Contra Costa County wildfires — ‘at the edge of catastrophe’
Over 18 hours, eight blazes sprung up; 75 mph winds
The winds howled, urgent and ominous, as midnight approached on Oct. 26.
Inside Contra Costa County’s emergency operations center, officials didn’t need the reminder: Gusts were already coming in at over 40 mph and were picking up speed. Dry vegetation provided rich fire fuel, and a spark could become a nightmarish wildfire in moments.
Portions of the Bay Area — including the Fairfield home of Aaron McAlister, Contra Costa Fire’s deputy chief — were already in darkness, the power turned off because the danger of fire was so high. McAlister was on duty, though, with his boss, Fire
Chief Lewis Broschard, and other officials inside the operations center.
Strike teams were waiting
to pounce at the first report of fire. Crews were on edge.
That was the calm. Around 11:45 came a dispatch call, signaling the beginning of the storm.
In a harrowing 18 hours, firefighters chased a series of fires in what officials called an “unprecedented” day of flames in Contra Costa County. Eight wildfires sprung up, from the eastern edge of San Pablo Bay to distant Bethel Island, fed by winds that reached 75 mph and forcing the evacuation of some 7,000 residents.
Careful preparation and some key decisions as the day unfolded left crews exhausted, but ensured that thousands of vulnerable homes stayed out of harm's way.
“It starts with that pretty significant incident,” Broschard said. “And within hours, we're at the edge of catastrophe.”
“For 15 hours, we went from fire-to-fire-to-fire, non-stop,” 20-year veteran and strike-team chief Lon Goetsch said. “It was the worst situation I've ever seen.”
Here's what crews faced:
• 11:45 p.m. — 75 firefighters respond to the Oakland Fire in Walnut Creek, which damaged a building.
• 3:09 a.m. — 75 firefighters respond to the Santiago Fire in Bethel Island. Thirty people evacuate.
• 5:14 a.m. — 102 firefighters respond to the Knightsen Fire in Oakley, and 2,850 people evacuate.
• 5:36 a.m. — 33 firefighters respond to the Cypress Fire in Oakley, adjacent to the Knightsen fire.
• 6:40 a.m. — 57 firefighters respond to the Leon Fire in Clayton, 150 people evacuate and 30 acres burn.
• 9:39 a.m. — 150 firefighters respond to the Sky Fire in Crockett, 750 people evacuate and 200 acres burn.
• 10:17 a.m. — 30 firefighters respond to a mass-casualty incident when a tree falls in downtown Martinez. Nine people injured.
• 1:20 p.m. — 168 firefighters battle the Pleasant Fire North and Pleasant Fire South in Lafayette. Orders to evacuate are given to 2,400.
• 3:51 p.m. — 105 firefighters respond to the Forest Fire in Martinez. 1,100 people are ordered to evacuate; the blaze burns 50 acres.
All that time, firefighters rode that edge of catastrophe. In the end, somehow they averted it.
A single gas station in Bethel Island was damaged, along with the tennis club in Lafayette, officials said. A residence in Lafayette received minor damage, and a firefighter from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection suffered minor injuries.
That was it. That the county emerged relatively unscathed seemed almost beyond good fortune, officials said, especially after a week of contemplating what could've been.
“You have your plans in place, and you've practice for these scenarios,” Broschard said. “And you hope as you get all these calls that all the levers that you're pulling it keeps things from going to the next level. But I'll tell you, at some point, you start to realize that you can't do much more and that you've stretched the rubber band as far as it can possibly be stretched, and it's going to break.
“Luckily for us, it didn't, because we were on the verge of it.”
Two key decisions played a big part in keeping the rubber band from snapping, officials said. One was the use of two pre-positioned strike teams from Alameda County, as well as one from San Luis Obispo, which enabled a large response to each fire.
They complemented the strike teams already set to go in Contra Costa County — firefighters from the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District and from Rodeo-Hercules and Pinole, and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
The latter agency freed up a water tanker to douse the Sky Fire that closed Interstate 80 and enshrouded the Carquinez Bridge in smoke with water and retardant.
“Our town weathered this major threat in large part because of the organization of equipment and crews by the individual fire departments, which was orchestrated by our operational area leadership at the county and supplemented to a major degree by Cal Fire,” Crockett-Carquinez Fire Chief Dean Colombo said in a statement. “Had we not had this preparation, we would be looking back at a disaster.”
The second decision, and maybe more significant, was Broschard's edict to keep on duty firefighters scheduled to be released from regular duty on Sunday morning. That strategy gave the district another 100 firefighters to supplement 20 additional fire apparatuses.
Some of those firefighters had been on duty for 96 hours.
“When the boss called, and said everybody needed to stay, it was pretty overwhelming,” said Assistant Fire Chief Chuck Stark, who oversees emergency operations in the district. “We had to pull people into positions they're not normally in. Everybody stayed. Nobody complained. To see these guys come in, a lot of them having been on duty. … They all did their job, and they did it well.”
They weren't the only ones.
A staff of eight to nine dispatchers — two to three more than normally would work on a Saturday — handled 1,129 emergency calls during the 15-hour period, more than 400 of them through the county's 10-digit emergency number.
A weekend earlier, the dispatch center received 233 calls, and an average 24-hour shift usually nets about 300, dispatch communications chief Will Pigeon said.
“It went on literally nonstop all through the night and next day,” communications center manager Traci Barkley said.
Some of the calls included their own. One firefighter was called to his home to evacuate it during during a blaze that burned vegetation in Martinez. After clearing out belongings and people, he returned. A dispatcher, too, went home and then returned.
“There were times,” McAlister said, “where you did wonder, ‘Is this ever going to stop?'”
Then, around 6 p.m., it did. Crews had controlled the two blazes in Martinez and two in Lafayette.
The blaze near the Cummings Skyway that enveloped the Carquinez Bridge in smoke also no longer was a danger.
And the dispatch calls stopped. Once again, there was the welcome quiet.
“Never seen this before,” McAlister said. “Never want to see it again.”