First of all let me apologize for my long absence. I have spent much of the summer fighting fire, mostly in the North West. I signed on last year to be a wild land fire fighter, after a fire near our  property made me feel helpless because I just had to watch and not help. When I was a kid, many, many years ago.... everyone in the area would go fight fire, bringing whatever tools and resources they could.  We would pack shovels, picks, gunny sacks, water and take off. The ladies in the ar...