Local fire agencies stretched thin by busy wildfire season

Petaluma-area fire departments are joining the fight in a historic wildfire season, contributing personnel and engines in a broader, regional effort to halt the advance of flames in Lake County and elsewhere.

The exercise is something of a seasonal tradition in California, when the state calls on local firefighting agencies to help take on the dramatic rural blazes that often emerge in the dry summer months.

Yet this year’s season marks the most destructive in memory, as tens of thousands of acres of parched landscape burn amid California’s ongoing and historic drought, according to several firefighting leaders in southern Sonoma County.

“It’s almost unprecedented,” said Petaluma Fire Department Battalion Chief Jeff Holden, leader of a five-engine, multi-department strike team sent to battle Lake County’s Rocky Fire.

Three strike teams, each including five engines and a mix of personnel from various Sonoma County fire departments, were pitching in to firefighting efforts around Northern California early this week. A full 24 engines were assigned outside of the county, including those sent to cover stations for the state’s wildland firefighting agency, Cal Fire, Holden said.

“It really is a team effort,” he said.

Last week, as the Rocky Fire continued to rage, there were around 3,000 firefighters committed to the effort that were operating out of a base camp at the Lakeport fairgrounds, Holden said.

Firefighters have since begun to gain the upper hand on the fast-moving blaze that burned around 70,000 acres and destroyed 43 homes since it began east of Clearlake on July 29, according to Cal Fire. Much of the current work involves overhauling the scorched terrain, a heavy-duty landscaping operation that targets remaining hot spots, he said.

Yet danger still persisted. Nearing the end of a 12-hour shift, Holden’s team was among those sent to battle the new Jerusalem Fire that was burning thousands of acres elsewhere in Lake County.

The moment reflected the kind of incident-to-incident work that has kept some fire engines away from home for weeks, racing between fires in Solano County, Humboldt County, Napa County, Lake County and elsewhere. Crews are cycled out every few days, often a mix of firefighters from different agencies in Sonoma County.

Fire departments will boost staffing or call in off-duty personnel during the busy fire season in an effort to limit the impact that a faraway response would have on local firefighting and medical operations. Cal Fire typically takes the lead on large wildfires, calling on help from area departments, which receive compensation from the state, on a rotating basis.

Having put more firefighters on duty during the busy afternoon period, Lakeville Volunteer Fire Department Chief Nick Silva said his department was still among those feeling the impact as they put in greater mileage while aiding their fellow agencies.

“Because there’s less personnel in the county, sometimes we’re helping our neighbors farther away,” he said.

An off-road-specific fire engine that the Wilmar Volunteer Fire Department sent to help battle the Wragg fire near Lake Berryessa on July 19 was still out on assignment late last week, said Chief Mike Mickelson. Its crew, which included a Wilmar firefighter and a firefighter from the San Antonio Volunteer Fire Department, was most recently chasing a series of lightning-induced hot spots in the woods of Humboldt County.

Mickelson described the varying challenges presented by the diversity of landscapes burning in California, from fast-moving fires that race through grassland to the woodland fires that burrow unseen into underground root systems.

“This year, they’ve been burning in more of an extreme mode,” he said.

As of Monday, the Petaluma Fire Department had one firefighter and Holden, the battalion chief, assigned outside of the city, with all engines back in Petaluma, Holden said.

Yet an off-road engine from the Rancho-Adobe Fire Protection District was still in Humboldt, having set off originally to aid in July’s Wragg fire. District Chief Frank Treanor said the lengthy deployment hasn’t been a detriment to local firefighting or medical response, but that the sheer scope of the wildfire situation in Northern California has nonetheless been sobering.

“Every year, Cal Fire tells us it’s going to be the worst fire season in history,” he said. “This year, they’re right.”

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @Eric_Reports.)