(ominous music)
- So it was a prescribed fire
and that day we weren't lighting or anything.
It was more just a secure what we already had.
I believe they were concerned about some winds
or something like that.
So we just went out there
and we were just building some checklines here and there
on some of the stuff we lit.
Where I was it was a little slop over we had on our lines
and I was kind of between two large rocks
and we dug line between these two rocks
where we had there.
Me and my saw partner and one other guy
were all left there kinda just to
hold that little area and make sure it's okay.
There was a, I believe three, pretty small snags
in there that had some heat in them,
that I was going to secure up.
It's a rocky area like there's a lot of like
rock bluffs and stuff like that.
Kind of hilly and rocky
with just some of those trees mixed inbetween.
It was kind of a hot area and it was kind of just
a lot of ash pits and stuff like that.
That were kind of just keeping it hot.
So, I didn't go in there immediately.
We kind of just hung out there for a little while,
just to kind of let it cool down before
I ever went in there to do anything with the snags.
I cut the first snag and I kinda
I felt it up on one of the rocks we were using
as a natural barrier, and I didn't really like it,
just like that it was kind of a holding concern,
cause the fire could just kinda burn up the tree.
And I just kinda wanted to secure it up there.
(chainsaw engine)
So I was up on the rock kinda just
bucking pieces off the tree.
The chainsaw was running fine.
Nothing noticeable about the chainsaw.
I got done doing what I was doing
I was satisfied with how I secured up the tree
and I just shut my saw off like normal.
I walked back over to where my saw partner was
and he was away from the black,
up in a comfortable cool spot,
and I went and sat next to him,
and I set my chainsaw down next to me,
and we were just up there talking.
We were talking about the next tree that I was going to cut
and just kinda looking at stuff
and just hanging out for a little while.
It was probably a good 15 to 20 minutes,
I'm not sure,
but it was a good little chunk of time
that we were just hanging out there.
So after we hung out there, like I said,
for 15 to 20 minutes,
I decided I was ready to cut the next tree.
So I grabbed my chainsaw and I walked into the black,
and I walked over to the tree
and there was a rock I was standing on.
That I was going to cut it from,
and there was some ash pits around me,
and there happened to be a little,
a little piece of flame just like right by,
kind of where I was standing.
I went in there and I went to start my chainsaw,
and I gave it a couple pulls and it turned over
(Chainsaw engine revving)
but it just kind of, you know,
gurgled for a second and then died.
Kind of like when you run out of gas.
The first thing in my chainsaw torublshooting mind
was, you know, like hey maybe I was over there
cutting for a little longer than I thought I was
and maybe I used more gas than I thought I was.
Maybe I'm actually out of gas.
My first reaction to check that
was to kind of flip the saw over and slide it on my hip.
Pop the cap just to look inside
to see how much was in there.
At that point is where it geysered on me.
(liquid spraying)
It was pretty too distinct, pretty geyser squirts
that came out of my gas tank at that point.
And I couldn't exactly tell you how high it got
I mean it had to be over a foot above the tank.
It was the biggest, the biggest one I've seen.
I don't know why. I couldn't explain to you
why it was so volatile that time,
but of all the ones I've seen,
yeah that one was definitely the most,
the biggest one.
I didn't catch on fire immediately.
Like I had enough time to look at it
and kind of have an oh crap moment, if you will,
with what happened, cause I knew
I mean I'd heard the stories
and we've done training on it, you know?
So I knew I wasn't in a good place at that time
and my saw partner, who was watching,
he actually yelled at me to watch out
cause he saw the the little,
just the little piece of like open flame right there
that was kind of near me.
At that point,
(chuckles)
I ignited.
If you will, it sounds weird to say that.
I caught fire and at first
I didn't have a dramatic reaction to that.
I dropped the chainsaw, first off,
but I just kind of patted at my shoulder
like trying to put it out.
It just got bigger.
I want to say it was like my arm.
It's kind of this whole right side of my body
that kind of went up in flames.
I mean it was kind of hard to tell
it was kind of burning off the back of me.
