This weeks guest is Jon Berlin. Jon us unlikely to be known to many of you but this is great story so stay tuned.
We recently learnt of Jon's accomplishments after an article in the San Francisco Chronicle highlighting his herculean efforts to support the bushfire response in what was know as the Glass fires.
The Glass fires started on September 27, 2020, at 3:48 AM (PDT) from an undetermined cause and was active for 23 days.
The Glass Fire was fully contained on October 20, 2020, after burning over 67,484 acres and destroying 1,555 structures, including 308 homes and 343 commercial buildings in Napa County, as well as 334 homes in Sonoma County.
Jon military training helped, and you will hear how he was able to support the California Fire response efforts through a combination of familiarity with the terrain BUT even more relevant the ability to traverse the countryside on a trials bike which saved precious times, and allow him to get places where traditional fire response could not or would take too long.
As you will also hear, Jon's support was also to his local community and neighbours that were starved of up to date information about the state of their properties.
John has only been riding trials about 7 years, but since that time he has bitten the bug completely and has put 270 hours on his bike in 6 months, probably another 60 more during the fire response, and has now locked his annual pilgrimage to the SSDT is now a lock in his calendar each year having done them since 2016.
I've linked through to the San Francisco Chronicle article in the show notes...definitely worth a read.
I hope you enjoy this chat with Jon Berlin.
Links:
Feedback: podcast@trials.com.au