FFT1/ICT5

Today I put the final touches on my FFT1/ICT5 Taskbook for firefighting. FFT1 is Fire Fighter Type 1 or Advanced fire fighter, for those of you who don't know most of the people you may have seen cutting line and hiking into the recent Station Fire in Pasadena CA are FFT1 Hotshots. So this is a pretty big deal in my plan to be on a Hotshot crew next fire season, hopefully in CA. ICT5 is Incident Commander Type 5, which basically means I have the authority to command over as many as 20 people on a relatively small incident that is easily taken care of in 1 operational period (8-24 hrs). So I have authority, which is cool, not like I wasn't the voice of reason and intelligence where I am currently working, but now I just have to find a way to take S-131 Advanced Firefighting (a wildland fire class) hopefully before I leave WA, or maybe when I come back to MN. It is also pretty much official that I will be laid off the 2nd week of October and will probably be returning home to start applying for Hotshot positions for next fire season. If I get hired onto one (hopefully in CA) I may have to leave as early as the end of March 2010, for early season workouts and teambuilding and other stuff. But I will probably be able to get unemployment after leaving WA (something I have no idea how to do, but will figure out while trying to get a new position I will hopefully complain much less about in CA) as I apply to other positions around the Western US (California (Region 5 and 6) Idaho, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona). So that is the news for now, more updates once NWCG and the USFS validate my credentials, and such, oh and I am officially Faller B, but I have been falling C class trees since I am the only person at Ft. Lewis nearly qualified for it, and comfortable doing it. I felled a 45 inch 210 ft tall Douglas Fir on base that was 60% burned out at the base of the tree which was pretty cool. But take my work for it, it was dangerous, and pretty cool which is why I did it, well me and one of my co-workers held a felling ax for me which we didn't really need. It was pretty cool and made a huge crash when it hit the ground.