That night in Dalhart, my wife and I watched the evacuations of several
communities on TV. We were shocked when they began issueing fire warnings
for entire counties.

Because we had no idea what county we were in, or where we were relative to
the counties that where burning (only that the fires were "east"), we sat
there wondering just how close the fires were. The next morning the news
said that over 1,000,000 acres in TX had been burned. If contained to one
area, that's a square 40 miles by 40 miles. I have no idea what that number
may be today. Not to mention the surrounding states. The national news
coverage has been quite lacking on this subject lately.

You're right, there are heroes in the heartland. They, and you, will never
get the credit that you deserve but your friends and family will never
forget the effort and sacrifice that you've made on their behalf.

Let me, for one, thank you for not just "doing your job".

Jim


As an aside, the Aztec suffered no damage other than the broken torque link
center bolt. I stripped the paint from the torque link then had it dye
penetrated as well as X-Rayed, no cracks, dents, or damage. Re-primed,
painted, and installed with new hardware. As an extra measure, we put the
plane up on jacks, pulled the drag link, had it inspected, then reinstalled
with new hardware. No damage noticed but one of the drag link bolts had
significant rust, so it was good to get that one out. Trunion and upper
gear mounts were all inspected and looked great. Our local Aztec expert
A&P/AI signed it all off and was fairly impressed with the overall condition
of our landing gear and all it's bushings.

The dust, dirt, and grime picked up flying through those wind storms took a
week of evenings out of my life. The dust stuck to the plane like a magnet.
Add some smoke from the fires, oil and exhaust from the engines, exhaust
from the heater, some brief showers on the way home, and we had a layer of
sludge that didn't want to wash off. I wouldn't give up our heated hanger,
but without plumbing or water, the wash job still has to be done with a
squirt bottle and dozens of rags.