Until August 10 the 2018 wildfire season had not brought any fires to the local area here in northwest Montana but at about 2:30 on Friday afternoon that changed with a fire start in a small house trailer that quickly spread, burning it, two vehicles, a shed, and a propane tank before proceeding into the timber and running uphill toward other homes. Fortunately there were considerable resources available from many different fire agencies and with their hard work and amazing cooperation this fire was gotten under control fairly quickly without the loss of other homes in the fire perimeter.
Some day I would like to get some pictures (or better yet, video) of an initial attack on a fire, but there’s always so many urgent and critical things to do that there’s no time to take pictures. On this fire I responded with our local Rural Fire Department and drove a water tender. Once the fire was mostly under control after the second day I took a few pictures of the tender. The last one was not one of my pictures, but it showed the tender while I was waiting for a road to be cleared up to one of the homes to provide structure protection not long after the fire started.
The truck in the photos is a type 1 tactical water tender, which means that in addition to delivering water, it has the capacity to perform direct attack on a fire, including pump and roll ability. This one is very maneuverable while still carrying 3,000 gallons (12 tons) of water. It is 10 feet high and about 26 feet in length.
Montana Outdoors 