The Fire on Cedar Cree\ 



503 



his fire and avoiding any new break- 

 overs at Snag Flat, the choice must be 

 to hold Snag Flat. Even so, snags on 

 his area, too, would have to be felled 

 early next morning. 



The fire boss rapidly made his plans. 

 His first effort, Johnson decided, would 

 be to hold the fire on the Ant Creek 

 road and check its forward spread on 

 both ridges. At first he would have to 

 rely on the help of the wind on the 

 Fly Creek slope and be content to con- 

 trol such burning stuff as might roll to 

 the road. He would assign the Swan- 

 son crew to the job of constructing 

 tractor and hand-built lines up Swamp 

 Flat Ridge and backfiring and hold- 

 ing the Ant Creek road. The road 

 crew would be assigned to Fly Creek 

 to hold that road and get the tractor 

 and hand lines constructed on Trail 

 Ridge. As soon as the 50 emergency 

 laborers arrived from Cedarville, he 

 would be able to reinforce the Ant 

 Creek crew for line-holding purposes 

 and to start backfiring operations on 

 Fly Creek. If no unexpected emergen- 

 cies developed before the hot-shot 

 crew arrived at 8 p. m., he would move 

 them directly into the new camp, at 

 the head of Cedar Creek, for which 

 supplies had been dropped by the cargo 

 plane. This would give them an early 

 morning start on the hot-spotting job. 

 If things broke badly on Ant or Fly 

 Creek, he might have to use a few of 

 them on the night shift and reinforce 

 the Cedar Creek hot-shot crew in the 

 morning with men from the expected 

 100-man morning shift. Since the hot- 

 shot crew was a thoroughly competent 

 outfit, a reasonable number of the un- 

 trained men could be paired off with 

 the fire-trained experts. 



In the meantime, planned action 

 progressed behind the lines. Necessary 

 supplies arrived for the Cedar Creek 

 camp. A safe location was picked on 

 the river flats at Cedar Creek. A volun- 

 teer group from the Red Cross arrived 

 to handle the kitchen. The camp boss 

 and a couple of helpers from Snag 

 Flat came across the river to set up the 

 new camp. 



Loitved, the forest supervisor's right- 

 hand man, had used the cargo-drop- 

 ping plane for reconnaissance. On his 

 way to the airport he had met Free- 

 man. Freeman, the woods boss for the 

 Lee Company, had once worked in the 

 Forest Service and could direct many 

 men on a fire line; he had time off 

 over the week end, so Loitved took him 

 along. As a result, the pilot knew pre- 

 cisely where the camp equipment was 

 to be dropped; Freeman knew a lot 

 about the spot-fire situation. Already 

 he and two scouts with a radio set 

 were en route by car and saddle horse 

 to assemble the Cedar Summit camp 

 and reconnoiter the fire on the ground. 

 Later, one of the scouts would meet 

 the hot-shot crew on Trail Ridge and 

 act as a guide. The cargo dropping was 

 to be done about 7 p. m., by two planes. 



Johnson returned to Cedar Creek at 

 2:45. A message was waiting at the 

 camp advising that the Swanson outfit 

 would arrive at 5 p. m., instead of 3 

 o'clock, as expected. He could not de- 

 fer action on Ant Creek that long. He 

 would have to put the road crew on 

 Ant Creek and supplement them later 

 with part of the Swanson crew and 

 hold up all of the proposed action on 

 Fly Creek for the Swanson outfit. The 

 road crew, by good timing, arrived at 

 2:50. 



Armstrong had been assigned the 

 Ant Creek section. Now, with his crew 

 of a few men and one tractor with 

 angle-dozer attachment, he was start- 

 ing a control line to cut off the danger- 

 ous unburned triangle between the Red 

 River and Ant Creek road. He sent 

 another tractor-dozer and 10 men to 

 Swamp Flat to start the fire-control 

 line on Swamp Flat Ridge. The other 

 men, with two tankers, were assigned 

 to the backfiring job along the road on 

 Ant Creek. 



A foreman from the road outfit, who 

 was familiar with the upper reaches of 

 Cedar Creek, was designated to take 

 charge of the 10 men from the Swan- 

 son crew who were to be assigned to 

 the hot-spotting job on Swamp Flat 

 Ridge as soon as they arrived. 



