About Four-Eleven!

Four-Eleven! is a memoir about maintaining trails, fighting forest fires and flying fire patrol missions over the Cascades in the state of Washington. This book is grounded in the early history of the Forest Service dating back to the fires of 1910 in North Idaho. It explains the early Forest Service policy of quick response to contain forest fires. It focuses on modern aerial firefighting techniques some of which were first tested in the 1940’s and 1950‘s in the Chelan National Forest.

In Four-Eleven! the author shares his knowledge of the challenges caused by the Japanese Vengeance Balloons (Project Fugo) which were launched from Honshu Island and flew on the jetstream to land in the Pacific Northwest in 1944 and 1945. The balloons carried highly flammable incendiary devices as well as anti-personnel bombs. Thousands were sent to the United States to start forest fires and cause panic among our citizens. Few fires were ever started as a result but, one did kill 6 people in Oregon.

This book also recounts many interesting adventures experienced by the author while a seasonal employee of the US Forest Service in the early 1960’s. The events he describes took place near Lake Chelan and Wenatchee, WA. Readers will enjoy his stories about the high Cascades and will feel as if they are right there with

Rich as he fights forest fires and flies Forest Service

spotter planes.

This book is dedicated to all of those men and women who have lost their lives on western fire lines.