"As I was looking out, it was really pretty, but there would be—it was real smoky, and then through the hole—there was a hole where this whole thing is going on, and smoke kind of around it—and you could see these flames that would come up higher than the aircraft."
But then I remember another time, flying fire in New Mexico—again, a real large fire, the Burgett [phonetic] Fire. And we were flying in the early evening, it was dusk, and we were just getting ready to go back in, but we were trying to help establish radio communications with a crew and the base camp. And it was really interesting, because the whole fire just blew up. And I mean it really blew up. And I could see it. From the air I could see what was happening. And it started, like a fire will, in the middle of the fire. It was kind of like a tornado, and it just started going around, and then it started sucking fire in, and it just got bigger and bigger. There was so much smoke, we weren't able to fly complete circles around the fire because out toward the head of the fire there was so much smoke we couldn't see. And so we were just flying half-circles, kind of back and forth, and trying to help this crew get communications.
And as I was looking out, pretty soon I could see, as this fire whirl thing was going like this, it would shoot flames kind of straight up. And as I was looking out, it was really pretty, but there would be—it was real smoky, and then through the hole—there was a hole where this whole thing is going on, and smoke kind of around it—and you could see these flames that would come up higher than the aircraft. And we're not that close. I mean, we're out on the perimeter. But I could look out and see flames going up in the air. And it was really pretty. We were certainly safe. Everything was safe—it was just really interesting to see that, and see just how powerful that is.