PROFILE: A pair of fire-fighting neighbors to the South

Nick Brown of Deer Springs and Kevin Lwson of Temecula helped fight North Bay fires|

Early in the morning of Oct. 9,?CAL FIRE Battalion Chief Nick Brown received a call from his Command Center Supervisor, requesting that he head 500 miles north to the Sonoma-Napa wildfires, to serve as a Branch Director. By 6 p.m., Nick had checked in with INTEL, and after two hours of sleep in his truck, was immediately assigned to the Partrick Fire in Napa.

“As the incident Commander,” he explains, “three divisions reported directly to me.”

At the same time, Kevin Lawson, Deputy Chief North Operations for CAL FIRE San Diego County, left Temecula to serve as Incident Commander for the 53-member CAL FIRE Incident Management Team (IMT).

“We are the Navy SEAL Team for the fire service,” says Lawson. “There are six teams throughout the state, and these fires deployed four of them.”

Drawing on 29 years of firefighting experience, Lawson explains how they integrated local first-responders into the unit.

“The IMT members live and work across the state, and we arrived to ongoing devastation,” he says. “Our responsibility was to bring organization by creating a plan and following the plan into process - while staying fluid. It was a blessing to have Napa County Fire Chief Barry Bierman as our subject matter expert - a professional who is very familiar with these communities.”

“I’ve been doing this for 18 years,” Brown says, “and I’ve never seen a fire grow so strong, so fast. We know that large fires produce their own weather, and the strong winds blew an ember path well ahead of the main fire. With a receptive fuel-bed and suburban housing built in the middle of wildlands, we watched in disbelief as the Partrick Fire rapidly merged with other half-a-dozen other blazes.”

Lawson add, “The magnitude was so overwhelming. Even professionals needed time to get our arms around it and digest it. It’s humbling to see how well the mutual aid system worked, as surrounding states got resources on the road to assist. The biggest take-away for me, is how we got all the Federal, State and Local resources we requested, and how communities came together for their residents - everybody was there to be part of the solution.”

Nick’s home base is at the Deer Springs Fire Protection District just north of Escondido (in eastern San Diego County).

“The rural-urban-suburban features of the Sonoma-Napa area are almost identical to those in my district, and we are very aware the same thing could happen here,” he says. “We get our share of fires, and have been through big ones. The catastrophic Sonoma-Napa fires are a wake-up call. This district has always been engaged in fire protection, but it used to be seasonal. Fire season is year-round now. Drought, tree mortality, Santana winds every year - whatever you label the reason for these changes, the result is the need for constant vigilance.”

When asked what the most important thing civilians can do about fires, Brown replies, “Know your surroundings, prepare an evacuation plan, and follow it. Have your go-bags ready with meds, food, water, clothing, hard drives, backups, and chargers. If possible, you should run evacuation drills - not only for fires but for earthquakes or other emergencies. Familiar roads may be inaccessible because of fallen trees and power lines, so have an alternate route figured out in advance, Pre-planning means you are prepared whenever that terrible, ‘only-10-minutes-to-evacuate’ warning comes.”

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.