Hi, I’m David Bennett, a Forest Protection Officer here on the Coconino National Forest. Our duties consist of responding to wildland fires that happen on the forest, as well as making public contacts while on patrol in the forest. One of the things that we occasionally come across after a busy weekend is a neglected campsite. It can consist of trash or a fire or sometimes both. [At] this one in particular, there’s trash, as you can see, and a campfire that’s been left unattended; the people have departed the forest.
One of our main duties is to come and take care of these small unattended fires so that they don’t get out of the ring and cause other large fires. Here on the Coconino, our Fire Prevention Patrol Units typically will have a pick-up truck and a small pump unit. Ours will either carry 50 gallons or 100 gallons, and they’ll have a small component of hose on the truck. It (the hose) allows us to pump a small amount of water maybe 50 to 100 from the truck at any one time.
That allows us to suppress very small fires, or at least knock them down [to] where can get some other resources on them.
A couple things that you need to put a fire out properly are a shovel or some kind of digging device, and a large amount of water or a fairly large amount of water. We try and convey to the public to bring extra water just for putting out their fire. [This] is beyond drinking water, beyond [water for] hand washing and things like that. Bring another dedicated 10 gallons of water so that you can properly put out your campfire.
The key to it is water and stirring.
You’re going cool off the fire with some water the first go-around and then stir it up and repeat until the fire is completely cold and out. Let it steam for a little bit, and we’ll stir it and then repeat the same process. After you’ve mixed and stirred a couple of times, and it’s good and muddy, the last thing to do is to check with your bare hand. We call this “cold trailing,” but it’s essentially just checking for heat with your hand. It’s good to use the back of your hand just because the front of your hand is more sensitive.
So, you’re literally just feeling around in the fire for any extra heat that you’ve missed. And I don’t feel any in this one..