As I rounded the corner on Middle Fork Lane, the smoke plume already billowed over the Oxbow Ranch.

Trees were afire, and the wind was pushing flames into angry swirls. When I roared into the ranch headquarters, Brian Cochran and a helper were hustling to get a water pump going. One pump wasn’t going to do. This was going to get worse in a hurry.

So I did what I thought best. I left. No, I wasn’t turning my back on a friend in need. I had something back at my place that could help: a fire truck.

Last year, I bought a surplus 1956 fire pumper from the City of Long Creek. Oh, the ribbing after that went on for months. Neighbors and friends thought I had gone goofy. A fire truck? What for?

The answer sat beneath that plume at the Oxbow.

I raced the three miles back to our place, jumped into the loaded pumper, and headed back up river to the Oxbow.

Mind you, I’d only driven the truck at low speeds on the short stretch between the house and the barn at our Boulder Creek Ranch. Now was the time to hustle. I worked through the balky gears and lurched down the drive and onto the road.

Almost immediately, I discovered that a steering wheel doesn’t make you master of a fire truck. The real boss at that moment was the 500 gallons in the water tank.

When I tried to turn through the first curve, the steering wheel seemed stuck. The truck wasn’t turning. It was going straight. The weight of that water was pushing us like a booster rocket. I yelped a dirty phrase, and yarded on that steering wheel with all my might. I jammed my foot on the brakes, and in that instant expected the worst.

My mind flashed to an image of the truck upside down over the bank, the wheels spinning, the water draining away uselessly, and me sputtering in the cab.

Adrenaline helped me win the tug-of-war as I plowed through that corner. Then, I slowed down just a touch. The Boulder Creek Ranch Fire Department was not going to muff its first fire call.

In a moment, I recognized a rig coming towards me as that of John and Monica Collins, friends who’ve set up in Galena. They had been as bemused as any with the fire truck acquisition.

But this was no time for bemusement. Without stopping, I leaned out the window as they drove past and shouted “Follow me!” They looked at me like I was nuts, obviously unaware of the looming danger at the Oxbow.

They fell in behind me, and trailed me through the Oxbow’s west entrance. We pulled up to a few rigs already gathered at the old ranch headquarters.

“It’s so nice to see your fire truck,” said one woman watching the flames.

By that time, the fire was burning furiously to the east, away from where we were. Still, winds could shift in an instant and blow the fire right back at those old ranch buildings. We went on watch, with nothing much to be done. We were the rear guard.

Then a volunteer firefighter pointed to a wooden rock jack. Flames were licking at its base. Could we deal with that, he asked. John and I told him “sure” as if firefighting was just an everyday chore for us.

John dragged the one-inch hose off the reel, posting himself by the burning rock jack. I took on the job of operating engineer, facing a wall of dials and knobs I barely understood. The task seemed simple – get water from the tank to the hose. I turned one dial, pushed the throttle control, spun open a valve, and got the pump up to a good growl.

Whatever I did worked, and John sprayed the fire. Mission accomplished, so it seemed. We went back on watch.

Soon, the rock jack flared back up and, well, it became a lost cause. Brian, the Oxbow manager, strolled by later and shook his head when he saw the smoldering pile. You could see he was thinking: 500 gallons of water and you can’t even save a rock jack.

Well, no matter. John and I felt pretty good. This was our first official fire run. It proved not to be the last of the summer.

Not long after that, a fire broke out about a mile downriver of our place. It was the same circumstance as at the Oxbow: Tree into a power line, forest on fire.

When word came of this fire, I raced for the fire truck, yelling at Scotta to holler down to Galena for help. No one was “on scene” when I arrived at the fire. Whipped by wind, the fire was racing uphill away from the road.

For a moment, I had the stupid idea of dragging a hose up the hill and squirting some of the burning trees. I had nowhere near enough hose to get up there.

As I pondered my next move, here came John and Monica, shadowed by a half-dozen other rigs from Galena. We agreed there wasn’t much to do, and we turned our attention to a fresh worry.

The fire was spreading rapidly, straight for our place. We raced – sort of – back to the ranch. John, Monica and a handful of other Galena volunteers fell in behind us. Back at the ranch, everyone helped drag hose line, set pumps, and get ready for trouble. Fire already had crested the hill beside the ranch. There was nothing to do but wait for the professionals.

Well, not absolutely nothing.

To keep the Galena volunteers on duty, Scotta busted out cold cans and bottles of beer. The would-be firefighters set up lawn chairs, popped open their refreshments, and watched the professionals at work. The pros did a good job, turning the fire away from us.

The volunteers did a good job too – of cleaning us out of beer. I made a mental note to be better prepared on that front for next fire season.

At summer’s end, the tally board for the Boulder Creek Ranch Fire Department didn’t look too impressive:

Fire calls: 2.

Structures saved: 0

Structures lost: 1

Hey, we tried. Next season, with a little more hose line and a little more beer, we could be quite a formidable department.

Les Zaitz writes occasionally about ranch life.