Puma RX - Bryce Canyon N.P.

We had a fairly good season in light of it being a slow year for fire and aviation. One of the projects tackled this year by resource management was the Puma prescribed burn at Bryce Canyon National Park. The intent of the burn was to change the vegetation model to something that would not support a running crown fire... thus providing the visitors at Bryce Canyon a small (some day unseen) buffer, should a fire threaten the park from the West. It was a large undertaking, that took a lot of planning on the behalf of park fire management.


We became a large part of what was going to take place. Many days of preparation by ground crews led to a couple of good photo ops, as we burned both by ground and air. As time would permit I snapped these photographs of the events taking place...

Enjoy...


This picture captures a small glimpse of the vegetation model that needed to be modified, and the spectacular veiw from our staging area.

So following a day or two of black lining... in order to be able to hold the ignition that would take place from the air... we were off of Bryce Canyon airport, and the PSD operations were underway. This is a good picture of the PSD (Premo Mark III) in action... if you look closely between the step and the helicopter you'll notice a small white ping pong ball, full of its explosive combination of Potasium Premagnate and Ethylene Glycol (anti-freeze), making its way to the ground in anticipation of fire...

Jay Lusher (Grand Canyon) and Nicole Ludwig (Pilot), talked their way through the ignition paterns. It didn't take very long before we had several lines begining to form on the ground, as illistrated in the picture above... I believe Nicole was checking her work, as we waited to see if the fire would take.

... And the fire did take. With the assistance of ground lighters and the right conditions, we had fire! I love the contrast of this picture... the beautiful scenery of Bryce Canyon and equally beautiful scenery (at least in my eyes) of smoke rising from the ground fire we just started.

My dad used to tell me that there was a little bit of a "Pyro" in every firefighter... the fascination of watching fire and smelling the smoke runs in every career firefighters blood. So with that being said, it's no wonder that maybe we put a little too much fire down in some areas. This is evident by the intense heat pictured above... (Disclaimer - we accomplished what was expect and we did so without the fire escaping parameters or exceeding prescription)

I like this photo a lot... the picture of the helicopter leaving behind what it has started.

... There I am! Hanging out with the machine in the back of the helicopter. This is my favorite place to be... no presure to make good decisions as an Ignition Specialist in the front seat, and of course I couldn't fly the ship if I wanted to... I don't posses those types of skills! I am just the "On" and "Off" switch for the machine. Still a vital component to the whole operation, but in a way I am just hanging in my own little world back there...

At times it is good for the pilot to be able to achieve a veiw of where she is flying and what is going on down below... can't do that too well with a door on! She is of course belted into the front seat... we can't afford to have her fall out of the helicopter.

At the end of the day we arrive back at Bryce Canyon airport to admire the work of all involved, from afar... it was pretty impressive for a small prescribed burn.

It should be said that prescribed burning is an essential part of managing our public lands... I would much rather start a fire under controlled conditions with all the needed support in place, than to arrive on a wildfire with too little and be too late to catch it and keep it from destroying the land. We saw fires like this in Yellowstone many years back, and still today as I visit... the damage done by those fires is evident and long lasting. This is why prescribed fire and wildfire use is sooooo important. I know that there are many controversal cases where prescribed fire has gotten out of control and done damage that was not planned for or expected... but there are more success stories than there are disasters. I hope that our land managers will continue to use Fire Use and Prescribed Fire in order to allow mother nature to do what she has naturally done for thousands of years.

That beings said... it was a lot of fun to hang out of the helicopter and lighting up a few thousand acres doing PSD... a true highlight of my summer!

Always a pleasure, Cheers...