As wildfires rage throughout Central and Southern California – and Redding-area firefighters battle them – Mother Nature has largely spared the North State.
But fire chiefs say they don’t want to take any chances when they send firefighters to other parts of the state to aid those grappling with the infernos that, together, have raged across 144,826 acres.
“We have a staffing model that’s always exactly the same. There’s always the same number of people on duty,” said Gerry Gray, chief of the Redding Fire Department, which had 11 of its 75 firefighters on some of those blazes. “That means some people don’t get days off.”
The Anderson Fire Department had put five people on fires, said Steve Lowe, Anderson Fire Protection District spokesman. They’d just reached Woodland coming back from 21 days on a fire when they were called to another fire, he said.
Most of the firefighters, however, came from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. More than 100 have been deployed, of whom about half are seasonal, said Cheryl Buliavac, spokeswoman with Cal Fire.
The system, known as mutual aid request, is the best in the country, Gray said.
“I know of no other aspect of government that is so well structured to meet the needs of our community with outside resources,” he said.
Most fires that involve mutual aid are ones on the outskirts of Redding and Anderson when both the city and Cal Fire respond. But massive fires prompt the agency in charge to put out a request for help that goes to every Cal Fire dispatch center, which then relays it to other agencies, including federal ones.
Those agencies then evaluate current conditions and how many they can spare, said Scott McLean, a battalion chief with Cal Fire. Other agencies can use the system to request help as well.
When a request comes in, the on-duty battalion chief looks at weather conditions and forecasts, fire danger, staffing levels, distance and other factors, Gray said.
“There’s not a simple formula, and some of those decisions are based on historical practice and sometimes a fire chief’s gut feeling of what’s best,” he said. “Obviously we want to ensure we always maintain a sufficient level of protection for our community.”
That means sometimes saying no.
“There are occasions (when) we’re dealing with big fires on our own, or the area is stripped of resources, we just have to decline that request,” he said. “If all neighboring agencies are indicating they have a very low level of resources … then we’re much more reluctant.”
Once those firefighters are assigned, they leave immediately, McLean said. Some go to the fires themselves while others serve as substitutes for nearby agencies whose personnel are on a wildfire, he said.
They work 24 hours on, 24 hours off for 14 days, although they can stay an additional week if asked, Gray said.
Conditions on the front lines are rough, said Gray, who realized he wanted to be a firefighter while on one of those lines in Lassen National Forest. “They often sleep in the dirt in between assignments,” he said. “Many times I myself have spent the night in the dirt, trying to get some rest before the next day’s assignment,” he said. “We are also dealing with poison oak – four firefighters had to get prednisone shots.” They also rarely have cell coverage and send little more than one text a day, he said.
“It’s one of many things that keep fire chiefs awake at night,” he said.
