Merced Fire Captain Bryan Akers, 45, has been with the Merced City Fire Department for 22 years. But it was during his deployment on Jan. 8 to assist with the firefighting efforts at the Hurst Fire and Palisades fires that he came across his son, who also is a firefighter..
Mason Akers is working his first season with Cal Fire Tuolumne-Calavaras Unit. Although the two of them were working opposite shifts, they crossed paths while working with their crews.
“I hopped out and went and knocked on his buggy door,” Bryan Akers said. “He popped out, gave him a hug told him I love him, took a picture and I took off.”
Akers is a third generation firefighter and even worked some fires with his father Mark.
“When my boy started that was just kind of a dream of mine was to work together with him on something like that and it happened pretty quick in his career,” Akers said, adding that it took about six years before he worked a fire with his father.
Akers described it as a proud dad moment to see his son out there working the fire with his crew.
“I never pushed him to be a firefighter just like my dad never pushed me to do it,” Akers said. ‘It’s just something that we chose to do and the fact that he decided to do that I was ecstatic obviously when he decided.”
Yet, that was a happy moment among many sobering ones.
Akers said the crew he was a part of patrolled the fire line of the Hurst Fire at night making sure the fire was not flaring up in spots. The crew performed similar duties after it was reassigned to the Palisades fire as he and the crew were sent into the mountains areas while on a type 3 fire apparatus which is designed to go off-road.
The first wildfires Akers was deployed to were the 2003 Cedar Fire in San Diego County and the Grand Prix Fire that same year in San Bernardino County. Akers said he has assisted with firefighting efforts on wildfires pretty much every year since serving on roughly 30 strike teams.
The destruction that he witnessed caused by the Palisades Fire was similar to the destruction he saw while working the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County.
“It’s still something you don’t really get used to,” Akers said. “It’s kind of awe inspiring really —just how furious Mother Nature can be.”
Merced Fire Captain Matthew Van Hagen agrees.
“The devastation that we saw with the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire is — it’s definitely something that I’ve never experienced during my career and I hope I never have to experience it again,” Van Hagen said.
Van Hagen was one of several City of Merced firefighters deployed to assist with fire operations in Los Angeles County last month as part of a Cal OES type 6 fire engine response..
Van Hagen, 42, has been with the Merced City Fire Department for 19 years and was deployed to the Eaton Fire on Jan. 8, where he performed perimeter control chasing down hot spots in vegetation as well as around structures in some of the neighborhoods that were devastated by the fast moving wildfire.
Van Hagen said he was deployed to fight fires down in San Bernardino County in 2003 but the devastation he saw in the Los Angeles area was something he had not seen before.
Van Hagen returned to Merced on Jan. 19 when the task force he was a part of disbanded, but returned to Southern California on Jan. 20 to train and work as a public information officer on the Eaton Fire and the Hughes Fire before returning to Merced a second time on Jan. 25.
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He said he spent a considerable amount of time speaking with residents as they returned to neighborhoods and homes in the Altadena area. Firefighters also worked to supply water and food to the residents as well as assist in connecting them with aid.
“These folks were working at what used to be their home and digging through the ashes to find what little, possibly was laying there in those ashes,” Van Hagen said. He said it felt good to be there for them and to help supply them with water and food.
“They are so emotionally distraught and drained as a community down there right now, that the little things we take for granted such as reminding ourselves to eat and reminding ourselves to drink water—they have completely forgot about those simple human necessities because of the amount of emotional stress and damage that they have suffered as a community as a whole,” he said.
Van Hagen recalled speaking with an elderly woman in her 80s who was checking on the remains of her home. . She told him, as she held back tears, that everything that she owned was gone.
“It’s just heart wrenching,” he said.
Van Hagen said one of the things he will take away from the experience is to be grateful for every day and for everything that he has.
“As I witnessed, these folks lost everything in a matter of a couple hours,” Van Hagen said. “So the takeaway for me is to be grateful for everything that I have and the safety that I have.”
Both Akers and Van Hagen said annual wildland fire training not only helps to keep their skills sharp and deal with large brush fires in the area, but to also prepare them for larger incidents such as these.
Akers said the areas that burned have a history of burning and when they rebuild, he would like to structures that are able to stand up to the conditions caused by the Santa Ana winds. While working the Thomas Fire in 2017 during a Santa Ana event, Akers said structures were lost but homes that were made of concrete and glass were ones firefighters did not have to worry about as much as the others.
One of the best things residents who live in wildland fire prone areas can do for not only themselves but to assist firefighters, is to maintain 100 feet of defensible space around their property, according to Akers.
Both the Palisades and Eaton fires reportedly started on Jan. 7. The Palisades Fire has burned 23,448 acres and is 95% contained, according to the latest information released by Cal Fire on Feb. 4. The fire has damaged 973 structures and destroyed 6,831 structures. Cal Fire has reported three civilian injuries, one firefighter injury and 12 civilian fatalities connected with the incident.
The Eaton Fire is 100% contained and burned a total of 14,021 acres damaging 1,073 structures and destroyed 9,418 structures. Cal Fire reported nine injuries to firefighters and 17 civilian fatalities connected with the incident. The Hurst Fire, reported on Jan. 7, burned a total of 799 acres and is 100% contained, according to Cal Fire.
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