SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Jan. 15, 2025 (Gephardt Daily) — Unified Fire has shared new photos of the work Utah firefighters are doing to fight the Southern California wildfires.
Seventeen Utah agencies, from all over the state, have sent firefighters and equipment to the area, said Kelly Bird, of Unified Fire.
“There are three task forces, and then five engines that are in the group,” said Bird, who is assigned to one of the Utah task forces in a partially administrative role. His group was sent to the Palisades fire, the first of the three major wildfires that provided the earliest photos of the inferno-like scene.
That particular fire is an inferno no more, Bird said, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. A lot of it is searching for hidden hotspots that have the potential to spark new fires when combined with remaining dry fuel and unpredictable winds.
After the California state equipment inspection on Friday, his task force was assigned to start Saturday in “a particular area near Encino that the fire was progressing toward,” Bird said.
“They didn’t have anyone staged up there yet, so they wanted us to get up there immediately, with all of our teams to do some structural protection,” he explained. “There are some neighborhoods up there, and we were tasked with kind of assessing the area. It’s butted up right against some ravines and some wildland areas.”
His task force “set up defensive hose lines, checked hydrants, got attached to those we kind of surveyed, and assessed the landscape and the topography … looking at where the fire might most likely come up, you know, based on how steep the hill was, how thick the vegetation was — things like that to kind of give us an idea of what to expect.”
As they worked, they waited.
“We could see the fire burning pretty significantly in front of us. It was still a ravine or two away,” Bird said. “So it had a little ways to go, and there was no way of fighting at that point just because of the land, the landscape — there was no access. There’s no way to get in there. So we had to just wait for it to come to us.”
Nature provided a lucky break. The winds died down, and helicopters and air tankers could be deployed over the burning ravines.
“They did probably a four-to-five-hour deluge of air and retardant and water. There might have been eight to 10 different aircraft just circling around. Constantly right above us, dropping that water, dropping that retardant, and they made a really good stop on the progress of the fire, so it didn’t get very close to us. And by the time we were relieved with another set of units coming in, the fire was mostly extinguished, but not completely. There are still some things lingering.”
The work cycle is 24 hours on, 24 hours off, Bird said, “so we came off the next morning and had 24 hours to kind of rest, recuperate, and figure out some lodging where we were going to stay.”
They ended up on the third floors of a couple of buildings in a Santa Monica complex after the space was offered by owners, Bird said. Firefighters bring their own sleeping bags or portable sleeping setups.
“So we spread out, kind of like a big-boy sleepover,” he said, with a laugh.
“Monday morning we were back on and were assigned to work down between Santa Monica and Malibu, right there on the Pacific Coast Highway. There’s a stretch of neighborhoods that were pretty severely impacted and pretty much consumed with the fire, and we were tasked with going through and looking for hazards of power lines — trees that may have been impacted and were potentially falling that could be dangerous.”
Crews did find a number of hotspots and hazards, Bird said.
“We were able to put water on those hotspots and get those completely extinguished. And that was kind of our main task for the day, going through these neighborhoods and assessing this area.”
The night was a time to patrol several areas, “and we just watched for anything that might pop up. We did have one fire that did start up that night, and our crews that were nearby were able to quickly extinguish it.”
“The majority of the fire is out, like there’s no smoke coming off the mountain anymore for the Palisades fire. I can’t speak for the other fires. They are making sure that they are completely controlled and that there are no risks involved with a potential flare-up approaching.”
Tuesday was another day off, Bird said, “just kind of an opportunity to relax and recuperate, and then we were back at it this morning. And we’re doing pretty much the same thing today (Wednesday) that we did on Monday, in a little bit different area.”
Bird said crews walk between burned structures, careful not to walk inside in case a floor would give way or a beam might fall down.
“It’s been very safe so far for us,” he said. “We’re not walking on any of the debris. We’re walking between homes to get in the backyard areas, but we’re not taking any risks with walking on the structures.”
Bird said local residents in the area “are always swinging by and offering food, offering water. The state has systems set up for us to make sure that we’re fed and that we get drinks. So we are plenty taken care of there. We’re at no risk of sacrificing any pounds on this. In fact, we’re probably all going to come back a little bit heavier, because we are being fed so frequently.
“In fact, we’ve had to create somebody to coordinate meals that people want to bring in, so that we’re not having them just show up, you know, all of them on one day, and then not being able to eat them and wasting. So we’ve got somebody coordinating people that want to donate meals to us right now.”
There’s still a red-flag warning in the area, Bird said, so he can’t predict when his task force might head home.
“Tell people we’re doing fine. We’ve had no threat to our safety whatsoever. We’ve not been in any type of a risky situation. I know some people have been concerned with that, but we’re doing super well. Our spirits are high. We’re happy to be here to help. We’re really appreciative of the kindness that everyone here locally is showing to us, and the appreciation they’re showing to us, and we’re glad that we can be here to help.”
