I am sure under the right circumstances they might accept volunteers, but to
maintain any sense of organization and safety they need to use personnel
that are trained, have the safety gear and will work with the team.  Having
worked on several campaign fires I have found that the property owners tend
to do their own thing and do not understand how fast the fires can move.  If
they did than the firefighters wouldn't have to be taking time now to make
a defensible space around the homes, it would have been done long before the
fire started.

The other thing that with this fire, there isn't to  much personnel can do
when the fire is spotting more than 1/2 mile ahead of it's self.  You don't
want to get to many people in an area where the escape route is cut off.

There are probably areas that they could volunteer at that would be safe,
but the fire line is probably not the place.

Ed Philpott
Trail Gypsy


-----Original Message-----
From: az-geocaching-admin@listserv.azgeocaching.com
[mailto:az-geocaching-admin@listserv.azgeocaching.com]On Behalf Of Eric
Quinn
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 12:04 PM
To: listserv@azgeocaching.com
Subject: [Az-Geocaching] Fire volunteers


Watching the news reports of the fires and
evacuations, something has been bothering me. The news
will show people sitting around the area they've been
evacuated to and I see quite a few guys there.

I know that if it were my house that were threatened,
I'd be out there doing whatever was needed and
allowed. I would think that the Forest Service would
want any volunteer who is capable of using a shovel
for a few hours.

Am I off base here?


Eric
TD

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup
http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________
Az-Geocaching mailing list
listserv@azgeocaching.com
http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching

Arizona's Geocaching Resource
http://www.azgeocaching.com