Final Fire Day

Today proved to be our final fire day of the season. We were up at dawn again, and hiked out through the ash and patrolled the fire line one more time. No new smoke had popped up overnight. Stretch radioed in his report that our section of line was 100 percent secure. We were instructed to pack up our gear and wait for the helicopters to bring us out.
As we waited for the helicopter, Stretch asked the Yosemite firefighter if he still had the branch they were going to identify when they got back.

“Uhh…no. I must have lost it somewhere.”

“I don’t believe this. I gave you just one thing to do, and you couldn’t even do that. What am I going to do with you?!”

Yo2 was recombined at Crane Flat. After the last fires we had worked, Yosemite Fire had us keep all of the fire gear we had been issued. They thought they might have needed us again…and they were right…and they figured it would save time if they didn’t have to re-issue gear. This time, however, we did a full demob, or demobilization. We were scheduled to be moving up to the high country soon and would not be available to come down for any more fires. We went back down to the main fire house in Yosemite Valley and turned in all of our fire gear.

Except for a few headlamps. Those were going to come in handy in the High Country.