On Saturday May 17, at approximately 8:15 am a call came out
requesting a strike team for the raging fires in San Diego County. Assembly
began at 8:30 am and engines rolled at 11:15.
Though the team was cancelled later in the evening, Calaveras had assembled a total of 7
engines to be sent; 5 on a Calaveras strike team and 2 to aid with a
Tuolumne/Calaveras combination strike team.
Strike team leader Chief Kovacs of Murphys and Copper Fire
briefed the crews of the Calaveras strike team.
“The fire near Camp Pendelton, with a reduction of the Santa
Ana winds and an onshore flow off the ocean, is heading toward large areas
consisting of light fuels (shrubbery) that has not burned in over 25 years”
said Kovacs. He also pointed to the erratic behavior of the fire including fire
whirls and asked that each member of the team study their IRPG (Incident
response pocket guide ) on the long drive down to reinforce their knowledge of
fire behavior and fire weather.
The first strike team included 5 Type VI engines from
Calaveras County. One each from San Andreas, Copper, Central, West Point, and
Murphys staffed with an engine boss and two fire firefighters.
“Type VI engines have a 300 to 400 gallon capacity, with a
150 to 200 gallon per minute pumping capacity,” said Captain Terry Billings of
Murphys Fire, “it is a federal fire, they tend to prefer the Type VI engines.”
An engine boss is a firefighter who has attained the “education for engineer
and has additional training, credentials and time invested” said Billings.
Many of the Type VI engines also have 4WD
allowing for structure or wildland fire response.
“We are set for everything,” said Ron Van Eaton of San
Andreas Fire Dist “we do it all.”
In addition to the engines, Strike team leader Kovacs, who
has been a Calaveras County strike team leader since 1998, rolled in a Ford
Excursion set up for mobile wildland communication. By his side was 30 year
CalFire veteran and retired Battalion Chief Craig Konklin as a strike team
leader trainee. Though Konklin has been on more strike teams than he could
calculate in his 30 year career with CalFire he said as a trainee he would be
“learning the paperwork and procedure of local government fire agencies.”
During the briefing Chief Kovacs emphasized professionalism,
“we are a team, we work like a team and act like a team.” He also was specific
regarding social media use by any strike team members, pointing to a zero
tolerance for social media use. “That’s not what we’re there for…I don’t want
incident information coming from my strike team.”
The 5 teams were as follows:
Copper Fire : Engine Boss Nick Maness , Ricky Molina, Doug
Ungari.
Central Fire: Engine Boss Mark Gonzalez, Brad Dougherty, Sam
Hoffman.
West Point: Engine Boss Jason Culp, Dorrie Klith, Trent Breckenridge.
San Andreas: Engine
Boss Jay Lange (with Murphys and Copper Fire), Ron Van Eaton, John Nixon.
Murphys Fire: Engine Boss Terry Billings, Tyler Milliken,
Jesus Aquilar.
The other engines sent from Calaveras County were for a
combination Tuolumne/Calaveras County strike team which included a Type III
wildland fire engine from Moke Hill and one from Calaveras Consolidated which
met up with three engines from various Tuolumne fire departments.
Strike teams from all over the state had been responding to
the San Diego fires since Governor Brown declared a State of Emergency for the
County of San Diego on 5-14-14 stating "the circumstances of these
wildfires, by reason of their magnitude, are or are likely to be beyond the
control of the services, personnel, equipment and facilities of any single
county, city and county, or city and require the combined forces of a mutual
aid region or regions to combat." In addition the declaration orders
"That all agencies of the state government utilize and employ state personnel,
equipment, and facilities for the performance of any and all activities
consistent with the direction of the Governor's Office of Emergency Services
and the State Emergency Plan."
Strike teams traditionally are called out for two week
deployments.
Upon the cancellation and return of the strike team Chief
Kovacs reiterated, as he has stated in other interviews, the importance of
training, whether utilized at this event or another.
“Each firefighter
spends approximately 60 hours for the initial wildland training and between 20
to 30 hours prior to each fire season performing refresher training. Topics include: Firefighter Safety, structure defense,
progressive hoselays, mobile attack, handline construction, fire shelter
deployment and heat stress to name a few.
Last year, Calaveras County strike teams had numerous deployments,
including a two-week stent to the Rim Fire in Tuolumne County.
The two strike teams were cancelled and turned around when
reaching Bakersfield, however assembling and responding, reinforces the
refresher training received each year, allowing personnel to exercise tasks and
complete the required paperwork. All fire engines and personnel returned safely
home that same evening.”
Charity Maness
Charity Maness