We didn’t get back to Loleta until around 1am and by 6am my back was hurting so I got up to watch one of the weirdest sunrises I’ve seen. With all the smoke drifting in from the fires, the sun looked more like a stage light. Very red, and dim enough that you could look right at it. It looked more like a red moon than the sun. Stayed that way for a couple of hours.

After breakfast at Denny’s where there was an open tab for all the firemen, we headed back to the Fortuna station. We were there with another crew from the Fortuna Fire Dept. They got more calls than us, possibly because they had a Type 2 engine. But since all their calls seemed to happen just as they were sitting down for a meal, we were more than happy to let them respond. We did go on one call for a small vegetation fire in Rio Dell on Highway 101. It was out by the time we got there so we just helped with mop up.

Again we went back to Loleta for the evening, but this time we were provided with some old army cots. They’re only slightly more comfortable than sleeping in the back of a truck.