NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

As we write, the Santiago fire is burning into week two. It was only 75% contained as of Tuesday, with predictions that it wouldn’t be out until Sunday.

On Oct. 26, Vic arranged a visit for us to the fire base camp at Irvine Regional Park through Fire Chief Duane Olson. We visited the strike team from Huntington Beach while they were on a rest break. We also got a short course in the logistics of fighting wild fires in Southern California. It was like being backstage in a war zone; a constant stream of fire engines, water trucks, food delivery trucks, and other vehicles rolled through the park gates, joining the many units already there.

“We have lots of air attacks going on now,” Olson said, “but we have to have bulldozers too. It’s just like a war campaign. It’s fought from the air and ground.”

Equipment from the Huntington Beach Fire Department is designed to fight structure fires, so structure protection is the main assignment of crews from here. Engines used by the U.S. Forest Service are built with four-wheel drive and bigger tires to help them negotiate dirt backroads. Vic and I have driven a number of the roads in the area, such as Santiago Canyon, Maple Springs and Main Divide roads. The country back there is wild, and the roads are steep and rocky, with hairpin turns. There is no way a city fire engine could navigate them.

The mood at base camp was cautiously optimistic.

“There’s a marine layer coming in tonight,” Olson said. “If the weather cooperates for the next three days, we can get a handle on it.”

We toured base camp with Capt. Bob Culhane, a deputy fire marshal from Huntington Beach, and Chad Garrett, a firefighter from Station 1 in Huntington Beach at the Gothard Training Center. They and the other crew members had arrived Friday, replacing another crew from Huntington Beach that had been assigned to the Santiago Fire.

They all worked on Huntington Medic Engine 41, which remained at Santiago for six days. Other strike teams from Huntington Beach had been sent earlier to the Malibu Fire in Los Angeles County and the Witch Fire in San Diego County.

Early during the inferno, Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather, who is in charge of the Santiago blaze, had complained about insufficient help and equipment.

That wasn’t the case by Oct. 26. More resources had become available and there were more than 2,000 firefighters either on the fire lines or in base camp preparing to go out. As we arrived, we saw even more units pull in, including a horse trailer from Search and Rescue. An entire parking lot at Irvine Regional Park was filled with rows of firefighting apparatus: red, fluorescent green, brilliant yellow and white trucks.

Irvine Regional Park had been turned into a small city. Hundreds of tents were pitched over the park. A massive chow tent was being set for dinner, with seating for several hundred people. The alluring smell of barbecue drifted through the air, mingled with the smell of burning chaparral. The dining tent was labeled a “gun-free zone.” That struck us as odd, but Culhane explained there were prisoners present from the California Department of Corrections, as well as armed Orange County Sheriffs deputies. If an armed deputy sat down for a meal, a prisoner behind him could steal his gun.

We were amazed by row upon row of portable toilets, a portable laundry facility, and a mountain of bottled water stacked on wooden pallets, enough to more than fill an 18-wheel truck. Portable showers had signs that read “Take off your boots.” Firefighters straight off the fire lines go into the showers in their yellow turnouts to scrub them off before washing themselves.

Stacks of boxed snacks sat ready to be handed out by Community Emergency Response Team volunteers. Vic was pleased to see Bob McElhiney, a student in one of his birding classes who is also a CERT volunteer from Huntington Beach. This fire not only requires thousands of firefighters, it also takes a huge number of volunteers and support staff.

The saddest thing, however, was the row of ambulances we saw parked by the medical tent, a reminder that fires cause injuries and even deaths. As of Tuesday, 10 firefighter injuries had been reported.

One of the more impressive sights was the huge mobile command center brought by the Orange County Sheriffs Department. This solid black behemoth looked like a cross between the largest RV you can imagine and an 18-wheeltruck. The side of the vehicle slid out to make additional room. This center served as the base of operations for a coordinated attack on the fire, as well as the search for the arsonist who set it.

A unified command runs the show. For the Santiago Fire, it consists of the Orange County Fire Authority, the U.S. Forest Service, California Fire Authority, and the Orange County Sheriffs Department.

The command is broken down into planning, operations, logistics and finance. The latter took me by surprise, but of course someone has to keep track of and pay for all of that food and drink, laundry, toilets, medical services, and the personnel and engines that come from surrounding cities and even from surrounding states. The tab as of Tuesday was up to $9.5 million and counting.

The entire operation seemed overwhelming, but it is broken down into small tasks. Everyone is assigned a part for which they have trained. Olson explained that strike teams comprise five engine crews and a strike team leader, usually a battalion chief. Engines from different fire departments are sent to the site of an active fire for a three-day shift. A strike team is usually composed of engines from different cities, but generally from the same geographic area. Because some came to the Santiago fire from as far away as Oregon, Nevada and Arizona, the first day on-site is spent at base camp, doing equipment checks and preparing for firefighting the next day.

Once the firefighters hit the fire lines, they are there for 24 hours, working without sleep for the entire day and night. The next day they must once again check their equipment, restock missing supplies, and replace fire hoses that have burned through. Of course, at the height of a fire, they can be redeployed during their rest periods. When Huntington Beach sends a crew to a fire less than 100 miles away, it is demobilized after three consecutive 24-hour shifts to prevent fatigue.

As environmentalists, one of the things on our minds was how the wild lands will fare from this fire. Areas that we know and love have been burned. Fortunately O’Neill Park and the Ramakrisna Monastery on Live Oak Canyon Road were spared, but parts of Black Star Canyon burned, as well as an enormous amount of backcountry in Santiago, Silverado and Modjeska canyons.

“We’ve seen all kinds of animals run from fires,” Culhane said. “But a lot of them die, too.”

Birds fly to other areas that are already full with other birds; deer and mountain lions run into territories that are already occupied by other deer and mountain lions; lizards, snakes and some rodents go underground. But after the fire is over, the landscape is burned, and there is no food for anything except vultures and ravens. Deaths of birds and other animals continue long after the fire is out. The animals simply starve.

On Saturday, Culhane’s crew was assigned to protect structures at the end of Trabuco Canyon. A shift in wind could have spread flames down the slope and into the canyon at any time. A homeowner had stayed to protect his property. He had sprayed his house with Barricade, a foam-based fire retardant. He had a swimming pool full of water and a gasoline-powered pump, everything that is needed to protect a home from fire. Because the Barricade is good for only 24 hours, the Huntington Beach crew laid out their hoses in case the fire shifted and they needed to reapply foam to the house.

“Our job, our little part of the big picture, was to basically guard that house,” Culhane said. “That was our assignment.”

Fortunately, at that stage of the fire, there were enough resources to guard all of the houses. That hadn’t been the case early on. Protecting peoples’ lives and property is a crucial part of the overall effort. As of Tuesday, more than 28,000 acres had burned. Fifteen homes and nine outbuildings were destroyed, and another eight homes and 12 outbuildings were damaged. Luckily, Trabuco Canyon was spared, at least this time.

Huntington Beach crews were demobilized Sunday and now are back at their regular stations in town. Other crews from other towns replaced them as the fire burns on.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].