Growing up in rural, western Montana, hot summers always seemed to bring the possibility of wildfires. I remember one summer as a teenager that a fire was burning in the mountains near our house. A Forest Service ranger drove up and asked my dad if they could use our property as a base for refilling water for their helicopters and how much would he charge? My dad replied that he would not charge anything of course. It was good that they were there to protect our house and property as well. Behind the house is a field and a small pond, and just behind that is Rock Creek, a blue ribbon trout stream. They placed hoses around the house along with a water truck parked nearby to defend it if needed. Then near the pond they set up a small pool to fill from the pond from which they would refill the helicopter reservoirs. Due to the frequency of the refilling, they also ran a water line down to the creek and started filling the pool that way too. Helicopters started arriving about every 15 minutes it seemed; filling up, and taking off. It was quite an operation, and wouldn’t be the last time they did this. It would happen three more times over the years. So, that gave me an appreciation for the Forest Service and its role in Fire Management and I am happy to be back working on the FAM contract and supporting FEPMIS (Federal Excess Property Management Information System), an inventory system I co-wrote that tracks the use of excess equipment used for firefighting purposes.