spike out
v. phr.— «If travel time to the side (or flank) of the fire where firefighters are assigned, they could be asked to “spike out” which means sleep in place rather than in the camp.» —“Release No. 0303.07: The Basics of Wildland Firefighting” United States Department of Agriculture Oct. 24, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The new Downton Abbey movie is a luscious treat for fans of the public-television period piece, but how accurate is the script when it comes to the vocabulary of the early 20th century? It may be jarring to hear the word swag, but it was already at...
As we’ve previously discussed, firefighters don and doff their equipment, terms deriving from do on and do off. They are also said to dout a fire, meaning they “extinguish” it, dout being a similar shortening of do out. This is...