtlessness could cause this scene to be certain your smokes your matches your campfire are dead out if you don't take those simple precautions the forest you enjoy this holiday weekend may turn to smoke ashes and scorched earth assignment 4 is presented each week in the community interest by the documentary Department of K ro and TV [Music] the story of several fires were combined to make this composite biography of a forest fire all scenes were filmed on location at actual forest fires in California be with us again next week for another report to the west on assignment for [Music]