At that point, I kind of
I kind of realized I was in more trouble
and I didn't really have a good spot to go
cause of all the hot ash pits around me
and I was aware of that,
I was like man I just don't have a good spot.
So I made a bee line for the handline we dug,
stunt man style, some flames coming off me,
and once I hit the handline
I just I dropped to ground and just rolled over
and my saw partner, good dude that he is,
jumped on top of me and threw some dirt on me
and put me out.
Even after I got myself out of that
I was pretty calm about the whole situation.
I just got the radio from my saw partner
and I made the notifications to my supervisor
and I knew I pretty badly burned.
Well you could obviously just see
the skin hanging off your arm.
I knew my stomach was burned but nobody else could tell that
cause my clothes were completely fine.
There was no sign really that they caught fire.
I'm still not sure why that is.
Like I was wearing my gloves and none of my hands got burned
and you could actually see kind of the line
from exactly where my gloves were.
I knew I had to get out of there
and I just figured the sooner the better
rather than waiting.
I just got up and I started walking out.
It was probably a quarter mile or so,
not real far up the hill.
(fire roaring)
By this point I had some people come,
some EMTs, check me out.
I was like nah, I'm just going to keep walking.
Like I'm just going to get out of here.
Like you guys can't do anything for me
I just need to go to a hospital.
We had driven the soup truck a ways
and they just loaded me up in the back of the soup truck
and drove me up to where the helicopter
was going to fly me to a burn center.
It all happened pretty quick.
From when I got burned to actually when I got
to the hospital was about an hour.
This isn't the first I've seen this by no means.
I've seen it happen quite a few times over my career.
I mean when it's vapor locked
your saw's not going to run right.
So that's one of the things,
if your saw starts running funky, or if it like dies
when you're in the middle of cutting something hot
it's like oh I gotta vapor lock.
This time that it happened to me
it completely caught me off guard
cause it didn't match up to any of the signs
that I recognized before.
(chainsaw running)
When it happened to me before
it would always be in a obvious, like,
you're cutting something hot
like a hot burning juniper
and you just know your chainsaw is getting hot
or your chainsaw running a little funky
and you're like oh, you know my chainsaw's getting hot
you know, you can feel your chainsaw and it's hot.
I wasn't cutting anything that was burning
and the chainsaw it was, you know, it was running fine.
(chainsaw engine revving)
No signs, like I just shut it off like normal.
One of the ways they say
oh you're supposed to clear
a vapor lock or whatever,
is you let your saw sit there for 15 minutes
and in my mind,
my saw just sitting there for that fifteen minutes
I didn't think that there was a chance
of that really happening in my mind.
If I had even the thought that my saw would've geysered
I obviously wouldn't have opened my cap where I did
but, like I said, I had nothing
to make me think me believe that it would happen.
Yeah, and that's why I feel like now
I couldn't really predict it.
I mean I was surprised once
I could probably be surprised again.
The advice I'd give is yeah if you're in a situation
where you feel like your fuel can catch you on fire
by opening it, I just wouldn't do it.
I mean it's as simple as that.
You've got a flammable substance
you want to separate it from a heat source.
Cause I mean there's ways you can check your fuel level
without ever opening your tank.
You could literally hold your saw up and look,
and sometimes it's a little hard to see
because the saws get dirty and what not
but you can definitely see if there's fuel in there or not.
If I'm in the black and you know,
(chainsaw engine running)
I'm gonna look through the tank to see my gas level
instead of opening the cap.
And if I need to go open my cap
I'm going to take it to the safe spot to do that.
I never thought I would just get hurt
by opening my fuel tank, you know,
it's just not one of those things
that you recognize that much as being like a major hazard.
And I still think it's kind of funny, you know, that
you know, that of all the years
that is kind of what put me in the hospital,
Something as small and simple as that, you know?
I definitely don't feel like I can predict it anymore.
So I just don't think it's worth betting on
when your tanks going to geyser or not
and just kind of treat it
maybe like it always could geyser
and just kind of put yourself in a better place
whenever you're planning on opening the cap.
(soft piano music)