May 21, 2014

Little Manatee River State Park

Wimauma, FL

Several times through the night we were awakened by the sound of trucks entering the compound to fill up with water. There was a crew up all night monitoring the hot spots.

While I worked my shift in the Ranger Station, Monte assembled the tools he needed to fix the brake lines on the tractor.

To access the brake cable he had to remove the emergency brake.

Monte discovered the cable was not attached to the brake bracket. 

He reattached the brake bracket.

When the tractor was finally working properly, Monte began cutting the overgrown trails. He managed to get quite a few trails cut before losing steering control. What?

Yep, he discovered that the steering arm had come off of the stationary bracket.

When he called one of the rangers to come pick him up Monte learned that the tractor had steering issues in the past.

 It was late in the day so the decision was made leave the tractor in the field and deal with it in the morning.

I had biked to the Ranger Station. On the ride home I stopped at a few locations to take pictures of the prescribed fire aftermath.