Hawks Landing Fire - continued

Here are some more photos taken during our brush fire yesterday.  The first four pictures were taken by one of Norris's fellow firefighters who was in different locations than where Norris was working. The first one shows the NC Forest Service helicopter dipping its water bucket into a pond near our neighborhood.  The helicopter made many trips between the pond and the fire.  The water is a supplement to the hard work that is done by the hand crews that are raking and digging fire lines to contain the fire.  The purpose of the water is to slow the fire's spread so that the hand crews have a chance to get the lines raked.

This photo shows a crew from the Reems Creek FD assisting a Forest Service bulldozer in getting to the top of the mountain above our house.  Although the dozer can knock over smaller trees in its path, the Reems Creek crew assisted by chainsawing down the larger trees that were in the way.

After getting to the top of the mountain, the dozer plowed a firebreak trench across the top of the fire and then down the right hand flank.

This was the view from the top of the mountain near the point where the dozer went in.  The smoke shows how far away from the fire the dozer had to go to find a reasonable access point to get to the top of the mountain.

When the fire started getting closer to our house, one of the engines that had been summoned to the fire from neighboring communities was assigned to our house to do structure protection.  Here the Wildland-Urban Interface engine from the Swannanoa FD (on the right) sits next to one of the smaller brush firefighting trucks from Reems Creek FD.  The Swannanoa crew had no responsibility to attack the fire in the woods, just to be prepared to keep the fire from getting close to our house. The Swannanoa crew was in our driveway for several hours before being released and replaced by a crew from Reems Creek. Norris joked with the Swannanoa crew that this was his karma payback for spending the night doing structural protection in Swannanoa several years ago on one of their large brush fires.

Earlier in the afternoon, the WLOS news crew had interviewed Norris as he was serving structure protection duties at our neighbor's house. Here is a link to the 11:00 PM news broadcast that included some snippets of Norris on-camera:
http://www.wlos.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/crews-battle-brush-fire-buncombe-county-20318.shtml#.VRm2F_nF8z4

The same news crew came back to our driveway later in the evening to tape an update to the earlier story. Here Norris (silhouette in the middle) is chatting with the news crew just before they set up.

As the night came, the temperature dropped and the humidity went up, slowing the progress of the fire.  Here is a picture Cheryl took as the fire crept closer. 

Cheryl also took this photo showing the fire crew using rakes to drag the fire toward the edge of our retaining walls to try to hasten the progress of the fire in moving past our house so it could hit the edge of the firebreak line to our south.

Another photo of the same activity.

Norris took this one from our driveway.  At this point, the Reems Creek FD has assumed the structural protection duties for our house and Norris was part of that crew.  It was a unique experience for Norris, who has been on many such fires in other neighborhoods, to end up playing this role for our own house.

Another view from our driveway,  At this point, the fire is directly behind our upper retaining wall.

 Norris took this picture from the top wall as the fire went past us.

Another picture as the fire burned further to our east.

Cheryl also made a short video of the fire as it burned in our back yard.  Click on this You Tube link to see the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zZ8KTJQ9ik&list=UUMtZP7MPYb1nmLDdXEZGwnw

Cheryl took this from the dining room - sorry about the reflection on the glass. Norris would be one of the crew in this photo.

This was the situation in our driveway just after midnight.  All these vehicles and the ATV to the right were part of the RCFD contingent at our house.

As the fire had moved past the house, Cheryl took this photo from our deck.  The Forest Service crew had decided to use our steps going up the logging road as a firebreak in order to keep from charring the timbers that make up the steps.  You will see in the subsequent morning-after post that the fire did indeed burn up to the edge of the steps and that the crews had raked and blown the leaves away from the steps to help stop the progress of the fire.

Although it is hard to see, the lighter colored figure below is Norris directing a hose stream toward our landscaping to protect it from the heat of the passing fire.

The B.R.I.D.G.E. crew had started hand-clearing a fire break from the line plowed by the bulldozer going towards our house.  The RCFD crew started at our steps and worked to clear a line towards the B.R.I.D.G.E. crew and the two met up on the logging road above our house.  Here the B.R.I.D.G.E. crew (16 in all) is seen coming down our back steps as they come out of the woods.