July 9, 2020
Yesterday my buddy Gary drove us off road up to nearby Bald Mountain to to check out the Numbers Fire east of Gardnerville Nevada that has been burning out of control for a few days. While out on the trails he led a fire crew in their truck to the right road to get to the fire front lines.
By this time, two days after the fires had begun, the burned areas had grown to 20,000 acres with zero containment.
We parked about a half a mile away on the north side of Bald Mountain and could see the fire spreading across a ridge across from us that kept getting worse over time as it hit and sparked trees which burned up fast like a gas bomb, crazy. You’ll see it in the video.
We met up with a few fire crews who I think we doing spotting for planes. Once the fire really got going on the ridge, more and more helicopters and planes arrived to douse the flames with water and fire retardant drops.
In the lines of helicopters and planes there was also a DC10 jet and.a dual blade Chinook making drops on the fires.
Their accuracy and efficiency was amazing. Those pilots have balls of steel, there was so much hard core wind and smoke, it was amazing to see them working thru it all.
Today (the next day) the first is now 20% contained. Their efforts yesterday were very effective. The firefighters here in Nevada kick ass!
The video is about 15 minutes long and its all shots of aerial drops by planes and helicopters, the scene of the DC10 dropping fire retardant was incredible. Check it out…
Dave's Travels 