community
march1
2018
7
Into the Inferno
Local firefighters talk about
their experiences battling the
Thomas Fire in Southern
California in December and
why they went to help
By Scott Laird
Last December California had
one of the worst wildfire seasons in their
history, including the massive Thomas
Fire that raged between Ventura and
Santa Barbara, while Oregon held its
collective breathe last summer as fire-
fighters battled the Eagle Creek Fire in
an attempt to save Mutnomah Falls and
the scenic Columbia River Gorge.
Local firefighters from Colum-
bia County were deployed last year as
part of strike teams to help fight fire in
both those regions.
Ben Davis is a professional
firefighter with Columbia River
Fire and Rescue. He is also a
Vernonia resident and member
of the Board of Directors for the
Vernonia Rural Fire Protection
District (VRFPD). Columbia
River Fire and Rescue provides
emergency services for St. Hel-
ens, Columbia City, and Rain-
ier. Will Steinweg is the paid
Training Captain at VRFPD.
Both these men were deployed
to Southern California as part
of a strike force from Columbia
County and spent 14 days fight-
ing the Creek Fire just north of
Los Angles, the Lilac Fire near San Di-
ego, and the Thomas Fire. Earlier in the
summer Vernonia Fire Chief Dean Smith
spent time helping fight Oregon’s Eagle
Creek Fire.
The massive Thomas Fire be-
came California’s largest wildfire in
history, burning 281,893 acres while de-
stroying 1,063 structures and damaging
280 others.
Just how do local firefighters
end up in Southern California fighting
fires?
According to the Oregon State
Fire Marshal’s Office, California ini-
tially made a request for mutual aid in
early December. Oregon Emergency
Management then contacted appropriate
agencies around the state and assembled
15 strike teams, made up of a total of 269
personnel and 75 equipment apparatus,
to mobilize and head to California to as-
sist in containing and fighting the fires.
It’s all part of the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact, a
national state-to-state mutual aid system
that can only be enacted by a state’s gov-
ernor in the event of emergencies.
Columbia County’s strike team
was made up of 17 personnel from vari-
ous agencies, including Davis and Stein-
weg. After assembling in Scappoose
on short notice (Davis says activation
notice for wildfires can be as advanced
as 24 hours, or maybe just an hour), the
team traveled in a 22 hour caravan to the
Creek Fire. After a day of rest the team
spent shifts of 24 hours on, 24 hours off
for the next 14 days. They spent several
days at the Creek Fire, were moved to
the Lilac Fire, and finally ended up being
deployed to the Thomas Fire.
At the Creek and Lilac Fires the
Columbia County strike team acted as a
“quick response” group and were sent to
initially attack fire flare ups.
At the Thomas Fire the strike
team were engaged in structural protec-
tion. They cleared burnable debris and
brush from around homes, cleaned out
gutters, and moved wood piles.They set
up sprinklers on all the homes on one
street and all those homes were saved.
They also did some active firefighting
where they had an opportunity to work
alongside professional wildfire fighting
“hotshot crews,” digging containment
lines, helping set back burns, coordinat-
ing with helicopters dropping fire retar-
dant and water, and doing other clean up.
Davis and Steinweg talked
about the difference in fighting structure
fires compared to fighting wildland fires.
“We’re all taught about the fire triangle
which says the three things you need
for a fire are heat, fuel, and oxygen,”
explains Steinweg. “In structural fire-
fighting you try to take away the heat. In
wildland firefighting, you take away the
fuel. It’s a really different
mindset.”
“In structural fire-
fighting we’re taught from
the beginning, ‘You have to
put the fire out. You have to
attack it.’” adds Davis. “If
you apply that same men-
tality to wildland fires you
can get people hurt or killed.
It’s more about figuring
out where you can stop it
rather than attacking it head
on. We try to direct the fire
around the structures we’re
trying to protect.”
In fact, a firefighter
from California was killed in
the line-of-duty while fight-
ing the Thomas Fire while
the Columbia County strike
team was there.
Neither
Davis nor Steinweg has been
part of a fire that
had a line-of-duty
death, and found
the experience very
sobering. “It really
brings home just how danger-
ous it can be and how quickly
the conditions can change” said
Davis.
At the Thomas Fire
camp was set up at the Ventura
County Fairgrounds where, fol-
lowing their shifts, firefighters
took turns trading bunk space set
up in tractor trailers that housed
40 firefighters each. Davis says
that at one point there were about 8,600
firefighters in the camp who had trav-
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