Marin firefighters stand their ground
With firebreak built, they keep watch near Windsor to protect nearby residences
Two dozen firefighters rested in the scar left by the Tubbs Fire in 2017, waiting for a new blaze to arrive.
It was Tuesday night and they had finished a backburning operation northeast of Santa Rosa, clearing brush to create a blackened line of defense against the advancing Kincade Fire. Now there was nothing left to do but stay put until the winds shifted.
The Marin County crews were assigned to a narrow piece of land near rural Leslie Road that had been spared in 2017, when the catastrophic Tubbs Fire swept west from Calistoga on a windy autumn night not unlike this one.
Just over a ridge was the community of Mark West Springs. They were determined not to let the Kincade Fire torch it by breaching their 100footwide defense line.
It had happened before, though, and it could happen again. That thought was on the minds of the 24 young firefighters who were split into two teams overseen by a foreman and a captain, as they sharpened their rakehoes with tools known as bastard files, pausing to drink water from bottles splattered with pink fire retardant.
More than 4,500 firefighters and support staffers had joined together in Sonoma County to battle the fire that ignited last Wednesday evening near Geyserville, possibly by a malfunctioning Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power line.
The Tamalpais Fire Crews — known
as Tam 1 and Tam 2 — were among the reinforcements. The Kincade Fire was personal for them. It ignited one county away from their stations in Marin County, and they were among the first crews dispatched last week.
Many of their colleagues live in Sonoma County, in areas threatened by the fire. They’ve slept little, defending houses in the city of Windsor and communities like Shiloh Ridge and Valley Vista, so people have a place to come home to.
Many of the young crew members were on their first big wildfire.
“They typically do two years on crew, then move off,” said Capt. Matt Watson, 31. “They have close friendships with each other. They have a best friend from their first year and a new best friend from their second year, who don’t know each other. Those connections go back and back.”
During Tuesday’s breakfast at the sprawling base camp at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, they drank coffee and scrutinized the containment map. They were proud that the tiny black line in Division Papa, near the fire’s origin in the Geysers, represented something they had built.
Hours later, off Leslie Road, the crews refilled canisters of gasoline used for saws and the drip torches that burn away brush. Smoke was dissipating from the evening sky as helicopters made their last water drops. The nighttime chill descended. The firefighters turned on their headlamps and massaged each other’s sore shoulders.
“It’s going to be a cold one,” joked Andy Evans, 25, of San Jose. “I’m talking emergency blankets and drip torches.”
If the evening stayed calm, as they hoped, they planned to sleep upright in their buggies, the rugged vehicles that carry them into wildfire zones. Or climb into their sleeping bags on the cold but relatively comfortable dirt.
Marin County Fire Chief Graham Groneman likened the Tuesday evening routine to living in a pocket of normalcy, uncertain of what nightfall would bring. It also felt like a second chance to save a place that was ruined in 2017.
“Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and some brownies,” one of the older firefighters called out, holding up a baggie of desserts. “Homemade from my wife.”
“They’re so good,” yelled Gibson Buttfield, 23, of Stinson Beach, as everyone cheered.
They got into their buggies, where it was warm, and played rounds of games until it felt like they couldn’t stay awake any longer.
What would you take camping or bring on a safari?
Would you rather have the power of flight or super strength?
Everyone was laughing, exhausted. Midnight passed. The National Weather Service downgraded its highwind advisory. In the gully, the buggies were struck only by a breeze.
Sunrise brightened the sky. The fire never came.