Black Forest "Resource Order" Cake!

What happens when your husband spends more time with a group of guys in potentially dangerous situations for 5-6 months than he spends with you during the same time frame? Well, you get oddly attached to those guys as well. Yesterday, one of Berke's friends from work had his last day of his season to head back to school. Winkler is on the sister engine to Berkeley's engine and is leaving before a lot of the other student seasonals. So early in fact that the only resource order his engine got was this past Tuesday and he had to stay on forest. The poor kid didn't get off forest at all! So we decided to give him his own Resource Order. I apologize in advance for the low quality photos but this was a last minute project that was finished at 11pm Friday night and I didn't get a chance to snap a few shots before Berkeley took off for work Saturday morning.

About the decorations:
For those not so in the know about fires, the decorations show fire (sugar sheets and edible food pens) creeping towards a tree stand (coconut, and sugar cones). "The Black" is the burnt land (oreos). In the bottom right corner is a list of the "recent incidents" and is modeled after the report our dispatch center posts. Again it is a sugar sheet and edible marker. Instead of using frosting, I put a layer of my standby chocolate ganache on the cake to act as a glue (recipe variations here and here).

To make the whole thing complete, the cake itself is a play on Black Forest Cake. However, I didn't make a beautiful multi-layered whipped cream, cherry, almond mixture from scratch. Maybe next time! Instead I went semi-homemade.

Mock Black Forest Cake
ingredients

• 1 box (15 oz) Devil's Food Cake mix
• 3/4 c water
• 1/2 c oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 (21 oz) can Cherry pie filling

directions

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Prepare baking vessel with baking spray or butter/margarine. I used a 9X13in foil lasagna pan with a lid. 
2. Prepare the cake mix as directed on the box by combining the mix, 3/4 c water, oil and eggs until just moistened. Then beat in a medium speed for 2 minutes. 
3. Gently fold in cherry pie filling until thoroughly combined. Pour mixture into baking vessel. 
4. Bake as directed on the box. For a 9X13 it is at 350*F for 34-38 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out smooth. 
5. Let it cool before frosting or decorating!