Matt Meola
ex KCØDXW
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Matt Meola ex KCØDXW |
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The Estabrook FireOn Mother's Day, the 13th of May, 2001, there broke out two separate fires in Park County, near where I live. Both were small, the larger burning about three acres, but the 285 Wildcats Team was placed on alert; D23, having very close ties to the team, was likewise on alert, and they drew in D6 for mutual aid. I recieved a phone call around 1030hrs local time, and begain monitoring the 146.670 repeater. At that time, both Daniel, NØBN and Dutch, KØAWS were both sort of on scene - they were at an area not too far from where Incident Command was being set up. Since Daniel had his Red Card[1], but lacked some Nomex fire clothing, which I had, it was resolved that I would take it to him. I gathered up the clothing, grabbed some hard hats from Padre, and my own ready kit and headed out the door. Fortunately, with this fire, Daniel had his own clothes. :-) He had been there a while, and had set up a J-pole (from Arrow Antenna) on top of a nice, military sectional mast. With this arrangement, we could operate both the 146.670 repeater and simplex around our ARES staging area / ICP. While Daniel donned the Nomex, a group of four Wildland Fire Trained hams from D23 set off for the ICP[2]. Once they were there, Daniel jumped into the Jeep Cherokee and the group headed to the ICP. Shortly after their arrival, the situation was deemed to be under control, and both the 285 Wildcats and ARES D6 & D23 were stood down, at approximately 1500hrs local time. Overall, a much more pleasant operation than Hi Meadow! |
