Large Woods Fire - Sharpe Reservation - Rombout Fire District - 11/12-11/13/09
The first photo in the gallery is a Hi-Def video of our recon mission........ Click on the arrow to play the video.......
These are photo's of a large woods fire that occurred in the Rombout Fire District in Dutchess County N.Y. on the Sharpe Reservation which consists of 2,300 acres of mountainous, heavily wooded land used as a Fresh Air Fund Camp for inner-city kids. The fire was initially reported late Thursday afternoon and it was dark by the time firefighters were able to first reach the fire and all attempts at extinguishment were put off until 8:00 am on Friday when prearranged crews would return to the site...... I had no intention of going to this incident but instead decided to go to the command post and take a few shots of the operation from there...... I hung around for a while and then a local Cable News Crew showed up and decided that they were going to hike into the fire......Now I had no choice but to do the same.... :( Firefighters had the bulk of the fire knocked down before I decided to take the hike so I missed the "better" photo's. The fire was located in a remote area of land that was only accessible by foot and with some difficulty you could get in with a quad or ATV...... The terrain was very rough and the ground was covered with small jagged rocks which protruded from the ground and were covered by the leaves. This made walking a very treacherous task...... Many Firefighters hiked in by foot while others drove quads or 6x6's atv's loaded with saws,rakes,brooms,leaf blowers,Indian tanks, and small quantities of water...... This was a difficult fire to fight because of the rugged terrain and the sporadic strong gusts of wind that spread the fire..... It was difficult to judge the size of the fire as well as the progress being made due to the fact that there was no place to get an over-all view of the fire area. The perimeters were walked but the fire had several fingers that occurred from the wind blown embers and no one could say for sure if the entire fire area was covered. It was decided to see if an aircraft from the nearby Dutchess County Airport would be willing to fly over the fire and give an assessment of the fire from above...... There were no aircraft available at which point a request was made for assistance from the New York State Police Aviation Unit. They agreed to assist and a helicopter from their base at Stewart Airport met myself and another individual who were elected to go on a reconnaissance mission aboard NYSP's 1H-20. The plan was to get photos from above which I would make 13x19 prints of that IC could use as a visual reference to coordinate the firefight...... Coming from someone who saw the fire from the ground and above, I can tell you that the view from the air did not give you any feeling for how rough the terrain was that firefighters were faced with...... From above it really didn't look that bad...... But I assure you, firefighters had their hands full below........ The original weather forecast was for rain and everybody was hoping for the same. A check by IC with NOAA - Albany earlier in the morning claimed that the rain originally forecasted for the area, was now going to stay south and that it was unlikely we would see any rain....... As we arrived above the fire in 1H-20, we could see that firefighters had made great strides in the efforts to extinguish the fire and that any problem areas were already being addressed by ground crews and the perimeter did in-fact encompass the entire fire........ We radioed back our observations to Rombout command and our job from above was now complete..... And as we headed back, a light rain began to fall....... The fire was placed under control within several hours and all units were removed from the mountain at which time the NYS Forrest Rangers took control of the fire..... 24 departments from Dutchess,Putnam, Orange, and Ulster Counties assisted the Rombout Fire Department in extinguishing the fire.....
Read MoreThese are photo's of a large woods fire that occurred in the Rombout Fire District in Dutchess County N.Y. on the Sharpe Reservation which consists of 2,300 acres of mountainous, heavily wooded land used as a Fresh Air Fund Camp for inner-city kids. The fire was initially reported late Thursday afternoon and it was dark by the time firefighters were able to first reach the fire and all attempts at extinguishment were put off until 8:00 am on Friday when prearranged crews would return to the site...... I had no intention of going to this incident but instead decided to go to the command post and take a few shots of the operation from there...... I hung around for a while and then a local Cable News Crew showed up and decided that they were going to hike into the fire......Now I had no choice but to do the same.... :( Firefighters had the bulk of the fire knocked down before I decided to take the hike so I missed the "better" photo's. The fire was located in a remote area of land that was only accessible by foot and with some difficulty you could get in with a quad or ATV...... The terrain was very rough and the ground was covered with small jagged rocks which protruded from the ground and were covered by the leaves. This made walking a very treacherous task...... Many Firefighters hiked in by foot while others drove quads or 6x6's atv's loaded with saws,rakes,brooms,leaf blowers,Indian tanks, and small quantities of water...... This was a difficult fire to fight because of the rugged terrain and the sporadic strong gusts of wind that spread the fire..... It was difficult to judge the size of the fire as well as the progress being made due to the fact that there was no place to get an over-all view of the fire area. The perimeters were walked but the fire had several fingers that occurred from the wind blown embers and no one could say for sure if the entire fire area was covered. It was decided to see if an aircraft from the nearby Dutchess County Airport would be willing to fly over the fire and give an assessment of the fire from above...... There were no aircraft available at which point a request was made for assistance from the New York State Police Aviation Unit. They agreed to assist and a helicopter from their base at Stewart Airport met myself and another individual who were elected to go on a reconnaissance mission aboard NYSP's 1H-20. The plan was to get photos from above which I would make 13x19 prints of that IC could use as a visual reference to coordinate the firefight...... Coming from someone who saw the fire from the ground and above, I can tell you that the view from the air did not give you any feeling for how rough the terrain was that firefighters were faced with...... From above it really didn't look that bad...... But I assure you, firefighters had their hands full below........ The original weather forecast was for rain and everybody was hoping for the same. A check by IC with NOAA - Albany earlier in the morning claimed that the rain originally forecasted for the area, was now going to stay south and that it was unlikely we would see any rain....... As we arrived above the fire in 1H-20, we could see that firefighters had made great strides in the efforts to extinguish the fire and that any problem areas were already being addressed by ground crews and the perimeter did in-fact encompass the entire fire........ We radioed back our observations to Rombout command and our job from above was now complete..... And as we headed back, a light rain began to fall....... The fire was placed under control within several hours and all units were removed from the mountain at which time the NYS Forrest Rangers took control of the fire..... 24 departments from Dutchess,Putnam, Orange, and Ulster Counties assisted the Rombout Fire Department in extinguishing the fire.....
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