OCEANSIDE: Firefighters recall NoCal deployments

Wildfires offer training, adventure for hundreds of firefighters

By SARAH GORDON - Staff Writer | Saturday, August 16, 2008 5:57 PM PDT ∞

OCEANSIDE ---- Daniel Gonzales, a 25-year-old Oceanside firefighter, described his June experience battling a wildfire in Butte County near Chico as "eye-opening."

On an engine built for city streets, he crept 25 miles up a freshly bulldozed mountain road to battle a massive forest fire, he said.

When the truck finally reached the blaze, it was like nothing he had ever seen: Dense trees shot flames hundreds of feet in the air. Midnight was as bright as day.

"The amount of fire and heat it put out was just incredible; it started to make its own weather conditions," Gonzales said.

Gonzales is among hundreds of North County firefighters who spent time on one of 1,500 fires that scorched Northern and Central California in June and July.

Under the state's mutual aid agreement, local resources are routinely deployed anywhere they're needed.

But never have so many North County fire personnel been sent so far from home, so early in the summer, career firefighters said.

In Oceanside, it's been a little over a week since everyone returned home. Between June 12 and Aug. 6, about 30 of the department's 100 firefighters were deployed for some period of time, Battalion Chief Pete Lawrence said.

The state will reimburse Oceanside and other city agencies for their costs, including the cost of overtime for firefighters back home who filled the shifts of those deployed, Lawrence said. An account of Oceanside's costs was not available Friday, but Lawrence said the city would bill the state "several hundreds of thousands of dollars."

The department never leaves the city vulnerable by sending too many resources, Lawrence noted.

'It does take a toll'

During the two-month period firefighters offered assistance, two of Oceanside's brush engines went north with strike teams from Carlsbad, Rancho Santa Fe, Solana Beach and Encinitas. Another brush engine, owned by the state's Office of Emergency Services and housed in Oceanside, headed out with similar engines from Escondido, San Diego, Murrieta and Riverside.

Gonzales was on duty at Station 5 in the northern part of the city June 22 when he was dispatched to the Butte Lightning Complex fire.

He spent 14 demanding days unlike any in his three years with the Oceanside Fire Department.

His four-man crew was assigned to build a line around a small area of the 59,440-acre mountain fire that threatened the small town of Paradise. They worked in 24-hour shifts, followed by 24 hours of rest in an auditorium at the Chico fairgrounds, where they slept on cots with hundreds of other firefighters.

They worked on rugged terrain the engine often couldn't reach.

"We were hiking miles and miles setting backfires," Gonzales said. "At one point, we were on all fours scaling hillsides."

At another point, he said, they shovelled dirt onto controlled burns for 10 hours through the night.

The young firefighter found the experience exciting and novel, but he was happy to return to his wife and two children when the 14 days were up and a replacement crew arrived in a rented van.

"It does take a toll at home and you totally miss your family," he said.

A wildland adventure

All firefighters know they can be called out of town at any time, but assignments on certain equipment make it more likely. For the 15 firefighters who work at Oceanside's Station 4 on Lake Boulevard, a deployment is inevitable because of the state brush engine housed there.

The state's Blue Ribbon Commission has announced plans to eventually place 150 of the $250,000 engines around the state. The Oceanside and Escondido fire departments were among the first to get the state resource, which is staffed by city firefighters.

The new engine hadn't been in Oceanside a week before it was deployed June 12. It was gone until Aug. 6.

"We knew they were going to be busy; I don't think we knew it was going to be this busy," said Capt. David Overton, who spent 24 days out of town on the engine in a little less than two months. Firefighters in the region are generally required to work 14 days before another crew replaces them.

Overton, who has been with the Oceanside Fire Department for 19 years, said he requested to work at Station 4 to get more experience on large-scale, coordinated fire attacks.

On June 23, he and three firefighters reported to the Indians fire near King City, a 81,378-acre blaze that started June 8.

For most of the 14 days, Overton and his crew worked in 24-hour shifts, mopping up spot fires, looking for new fires and helping residents make their homes more fire-resistant by clearing brush and cutting trees.

One day, the crew spent 15 hours cutting vegetation to make way for engines.

"The work is not necessarily harder when you're out there, but it's a longer duration," Overton said. "We all knew that ahead of time and were on the exercise bicycles to prepare."

With the exception of a night outside on cots, the crew slept at a Salinas motel. Time there meant washing clothes, cleaning the truck and, for some, including 28-year-old firefighter J.P. Neilson, growing restless.

"It's nice to get your nap, then you're ready to get out there again," he said.

In Oceanside, firefighters can bid on a new station assignment each year. Neilson said he bid on Station 4 in pursuit of wildland adventure.

"You just get to see more fire on big campaign fires," he explained. "You're out there in the middle of nowhere with the boys, fighting fire with them. It's a good time."

Lawrence, the battalion chief and a 20-year department veteran who spent 20 days in the Mendocino National Forest as part of an incident command team, said he cannot recall another summer when so many Oceanside firefighters were deployed so far away. But a lengthening fire season and out-of-town firefighting is becoming more common.

"What used to be once-in-a-career fire seasons are becoming normal fire seasons," he said.

This year, the fire season has just begun, and Oceanside firefighters are prepared to battle more wildland fires near and far, Lawrence said.

"We're enjoying the rest, but we know it won't last," he said.

Contact staff writer Sarah Gordon at (760) 740-3517 or sgordon@nctimes.com.