Forty Years? Holy Cow!

Kentucky let us go on USFS fire detail in 1979, but we had to take of vacation time to do it.  It was well worth the vacation time for the experiences we had.

We almost burnt up, we did not get smashed by boulders rolling down a mountain or by Douglas-firs that were tipping over after their roots burned. Sleeping out under the stars in Montana and working in Douglas-fir and subalpine fir made some great memories.

Helicopters sure beat hiking for miles. We were on the Continental Divide near Anaconda in this photo.

Susan and I moved to Illinois in 1980, and I got on with the Illinois Division of Forestry several years later.  Springfield finally allowed us to go on USFS fire details beginning in 2005, and I got to make a trip to Minnesota in '06.  It was a good trip, and I was running  a chainsaw instead of a Pulaski, but the Montana trip still beats it.