Gimme Shelter

We had a training drill last night at the fire station. It covered wild land fires, since we are in an area where we have those and we get called out a fair amount of time over the summer.

Someone lets a burn pile get away, or someone sparks something in dry grass, or, like last year, there's an actual forest fire and we get called in to help the Forest Service.

So we went over our gear, made sure we had all the right stuff, and discussed some fire fighting tactics and terminology.

Then we went out and covered other necessary gear ..... MRE's, water, and these, individual fire shelters.

Climb in, spread out, lay down and cover up. And then pray to God that you did it right and that you picked a good place to lie down. One guy who's done some Forest Service stuff called it a "shake and bake," because between the wind and your nerves, you're shaking hard, and the heat from the fire bakes you.

The best part, though, was watching a few guys struggle to get inside the thing. I didn't have a problem ..... "Must be because I'm used to climbing into vestments every Sunday."

Must be.