Back from battle

Deepa Bharath

Fred Segwin had never seen so much fire in his entire career.

Last week’s battle with the blaze was not this Costa Mesa fire

captain’s first encounter with a wildfire. He’s fought fires in

Idyllwild, Anza and even the fiery scorcher in Laguna Beach 10 years

ago.

“But this one was like all those three fires rolled in one,” said

Segwin, who was part of the strike team that went from Costa Mesa to

San Bernardino.

It was like “being in a war zone,” he said.

“You hear about the devastation and how everything is totally

destroyed,” he said. “It’s different when you actually see it and are

a part of it. It’s hard to put into words. It’s as if a huge bomb

exploded in the area.”

Newport Beach Battalion Chief Ron Sutherland echoed Segwin’s

experience.

“It’s staggering to see so many homes on fire,” he said. “This is

the most firefighting I’ve ever done in my 27 years as a

firefighter.”

The Newport-Mesa strike teams worked almost round-the-clock,

stopping to rest only for minutes. Segwin and his team got to what

was called the “Old Fire” on Oct. 25. They didn’t leave until Oct.

29.

“Through all those days, we probably rested for a total of six

hours,” he said.

Sutherland and his team went almost nonstop from 10 a.m. Oct. 24

to 6 a.m. Oct. 26, with only two hours of sleep.

“We definitely had to battle fatigue,” he said. “It was tiring. It

was hot and it was very, very smoky. But we were going on pure

adrenalin.”

The Newport-Mesa teams tried to protect as many structures as they

could. Segwin and Sutherland said the biggest challenge was to decide

what to protect and what to let go.

“It was amazing to watch the fire rip through an entire

neighborhood and in the end look at one house still standing in the

block,” Segwin said. “Homes with tile roofs burned just as fast as

others. It was hard to comprehend.”

Sutherland said his team was not involved in evacuation, but ended

up urging reluctant homeowners to leave for their own welfare.

“There was this one guy we saw,” he said. “He was sitting on the

hood of his car staring up the hill. All around him, the fires were

burning, and there was smoke.”

They asked him what he was doing, and the man replied he was

watching his home burn down.

“We just told him to get out of there,” Sutherland said.

And he did.

“If he’d stayed on there, he would’ve burned for sure,” Sutherland

said.

Segwin said the conflagration gave him a “newfound respect for

fire and what can happen in the blink of an eye.”

He also had to make sure he and others in his team were safe. All

firefighters who were sent from Newport-Mesa returned home safe.

And when they got back, the magnitude of it all began to sink in

even more, Sutherland said.

“We tried our best to save people’s homes and lives,” he said.

“But once it’s all over, we always end up asking ourselves, ‘Did we

do all we could?’”

Newport Beach firefighters also came back with valuable lessons,

Sutherland said.

“We have problem areas in our own city, such as Newport Coast and

Buck Gully,” he said.

They have been talking about changing their firefighting plans for

those areas, Sutherland said.

“The important thing is how quickly you can amass a lot of

resources,” he said. “We need the most resources we can get as

quickly as we can get them. That seems to be the key.”

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at [email protected].