We had spent the majority of the last evening of camp working while all the families came up to watch their kids get awards at a very long campfire. We did an inventory of our gear and then prepped Silvius lodge for the cleanup on Sunday. Wearing large dust masks we reorganized the loft, and the main area of the lodge, sweeping it out and clearing it of everything that didn't belong. On Sunday, every thing that makes camp camp is packed up and put away into three lodges, each not much larger than an old one room schoolhouse. We're put in charge of Silvius because Mike and I are a little anal retentive and we've done exemplary jobs in packing it before. It's like the biggest game of tetris ever, as everything that needs to be packed in is orthogonal and when everything is planned out, it all fits together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. We have to get up earlier than everyone else and get a jump on it though, or we cause a hang-up and slow down the progress of the cleanup.
About 6 hours after we woke up, the lodges were packed completely, locked up and camp was concluded. Everyone headed out except a few of us who chose to stay behind as to not eat the dust of a train of 100 people, or fight the traffic with everyone trying to turn left onto Hwy 50. The Junior Camp director, his immediate predecessor, my dad, his program director, the scoutmaster, myself and Mike were standing around idly for a while, when I said "Why are we just standing here?" and turned around to retrieve my pack. Mike and I were headed down past the lake from the lodges when we saw a plume of smoke rising from the a campsite on some flats just above the volleyball court. Expletives came streaming out of our mouths along with shouts of "FIRE!" as we sprinted up the hill.
I don't think I've ever ran so hard in my life.
Now, here's a look into the brain of a couple of college educated eagle scouts:
We've just locked everything away in the lodges; all our fire equipment, hoses, pumps, shovels, rakes and implements of destruction. We have no tools, no containers to carry water on hand, no means at all to fight a forest fire. What do we do? We run TOWARDS it.
Smart guys, real smart. We were so focused on getting to the fire that Mike even got tangled up in a manzanita thicket on his way up the hill. I had pulled off a nylon/acryllic sweater and I had thought to use it as a tool to beat out some flames, as that was all I had.
We were lucky, the fire was small enough that we could stomp out the flames and throw some dirt on it to keep from spreading. Upon further investigation, we found the the fire had travelled through the root system of a manzanita bush. When we dug into the soil it was scalding to the touch, some of it was even ash. We pulled out charred roots and cut lines around the torched brush to contain the embers. Others carried nalgenes and camelback bladders to and from the lake filled with water to douse what remained so it didn't spread. We kept digging in the hot mud with our hands and someone's tiny spade to find an extensive scorched root system - this fire had been smoldering underground for hours, from either early in the morning or the night before. We found no butts but were pretty sure that it was started by a smoker, who, even if he took his butts with him, left ash enough to start a fire.
When we were finally satisfied that the fire was out, we called in the forest service to double check and make sure it wasn't going to start up again and then walked out of camp in a mildly catatonic stupor. Now I'm home and can't really sit still, wound up about the idea of what could have happened if we had left with everyone else.
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