Ok, we've just had our seemingly annual January wildfire.  The recent fire on Crosier makes it 3 fires in 3 years for January.  We will be scheduling a Basic Wild Land firefighting class in-house (hopefully) this spring.  I encourage all current active GHAVFD personel to plan on taking this class, in fact, this wild land certification will be required of all members who wish to be carried on the active roster.  With the recent beetle forecast, and the likelyhood of increasing wildfire activity, we all need to be prepared to do battle in the woods.

The obvious conclussions we can draw from the latest fire are that winter does not mean we won't have some wildfire activity, and we have to be ready for wildfires all year round.  Lots of Hunters and day tripper hikers are hitting the trails around the Glen, and any careless disposal of smokes or inability to fully extinguish campfires will probably result in a fire, even with snow on the ground.  Fighting these winter fires is a miserable deal.  It's cold, the trails are icy and we usually can't carry water up the hill.  Try to keep your fire gear in good shape and try to keep yourself in shape as well.  We never know when the next one is coming!