If you have been reading some of my recent posts, you are probably aware that I have been talking about some of my exploits and experiences after being assigned to the JITC at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. My story today centers around a subject that I don’t think I have ever written about before, firefighting. That’s right, I said, firefighting. I know. I know. Almost every kid dreams about climbing aboard a bright shiny red firetruck and hanging on for dear life as that fire truck races toward some distant burning building with lights shining and sirens blazing. Well, that’s what almost every kid dreams about. But I’m not one of those kids. No sirree. Not me. Once a week, when the TV show, “The Streets of San Francisco,” came on TV, I wanted to be a cop driving the streets of San Francisco racing over those hills with my car jumping high in the air and crashing down on the other side of the hill. Yeah. That would’ve been a helluva ride. Almost as good as a roller coaster ride. Of course, I only dreamed of being a cop in San Francisco one day a week when that TV show was on. The rest of the week, I dreamed of being a lawyer just like Perry Mason so I could stick it to the bad guys in court. Yup. That was me. The lawyer. Well, so much for childhood dreams. Cuz that never really panned out either. Nope. Nada. Not at all. But it was nice to take a trip down memory lane. Naturally, that lane has kind of fallen into disuse. You know. It’s sort of rundown. There are chunks of concrete missing and the squares of concrete that are still whole are not level anymore. As a result, you can’t really run a wagon or a stroller or a walker (if say you are an older person) down that lane. And it is all overgrown with weeds and littered with trash, and it is kind of hard to really see. It is downright hazardous for a person to walk down that lane. Come to think of it, taking a trip down memory lane isn’t such a great idea after all. Anyway, my story today sort of deals with firefighting in a way. Not all the way. Just in a way. It also deals with picnics sort of. Not the actual picnic itself, but a picnic was involved in this case. The Fort Huachuca Catholic parish decided to host a potluck picnic in one of the picnic areas out in the boonies on Fort Huachuca. The interesting part about the picnic wasn’t the picnic itself. Oh no. As picnics go, it was your average run-of-the-mill picnic. The men that were feeling really rambunctious played games of horseshoes while they drank beer and talked about the good old times that they never had. The women played games of badminton while they drank wine. I guess wine is a little bit more sophisticated. You know. Women can’t appear to be crusty and crude like men. Not that I am saying that men appear to be crusty and crude. You know. They’re just a little bit more down to earth. No. I didn’t say that they were more dirty. I said that they were more down to earth. You know. Closer to the dirt, not in the dirt. But I digress. Guys like me kind of just hung out and shot the shit and drank beer and talked about the good old times that we never had. Well, all good things must come to an end, and it was the same with that Fort Huachuca Catholic parish picnic. My wife and children and I loaded up our car with our picnic stuff and we got ready to leave. We headed back down the road back toward the wildlife management office and the access road to the main gate. We spotted a herd of antelope, grazing out on the prairie south of the post golf course. There was a gray station wagon driving in front of us. Suddenly, the passenger in that gray station wagon flicked a cigarette butt out of the window. It landed in the dry brush beside the road and immediately set the brush on fire. I stopped our vehicle and told my wife that we had to attempt to put out the fire before it spread. Yes. My daughter, my wife and I played firefighter. I grabbed an old rug out of the back of the vehicle to smother the flames. I told my wife and daughter to grab the jugs of water that we had in the back of the vehicle to pour on the dry brush in front of the flames to act as a deterrent to the flames. However, our efforts to put out the fire were futile. In just three minutes the blaze grew from just a small one-foot fire to a 200-plus-foot blaze, and it was spreading quickly. Another car stopped behind us and joined in the wildfire firefighting effort, but everybody realized our efforts were in vain. The wind coming down off the mountains was fanning the blaze and spreading it over several acres faster than we could beat it down. We didn’t stand a chance. Another vehicle stopped along the road, and I asked the driver to report the fire to 911 as soon as possible. By nightfall, the blaze had spread all the way down to the border of Fort Huachuca and Sierra Vista. The post firefighters built a couple of fire breaks just inside the perimeter of Fort Huachuca to impede the progress of the blaze. As it was, though, it took firefighters three days to contain the blaze and finally extinguish it. As for my family and me, we experienced no exercises in futility, other than some lost time while attempting to fight the wildfire.
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