{"id":704,"date":"2012-05-31T19:51:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-31T23:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/2012\/05\/31\/prince-william-forest-park-week-2\/"},"modified":"2012-05-31T19:51:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-31T23:51:00","slug":"prince-william-forest-park-week-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/2012\/05\/31\/prince-william-forest-park-week-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince William Forest Park Week 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The second week at Prince William was full of a variety of fun activities and experiences.  <\/span>On Tuesday, I spent the day continuing to work on the hazardous fuel reduction project.  <\/span>We continued to work along Burma Road for the day, cutting away and removing fuels from the road.  <\/span>Wednesday, we traveled with Chief Ranger Cyndee Sirk-Fear and Ranger Dave Ballam to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park and took the PEB with several rangers from that park.  <\/span>It was nice to see some of the battlefield as well as meet more park rangers.  <\/span>Once we returned to the Prince William that day, Jessica, Subhi and I helped in cleaning the grills at the Oak Ridge Campground in preparation for a large number of campers expected over Memorial Day weekend.  <\/span>Thursday was certainly an awesome day, since I got to complete a wildland fire refresher and catch up and hang out with ProRangers from several parks in the region.  <\/span>We took part in fire shelter drills, constructed a fireline and some hose lines.  <\/span>During the afternoon we were divided into three squads to dig the firelines and this was great experience since it illustrated how critical communication and working as a unit are in order to dig a strong line, as well as ensure that everyone remains safe while working.  <\/span>Friday, we had the opportunity to travel to Harper\u2019s Ferry and drive through a Non-Emergency Vehicle Operations Course.  <\/span>There was an assortment of different law enforcement vehicles for us to drive, including a Ford Crown-Victoria, F-150, Expedition, and Dodge Charger.  <\/span>It was a lot of fun to drive through the course a couple times and get a feel for different vehicles and how they handled.  <\/span>Finally, I wrapped up the week with a ride-along on Saturday night.  <\/span>The ranger I rode with stressed the importance of obtaining a \u201cbaseline\u201d at the beginning of the shift.  <\/span>This includes an initial patrol through the park, looking for what belongs or should be in a given area and what does not, in addition to observing such things as which vehicles are parked where, and what campsites are occupied.  <\/span>This is also extremely important so when the ranger patrols past that particular area again, whether it is a campground or parking lot, he knows what has changed since he last drove through that area.  <\/span>Late in the shift, and well after dark, he caught three individuals drinking alcohol in one of the parking lots, now a closed area, and after contacting them, found marijuana and more alcohol in their vehicle.  <\/span>Eventually, he cited each person for several violations.  <\/span>It was interesting to watch the contact develop, while observing how he approached and dealt with multiple subjects, articulating to me exactly how he was able to search their vehicle.  <\/span>I certainly learned plenty from this contact alone.  <\/span>Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to train and spend time with fellow ProRangers, and definitely look forward to the week ahead.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Charles Papacostas<\/span><\/div>\n
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The second week at Prince William was full of a variety of fun activities and experiences.  On Tuesday, I spent the day continuing to work…<\/p>\n

Continue readingPrince William Forest Park Week 2<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,62,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-132","category-charles-papacostas","category-prince-william-forest-park","entry"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Paul Paire","author_link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/author\/paire\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/prorangerblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}