Tales From the Station

We got called to a grass fire down on the point and we headed down there with the fire truck and our brush truck, a six wheeled monstrosity dubbed a “gamma goat”. We were at the end of a new road and could see the fire off in the fields. We jumped in the brush truck and we headed off into the field to put the fire out.

We were going good until we slowed to a crawl and stopped suddenly. By the spray of mud coming off of all six wheels we knew we were stuck. We hopped out and grabbed a couple Indian Tanks, five gallon tanks strapped on our backs with a little sprayer attached, and hoofed out towards the fire.

I stepped in a gopher hole and pretty near sprained my ankle. I didn’t have the radio so I told the guy that did to tell everyone else there were ankle breakers on the path. Neither one of us had much experience on the radio so we decided to say “The terrain is treacherous” instead. That got a lot of laughs.

We put the fire out in fifteen minutes after slogging through the marsh. The first trick I was taught about grass fires is you put the fire out and dump the rest of the water. The fire department demands you carry the water to the fire but not necessarily back to the truck. I dumped my water and headed back to the brush truck.

It was still hopelessly stuck and a new twist was a second brush truck had come out to pull it out and in the process ended up hopelessly stuck as well. A construction company located nearby sent out a backhoe to help. Probably because we suspect their garbage fire started the grass fire. Anyway, the operator was pretty new and didn’t know enough to engage the four wheel drive until it was buried to the axles.

They sent for a payloader to pull out the backhoe and then the brushtrucks. In the meantime a couple of pickup trucks arrived and drove out to “help” and got mired in the mud too. So the count now is two brushtrucks, one backhoe and two pickup trucks mired in the mud. In short order the count would include one 10 ton payloader.

This whole time one of the firefighters came out in his Ford work truck and drove out to the brushtrucks and drove around the other trucks deftly returning back to the road without so much as splat of mud. He owned a towing business and declared that we needed “air support” to get them out.

I worked at the Tribe at the time and so did another firefighter and we discussed that the surplus army trucks the Tribe owned had winches on the front bumpers. We jumped in a truck and headed to the Tribe to “borrow” the trucks. We pulled in, waved at the security guard and drove off with a two and a half ton truck. To which the security guard came out and waved as we drove away.

We get to the scene and go to pull the cable out when we noticed that there was no PTO attached to the winch. This was no good, we had no power to pull the cable back in. We headed back to the Tribe and pulled in with the truck and we were stopped by the security guard. He asked what was wrong with the truck. We replied that the PTO was missing on the winch and we were going to get the other truck. He said “OK” and we went on our way. Before “borrowing” the second truck we checked that everything worked and headed back to the scene.

The only problem with this truck is it didn’t have a passenger seat, well it did in the form of a milk crate with a stencil that said “I HAVE BEEN STOLEN PLEASE CALL HOMESTEAD DAIRIES TO REPORT THIS THEFT!” It had a seat belt though and I sat in it and we took off, again waving to the security guard as we passed. Things were going good until we rounded a corner and the milk crate tipped over and I grabbed the door. Which, of course, opened and I started to fall out but was thankfully restrained by the seat belt.

We get to the scene and the cable is run out to the payloader. It was a short winch and he got going and moved out of the way. We then hooked up to the backhoe that was hopelessly mired and began winching. The backhoe just started coming out of the hole when the shackle busted sending the entire length of cable back to the truck. A new shackle was procured and the cable was run out again. This time the backhoe came out with a sick sounding “shlooooook” as the mud gave up a victim.

We ran the cable out two more times and pulled out the brushtrucks. When the last brushtruck was on solid ground we hear dispatch over the radio say “Dispatch to any Hogansburg Unit”. Our engine responded with a copy. Dispatch asked “Are you still on this call”. Three hours had passed and Dispatch hadn’t heard from anyone since the second brush truck checked out. We responded with “Yes, we’ll be leaving the scene momentarily.” Then we all busted out laughing.

In the meantime we hosed off the mud and started to pack up and head back to the station. My cohort and I climbed in the truck and started heading out to return it to the Tribe. This is when the two drivers of the stuck pickup trucks gave us the puppy dog eyes and asked “Aren’t you going to pull us out, too?” We had been given orders by one of the Chiefs to leave them there since they had been warned beforehand that they were going to get stuck. We generally don’t like civilians complicating a response. We told them this and pointed at the Chief who waved at us and yelled “Return that truck before you criminals get me locked up!”

We did just that and returned to get our vehicles. I still don’t know how they got out but they were gone when we returned. We went back to the station tired, mad, cold and, for some reason, hungry. Our Captain looked at us sitting there frowning and all bent out of shape. He grabbed the station checkbook and invited us to eat at one of the all night restaurants.

It was really quiet around the table until someone started giggling, then another and then we were all busting a gut. We got the call at 9:00 that night, we put it out in fifteen minutes and, finally, here we were at two in the morning eating breakfast. A famous cliché goes “You think it’s bad now, but someday you’ll look back on this and laugh!” You know, sometimes they’re right.