"I remember being in charge of my twenty-man crew, at the same time trying to communicate with the helicopter so that it could put water on the areas, the fires, that were below us."
As a crew boss, the fire that I can recall, because I know it was on the Fourth of July in, I think it was in 19—maybe '82. I think it could be '82. It was a fire in Southern Utah, just north of St. George, Utah. I'm not sure what the mountain range [was], but I was crew boss in charge of a twenty-man crew. Our responsibility was to go up the mountain and build line on, I guess that would be the left flank of the fire. I remember it being very windy, where the fire had started at the bottom, and by the time that we got almost midway up the slope, up the mountain, the fire had already blown over and gone clear up to the top and went on the northeast facing aspect of the mountain.
I remember also being in communication with the air division, where the helicopters were putting buckets of water on the crew. And I remember being in charge of my twenty-man crew, at the same time trying to communicate with the helicopter so that it could put water on the areas, the fires, that were below us.
Also, at the same time, I was also in communication with the slurry plane, too, making sure that he doesn't get caught in this little wind sheer that [was] coming up the canyon, because it was kind of dangerous. And I remember the incident commander telling or asking me if I could be able to tell him [about] the wind, and I said, "I think it's going up to eighty miles per hour [80 mph]." I didn't have any kind of wind instrument, I just kind of estimated that. The incident commander was real surprised how I projected or predicted the wind speed almost pinpoint accurately.