For the Wilderness Survival merit badge, the scouts go up on Yeti Mountain (or somewhere else, but usually Yeti Mountain) and stay the night in shelters they build there. Yeti Mountain has a plentiful supply of dry wood, so people (including the staff) like to build fires. On occasion, they don't get put completely out.

One week in 2001, a fire on Yeti burnt underground for several days, and then lit the hillside on fire. The forest service put it out with a helicopter and a big bucket. The following week, we took the Wilderness Survival classes to the hillside above the firebowl, another plentiful source of dry wood. That was on Tuesday night.

On Saturday morning, as the staff was getting ready to leave for the weekend, Loren noticed smoke coming from above the firebowl. Bill said "Why don't a few of you guys get on your bikes and see what that is." Everyone took off. Now the trail to the firebowl is steep, and impossible to climb with a bike. But I wasn't thinking clearly at that moment, and I sprinted over to Camp Merlin to get my bike, and rode it across the parade ground to the foot of the Spanish Trail. I abandoned my bike there, and ran up the hillside. I grabbed a shovel from behind the stage as I passed, and twenty yards beyond the top of the steps, I heard Collin call down from above me "WATER BUCKETS!!"

I repeated the call down, and continued toward Collin's voice. There were six inch flames covering about a six square foot area on the hillside. Several logs, the remains of a shelter, were leaning against a tree, and the fire was starting up them. Collin grabbed them, put them out, and threw them aside, and I started shoveling burning wood and pine-needles from the center of the blaze. Jaime, who had also beaten me there, started stamping them out as fast as I could throw them out.

More people arrived, with water and tools. We continued to fight the fire for another half hour before we had everything under control. It had burned about a 3x5 foot area. If we had been one minute later, the camp would have had to be evacuated.

As we started back down the hill, those of us who were the first on the scene started coughing like crazy. We had inhaled a lot of smoke, and it took us several hours to get it all out. I went to Twin Falls that weekend, and Collin tells me the fire started up again later that day. In 2002, we burnt part of Yeti mountain again. We no longer have fires on Wilderness Survival treks.

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