Shortly thereaft.er a California Division of Forestry (CDF) truck comes iri to evaluate our position. There has been a plan to send ih a tanker, but the CDF people think we can handle the fire ourselves without a tanker. At Jamesburg more handtools, hoses, goggles, helmets, headlamps, eyewash, etc. are still' arriving from San Francisco and being sent into Tassajara. One of the Forest Service people comes to talk to us at Jamesburg and we see written on the back of his map: "Tassajara-well disciplined, good liaison, calm." Sunday, August 7 2: 00 a. m. 13 people arrive at Jamesburg froin San Francisco. They bring more gas for the pumps, sleep for about an hour, and le.ave for Tassajara about 3: 15. Dr. Wenner kindly has left his prac.:tice for three days to join us at Tassajara during the fire so that in case of injury we·can have immediate access to expert help regardless of the condition of the road out of Tassajara.. • 9:00 a.m. Bob Crew, to our great relief, arr:ives at Tassajara. His truck driver is Sandy Sanderson. With Bob we study the whole defense system of, Tassajara. He has us cut scratch lines high up on the hills around th~ trees, herb gardens, and hillsides that we most want to-save. ·Backfiring would be done from these lines, and if the fire and winds do not effectively draw our backfire up the hill, we wou1d start another fire from the bottom of the hill below our scratchlin_es so that it would be drawn into the upper fire's. dr:aft and would then push both fires up toward the main fire c.omin,g down the mountain. Bob Crew gives detailed instru'ctions on safety procedures induding evacuation to the alre:rdy established blackline area south of the creek. We complete the majority of this work by evening. Bob is a wonderful, courageous person and a great firefigh. ter. Monday, August 8 . Midmorning: Four Forest Service cleanup crews of 20 people each come into Tassajara on their way up the stream to control the backfire slopovers. But the fire gets away from .them both upstream and downstream, so in the afternbon they return to Tassajara to wait until radio contact can be established with the USFS about where they are needed most. Now we all wait for the arrival of the fire which we can see coming in at us from three directions at once. Tuesday, August .9 . 10: 00 a. m. • Orders come through for the three Indian crews, Magdalena and Santa Domingo Pueblo No. 1 and No. 2, to leave. They hike downstream. One crew called Penasco No. 3 is left at Tassajara under Don Jordan and J. J. Dominguez, to act as a backup crew for us during the initial backfiring. (Later in the fire J. J. has part of his ear burnetj off and his crew have .the packs burned off their backs. They have to get leads to its effective use as inform<¼tion. Just reprinting a group's blurb on themselves is so boring I can never get past the first few. Graphics or at least an eye-pleasing layout is a plus too, as far · as I'm concerned. Just straight infor- ,mation to ~11 but the most addicted info-freak is hard on the eyes and the head. Third, I look for accuracy. There are always going to be a few mistakes. Names change, people move around, typesetters' fingers and proofreaders' eyes get crossed. But constant almostDecember 1977 RAIN Page 9 under their plastic reflective sheets to capture some air and let the fire pass over them_-.) People are now calling us the Tassajara Cool Shots..Eventually we became the Tassajara Long Shots. During one of the instructional meetings led by Bob Crew and Ted Marshall, our fire boss, about how to cut line, use a shovel,·and so forth, Bob's driver Sandy Sanderson sud- , denly stands up and recites a long·poem of his own about the cosmic and molecular significance of our most simple actions. Our spirit is up and ready for the fire. We continue Waiting. Hank Weston, one of the two CDF main fire bosses who had visited Tassajara the day before, reports to Jamesburg that Tassajara is adequately prepared. Evening: We spot the fire coming over the ridge's south of Tassajara. We divide into four fire crews under separate crew •bosses and divide Tassajara into four areas: downstream by the barn~, lower garden and cabins; upper garden, cabins and shop; propane tanks and gate house; central area from the zendo and hill cabins, store rooms, baths, upstream. A fifth, office and logistical crew, keeps careful accounts of where ~ach person is, awake or asleep. And, of course, there is the around-the-clock kitchen crew. {· 00 p. m. The fire appears in a sudden burst_over Flag Rock. As we all look in relief to finally see the enemy, Bob Crew, through wisdom or chance, looks the other way and sees,a dark column of smoke near the baths. We run over and find 'a burning log has slid down the hill and lit brush and grass all around one side of the bath. With shovels and hose we put out the first fire at Tassajara itself. A lookout from our own helispot upstream comes into camp to tell us the fire is also coming over the ridge upstream and onto the hogback. We watch the flames and wait. 3:30 p.m. When the fire is burning strongly on the hogback' and above the hill cabins, we start the backfires. Bob Crew suggests that Baker-roshi light the first backfire, and he lights small fires every 10,or 15 feet with the fuses: Within a few minutes the whole hill is aflame and creates its own wind strongly flap.ping our clothing toward the fire. A crew i~ left there to prevent slopovers and Baker-roshi and Bob Cre,w light fires from high up on the west.hill across from the shops along our fireline down the road at a point just beyond the gate. Our backfire burns up the entire vertical pasture to the •ma"in fire. Then Bob Crew and Ted Marshall start backfiring on th~ same hill in the other direction, up and around the hill. cabins where we fight the hardest against ·winds generated by the fires swirling around in that c_oncave section of the hill.· But with several hoses and many shovels the fire is contained beyond the scratchliries. Fire on the two faces of Flag Rock, above.the propane tanks and gate and above the cabins and lower garden, is edging down the hill but backburning itself out as it goes-hot material dropping down the hill and then burning back up the hill. With the coolness of evening the fire on Flag Rock subsides slowly and beautifully. but-not-quite-right names or too many addresses that are two or three years old put the reliability of the whole thing up to question. These are certainly not hard and fast rules- and there definitely is some value in a collection of resources that can serve as a mailing list. But I know how much work went into even a poorly put-together list, and it seems a shame not to have taken the very little bit more effort to make it truly worth everybody's time and effort. - LdeM
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