On Jan. 8, the day after the Palisades and Eaton fires broke out in Los Angeles County, Scott Means, the division chief of emergency management for the Sparks Fire Department, traveled to Southern California.
Means is a strike team leader, and was in charge of three Nevada Division of Forestry brush engines, as well as crews and vehicles from Elko County, Gardnerville’s East Fork Fire Protection District, and South Lake Tahoe’s Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District.
On Jan. 15, Means spoke with the RN&R from Altadena, where his team was working on the Eaton Fire. By then, some of the smoke and particulates clogging the air had cleared, and the sun was shining—but small fires were still flaring up.
“Our job’s basically been to come into the fire line and (stop)—they call them hotspots (isolated, smoldering pockets that could ignite) around the structures,” he said. “We’re continuing with a mop-up operation around the structures, but we’ve also been tasked with helping the residents in their recovery efforts.”
There were many residents who needed their help. As of press time, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection was reporting that 9,418 structures have been destroyed, and another 1,073 damaged, in the Eaton Fire alone.
“There are people trying to get in, trying to get their belongings and stuff, so we’ve been helping with that,” he said.
Capt. Travis Boggs, another strike team leader, is one of five people the Carson City Fire Department sent. He was also on the call and talked about what firefighters do to help fire victims.
“Whatever they need to ease their minds and help them re-acclimate to what’s happened,” Boggs said.
He said the team had been removing fallen trees from cars and cleaning up huge amounts of wind-blown debris. “We’ve cleaned up some roads, just trying to get the neighborhood back to being accessible and usable,” Boggs said.
Said Means: “Right now, we’re still a 24-hour resource, which means we stay out here all night. During the wind events, because the winds usually come in, in the evening, we pre-position in areas that we think might potentially be problems, and then we respond to service calls in our area.”
Firefighter logistics
The firefighters were working 24-hour shifts that week, with 24-hour periods off between shifts.
“We’re getting OK rest,” Means said.
They spent their off hours at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, where Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service had set up a camp for responders—one of the largest Means has ever seen.
“They set up camps like a small city,” he said. “We get water supplies, lunches, everything for the fire line from camp.”
There were quiet, climate-controlled sleep trailers with bunk beds, along with showers, kitchens, medical tents and counseling.
“It is, like, anything you ask for,” Means said. “They usually walk around dogs for therapy, so guys can pet dogs and play with dogs.”
He noted in a later conversation that interacting with the dogs can really help reduce stress levels.
“The community itself down here has been more than supportive,” he said. “We have people who cruise through our camp every day offering us fresh food, waters, Gatorades, all kinds of stuff.”
Among those in the area that week were crews from Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Mexico, Canada and other parts of California, as well as the California National Guard and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“We have strike teams from everywhere—every state on the west side of the United States,” said Means.
How resources are shared
Derek Keller, division chief of operations for Sparks Fire, explained how fire departments share resources.
“Scott only has to manage five captains, and then those captains each have their crew members,” Keller said. “It’s a tiered system to manage incidents all across the country. … When they need assistance in California, we can (often) get plugged in. We have certain specialties, and Scott is a strike team leader. So that’s what they’re looking for.”
Keller said Sparks Fire is prepared to work with agencies anywhere in the country.
“If they ask for help, we are going to try to help,” he said. “And if we ask for help, they’re going to try to help us.”
Sparks sent help to the Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in 2017, and the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, which remains California’s deadliest fire on record. Keller said that Sparks has also sent help to Utah, Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
He said that if an agency needs help with a fire in our region that is less than 12 hours in duration, no reimbursement takes place, but for incidents that are longer or farther away, the department in charge will reimburse for personnel and vehicle expenses, incidentals, lodging and, in this case, “the backfilling of Scott’s position.”
He expects to see reimbursement within a few months for Means’ work on the Eaton Fire from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, and he said that office should, in turn, be reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as the incident was declared a federal disaster.
Two weeks on the ground
Means spoke with the RN&R again on Jan. 24, one day after he returned to Sparks.
During his final week in L.A., he said, “We did a lot of community support, and we were available for calls inside the fire perimeter, so when a hotspot flared up or somebody saw smoke, we went and investigated or extinguished it.”
He and his team limbed more trees, uncovered more tree-damaged cars, and removed fire debris from entryways and yards. They put the debris in piles, and the cities of Pasadena and Sierra Madre picked it up to haul to dump sites.
Means’ team was tasked with identifying which houses in the fire area had pools. “Pools were considered hazardous materials at that point, because of the contaminants that got in the pool, so those had to be treated a certain way,” he said. “There were specific hazmat teams on site that would come deal with those things. There are a lot of pools down there, as you can imagine.”
Upon returning to Sparks, Means went back to business as usual. Normally, he has three-day weekends, but on his usual Friday off, he was doing catch-up work.
“Everything that’s been put off for 14 days needed to be picked back up,” he said. As the emergency manager for Sparks, he always has programs, City Council meetings and the like.
Means said witnessing such massive destruction has a significant impact on firefighters.
“I don’t think you ever get used to it,” he said. “You just kind of have to switch your mind into job mode—but you can’t let go of your personal attachment to what’s going on. You see a lot of people who have lost everything and are suffering, and it’s hard to detach from that.
“If you put yourself in their situation—I couldn’t imagine losing everything: photo albums of your kids, birth certificates, memorabilia, probably family heirlooms are even gone. That’s the stuff you can’t replace. So, you stay sensitive; you stay empathetic and sympathetic. At the same time, you have a job to do.”