fortieth..

here are some pics from the last strike team i went on.. we went to yucaipa, ca for the pendleton fire.. we left santa cruz county around 07:00 on monday morning of august 31st and got back about 2.5 days later.. it didnt take long for that fire to go out but many still battle the station fire..

here is a pic of what it look like when we got there..

this is one of the many retardant drops..

this is our engine crew from felton fire.. had a great time with these fellas..

this is before we left.. these are the engines from both santa cruz county strike teams..

this was when we were on our way home..

thirty.ninth..

so i never did post the official article from the volunteer nation site..


click HERE to read it..

thirty.eighth..

a while back, there was a filming crew that came to our tuesday night training drill at the fire house, to film us training as a volunteer fire agency.. they are called "volunteer nation" and they decided to interview me for their program.. i wasnt sure if they were going to actually use me for the documentary but i got an email saying they used me for their first preview video. here is the video.. i am at the 0:57 second mark and it short.. please visit the website and leave a comment to show support to their cause..

Volunteer Nation - Season One Trailer from Volunteer Nation on Vimeo.

if this video doesnt play then click HERE

thirty.second..

here are some pics from a training burn we had a few weeks ago..

thirty..

..butte county lightning complex..

..some of us from the santa cruz county strike team (XCZ2334A)..

this is a picture from strike team.. a strike team is five (four person) engine crews with a strike team leader.. we had engine crew from felton, santa cruz, central, watsonville, and uc santa cruz..

twenty.eighth..

..santa cruz sentinel..

yesterday i was in the newspaper for a interview i had with a reporter.. it was about this photo (above) of a burned american flag i helped save from being completely burned.. here is the link to the article..

santa cruz sentinel

the funny thing is, every time one of our firefighters makes the paper or news they owe the squad ice cream.. this is the 3rd time ive made the paper/news.. thats a lot of ice cream..

peace..

twenty.seventh..

life is good.. firefighting is going great.. i just got home from the martin fire here in county.. because we are so close, we were one of the first five engines on scene.. to make a long story short.. about 4:00 pm on wed. 6/11/08..

we walked into this guy..

above: this was the front page of our local paper.. i got these pictures off their website (www.pressbanner.com).. this is our engine E2320 pictured on the right flank of the fire..

above: this is what the fire looked like before it took off into the trees which were about 100 ft tall.. when the fire took off, all of the trees looked like the tree in the first picture.. the fire literally went from picture 2 to picture 1 in 5 minutes.. it was like walking along side a 150 ft tidal wave of fire.. needless to say, it was rippin.. we had to back out of the fire as the fire jumped to the other side of the street.. im the second guy with the red hose pack.. the media kept sayin that the fire station on martin road was lost, but our strike team saved it.. there is a cool picture at the end of this slide show of a melted american flag that i tried to save.. i also left a comment on the website..

twenty.fifth..

so the firefighting has been goin well.. both the fire aspect and the medical experience as well.. i took these pictures today while i was on a call.. whenever we get trauma victims, we have to fly them over to santa clara county because we dont have a trauma center in this county.. we had an injury accident today and had to fly the driver out.. the engine i responded with was in charge of setting up the landing zone (LZ).. here are a couple of pictures.. click on the image to enlarge..

life flight flying in from stanford hospital

my good friend, a.dawson, and the life flight staff

patient being loaded into helicopter