I had a morning in the winter time. Grass was dead and in the field we were launching from it was also very tall. The first time I hit the burners I set the field on fire. Acting quickly I jumped out of the basket (which was still laying on it’s side) and walked around to the area just in front of the burners to stomp it out. That was my first mistake. I had not turned off the inflation fan. So the air whirling around my body made the fire grow even faster. Now my skirt is being melted and I am trying to stomp out the fire but it keeps growing. One of my ground team grabs the cooler and dumps the whole thing on the fire. That did not help either. Realizing that the fan was my biggest enemy I quit trying to stomp out the fire and went over and turned off the fan. At this point stomping out the fire was easy. If I had only turned off the fan in the first place the event would have been over in seconds.
2025-01-09