Gary-Summer: June 27, 2018 - Delilah Lookout

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

June 27, 2018 - Delilah Lookout

Title: June 27, 2018 - Delilah Lookout
Hike Info : Description : Trail Lessons : Background : Extra Photo's

Hike Info:

Type: Lookout

Description:

The sun started showing a bit of light on the farthest mountains well before I opened my eyes. By 0550, my eyes could not restrain from looking to see what the sun was going to show me today. What I saw was the air was clearing and the day promised to be pretty good, After Sherri gets up, I fix our morning breakfast-oatmeal. Then it is time to tidy up and before you know it, it is time to start our lookout duties.

Before we go inservice, we take the weather readings-visibility is a lot better than yesterday. Then at 0930 we go into service with Porterville. We also radio SNF between a couple of fires (Homestead and Cone) that we are inservice and I think I hear a response. Now we go along our normal day. Such as our 1000 weather and staffing from Porterville. And the 1100 check in with SNF. But wait, they do Buck Rock and other lookouts, but not Delilah. Why? After consulting with Buck Rock, Sherri radio’s in that we are inservice and SNF responds. All is well, at least we think.

During down times, when we are not scanning, we practice our sightings, particularly around Bald Mountain in Fresno County, which is 250⁰ 50’ from us. So we spend a lot of time examining how the sight of Bald Mtn compares to what the topo map shows. Then it is off to looking at other points in the opposite direction. We do some periodic scans while looking at points northeast of us.

Then at 1255 we hear on the radio three beeps-this says that there is a reported fire. Where? Then Porterville says reported fire on Hills Valley Road close to Highway 180. Wait! This is in the exact direction we have been looking at with Bald Mtn! We swing the firefinder around and pick up an azimuth and distance of the fire from Delilah (235⁰ 40’, 13 miles). We radio in a confirmation of the fire as there is smoke billowing between two hills in the area. Several of our units from the Hume Lake Ranger District respond to this CalFire incident. They called it the Anchor Fire because of being at Anchor Ave and Hills Valley Rd. We monitor the smoke from the area all day, but it is diminishing.

Left is how the smoke actually was, while on the right is how it looked like from Delilah

The big question is why did we not see the smoke? 15 degrees away from where we were looking and 8 miles farther, we should have seen something if there was smoke then. Just 45 minutes previous we were looking intently in that directly and saw nothing. I do not think we were blind. Probably by the time the smoke started being visible, we were concentrating on looking at other features and our map reading. Note to selves: take time to look around as well as studying.

View to northeast-not what we were studying. Castle Peak on right with Mt Goodard in rear on left.

Helicopter 522 requests flight following from Porterville. While this does not follow us, we decide this would be a good drill for us to figure out what does this Flight Following look like? Basically it is when the aircraft is in the air, there is a timed interval which the aircraft wants to check in with a ground unit. The ground unit keeps track of location and time of last contact. This is in case the aircraft does not respond, a search can be instigated based upon direction, and last coordinates. We have not done this for real, so we are just getting used to what it looks like if we are ever called on to assist an aircraft in this fashion..

At the 1600 SNF lookout checkin occurs. We are all ready to answer the call that we were there. But once again they skipped over us. So Sherri radio’s in to say we were inservice and have been since 0930. Of course there is confusion of are we going out of service or in service? Just recording that we are in service. At 1800 we go out of service with both Porterville and SNF.

Mystery Truck

While am I down at the outhouse, Sherri phones saying there is a vehicle on the road (12S19B) to the west of us. Nobody travels that road. We think that it is closed. So we monitor their travels. They go up a ridge opposite of us. They try to climb up an old fire break which was created for the Rough Fire. Then come down and stop at the junction of the fire break and road. Two people get out and disappear, a third stays with the truck. Something to keep track of and wonder what are they doing up there? This is the question which we take up. Are they ne’er-do-wells? Or just campers? We understand there are pot farms in the area. Are they part of that? The sun goes down and we have kept the lights off so we can plot their movements, and maybe a bit incognito on our part. But surely they know we are up there. Getting a bit paranoid are we? Yes! Just remember we are a 45 minute drive from Highway 180. We have locked the lower gate, like we do every night. Still an uncomfortable feeling.