This story hits me hard every time I read it. In light of our fire danger increasing here with little moisture lately, low humidity, and high winds, I wanted to share this as a reminder for us all to be aware of our surroundings, especially in light of the fire we just had in Bailey, and say thank you to all of those volunteers in our local fire departments who work to keep us safe.
'We had 3 minutes to save their lives'
Amy B Wang, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:06 a.m. MST October 5, 2014
"The command that blared from the radio was one Gary Dahlen had never heard before, not in all his years piloting helicopters over wildfires.
All available helicopters prepare for an emergency launch.
He quickly climbed into his flight suit, then into his seat. As the helicopter's turbo engine whined to life, someone from the fire command staff came sprinting toward the aircraft, reached in and punched latitude-and-longitude coordinates into Dahlen's GPS.
That was when he learned the emergency: It was a shelter deployment.
...
Gary Dahlen strained to see through the thickening smoke as the yellow Bell helicopter hovered over the GPS coordinates he had been given.
He scanned the terrain below, pine forest crisscrossed by logging roads, and all around, more orange flames torching upward. At last, he spotted the sight he had feared: 12 silver shelters, deployed.
A wall of fire approached, consuming "100 percent of what was in front of it," he would later say. "It dawned on me they were in a bad place." If they stayed on the road, he concluded, there was no way they would survive.
The pilot scanned the area around them for a bare patch, an escape route, something. Then, he found something.
About 200 yards to the north from where the firefighters lay, the forest shifted from tall pines to lower manzanita brush.
Fire roared toward the shelters. If they ran for the clearing, Dahlen estimated they would have to make it in three minutes.
Two hundred yards north, wearing heavy boots, under heavy smoke. Three minutes. Could they make it?
The logging road was relatively flat.
Dahlen keyed up his radio again.
Get out of your fire shelters, he told them.
And follow me.
And, he warned:
You'll need to run.
Read the rest here:
www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizo...rew-rescue/16394813/
