Shift in strategy: Firefighters begin to take more methodical tack
As wildfires flared to life throughout Northern California last week, firefighters didn’t ponder how best to respond. They raced to get people out of danger and keep things from getting totally out of hand.
The scene is different now — still potentially lethal, but one where methodical strategies are employed to con- tain the danger and allow people to return to their homes.
In some areas, this means bulldozed “containment lines” with damp soil and vegetation on either side. In others, nimble crews of firefighters who might be redeployed by commanders with each shift of the wind. The only thing for certain is that no one can plan more than a day in advance.
Progress could be measured statis- tically Monday by the climbing containment numbers for the blazes that had claimed lives and destroyed homes from southern Sonoma to northern Mendocino counties. The deadly Tubbs Fire that ravaged parts of Santa Rosa was estimated to be 70 percent contained by Monday morning; the 51,000-acre Atlas Fire in Napa County was 50 percent contained.
As for what such clinical-sounding numbers mean? “That’s the percentage of the perimeter where we do not expect the fire to grow,” said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. “It’s an estimate, but a pretty good estimate.”
As last week progressed, there were enough firefighters on hand in the afflicted areas to try to lay down containment lines ahead of the fires — creating bare swaths 30 to 50 feet wide.
“We’ll use bulldozers, we’ll use firefighters with chainsaws and axes,” Berlant said. “The idea is to cut down plants and scrape away brush, so fire won’t have anywhere to go.”
This type of proactive move paid dividends on Sunday, when fire threatened but did not scar the town of Calistoga in northern Napa Valley.
Fire crews there had spent days running hoses into valleys and up peaks, drenching the dry ground with water. Helicopters and airplanes carted in fire retardant. As the fires burned and the winds blew, ground troops waged war on small flare-ups — snuffing them out before they had a chance to spread.
During that same time, fire was burning in the canyons and steep ridges to the west. But as long as it was up there, where the damage already had been done, energy was better deployed keeping things from getting worse.
In other words, explained Scott Ross of Shasta County Fire, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to meet the fire where it is: “In that case, we might wait for it to come to us.”
Ross is a spokesman for the small county’s Fire Department, and like the Shasta’s crews of firefighters, he had been sent south last week as part of the response effort. Monday, he was one of several agency spokespeople at Napa’s exposition grounds near downtown Napa.
The sprawling fairgrounds has been transformed into a command center and living quarters for hundreds of firefighters. Tents and RVs litter the lawn where firefighters stretch, smoke and nap in the shade of their trucks, red and yellow engines lined up in neat rows.
Monday, they were organized — whether by design or choice — into geographic groups.
Oakland trucks sat alongside Alameda vehicles, while firefighters from Longview, Wash., scrubbed the windows of their bright red ladder truck next to Kings County Fire firefighters, taking a nap in folding blue camping chairs.
Crews had come from as far as Arizona to help battle the blazes throughout Napa and Sonoma counties.
But where they came from made little difference to dispatchers on the scene.
“At the end of the day, a firefighter is a firefighter,” said Cal Fire spokesman Mike Smith. “We know we can trust in our neighbors from every city and state who’s here to get the job done.”
Smith said the only consideration that goes into deciding which crew to send where is whether the firefighters typically tackle city or wilderness burns.
Monday, it was veteran wildfire crews that went into action near Rutherford, where the Nuns Fire pushed east toward Napa Valley. Crews better versed in built-up conditions were held back, to be deployed if flames leaped past the front lines into one of the valley towns.
If ground commanders said they needed more bodies on the fire line, crews from the fairgrounds were called in.
Like Berlant, Ross said that containment lines are a sign of progress — but even as the percentages continue to grow, the fires remain dangerously alive.
“Under normal conditions, a black line on a map means that fire is not going anywhere,” Ross said. “But we know it’s not over yet.”
“We’ll bulldozers,use we’ll use firefighters with chainsaws and axes. The idea is to cut down plants and scrape away brush, so fire won’t have anywhere to go.” Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection