Fire Agencies Share Their Experience During The Bridge Fire
By Vicky Rinek
October 16, 20224: Fire officers from nine agencies shared their personal experiences during the Bridge Fire with the Wrightwood Community. Over 125 residents attended the information meeting. Representatives included the Los Angeles County Fire Department, CallFire, the U.S. Forest Department and their Fire Department, and the San Bernardino County Fire and Sheriff.
Each office had a representative explain their experience dealing with the unprecedented Bridge Fire and how they managed the extreme situation. All of them emphasized that this fire was unlike anything they had ever encountered. The speed of the fire set a new record, prompting them to seek assistance from NASA, which uses real-time signature heat imagery to track the fire’s movement.
The fire started in the afternoon and was challenging in the foothills above LaVerne. The wind was blowing south toward the foothill communities. “We had a mutual response. We responded with typical companies of bulldozers, fixed aircraft, and ground crew.” Said LA Co. Fir
The mayor of LaVerne called the command center to express his concern for the LaVerne community.
The fire turned upward toward Mount Baldy. The Los Angeles Fire Department immediately collaborated on an evacuation of the area in Clearwater Canyon and initiated a warning to Glendora.
U.S. Forrest added, “The initial concerns were how we would use resources to keep the fire from turning into a Blue Ridge Fire of 2003.” He continued, “The strategy was to attack the fire, hike into the fire, get access to the edge, and bring an initial attack on the edge with aircraft support.” The objectives and strategy lasted several hours until the fire repositioned itself. They called it the “Big Tuesday.”
The fire took on a life of its own. “It got into some terrain that would be more difficult.” Moving onto the North Side into the wilderness dramatically increased the challenge, so they ordered multi-agency management teams.
There were other large fires in California, draining resources. “We had continued to request throughout the first 48 hours. “We had access to our partners together and aircraft response to work with the ground throughout the night.
When they received the call, the Commander Chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department had a crew in Acton dealing with an 800-acre fire. The Commander said it was by luck that they were so close and could get near the fire relatively soon. It would have taken them into heavy traffic if they had to travel on 138 or I15 at an hour in the day. A severe problem was apparent, they could see the cumulus clouds of smoke over Wrightwood, a sign that aircraft could not go into to drop their water.
LA County Fire collaborated with the U.S. Forest and Angeles National Forest, bringing five strike teams, five engines, and resources from Antelope Valley overhead support. They held strike teams down in the backcountry. “We had action points, and what we decided is when the fire gets to this point, it is enough of a threat to the community that we provide protection and be actively engaged in the decision-making process for the resources in the firefight.”
The fire made a hard north push and continued pushing north toward Pinon Hills and a hard right toward Wrightwood.
Fire crews from all over California, as far away as the No. California, border and down south to San Diego, was fighting this fire.
“I must commend Wrightwood Fire Safe Council (WFSC) and the community for their phenomenal work preparing their property. I have to commend the community on their evacuations. It was phenomenal to see the number of people evacuated.” Said Chief Kelly Anderson. “All that is because, again, eliminating safety risk is structured, so we do not have to worry about rescuing folks, and it gives us the ability to do our jobs. I was here for two weeks, all day, every day.”
Anderson said that she had never seen a fire like the Bridge Fire. “It was phenomenal.”
San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department kept an eye on Wrightwood. Capt. Ken Lutz from the Victor Valley office told the crown that he was in Wrightwood to get lunch at the Grizzly Cafe. He saw the smoke and went to the Wrightwood fire station 14. They tell him the community needs to evaluate the population. “So, I returned to my office at about 1:30. I can tell that my behavior was hearing the radio chatter have choppers. I contacted the department operation center and headquarters, so the local Commander in the sheriff’s headquarters has a department operation center. That’s when I called to get extra resources, and they referred me to the department’s emergency operation center.
San Bernardino County worked with our local fire department partners, the incident command center over in Los Angeles. “I got home and contacted the DOC to see what was happening. I wasn’t home five minutes, and I got a phone call back council, and I’m off on your phones so that when they gotta be evacuated, we can send out mercy alerts on all phone systems.” It is a system within the geographic area of your cell phone. It does not go down the hill to your work. The system will let you know what to do. “So we have the alert simultaneously in the tactical department,” said Lutz. “Within the first hour, we had to command Lieutenant to set up command at 238 sheriff vehicles. In the first hour, I had 42 deputy sheriffs up here.” Within the first hour and a half, they had 75 sheriffs making alerts out here. CHP got everything coordinated, closing Highway 138 down fast to allow citizens to go straight down off the mountain.
They kept knocking on the door, checking on homeowners. “We thought we were comfortable with the entire town of those wishing to leave.” Said Lutz, “Within four hours, we started doing animal recovery teams, assembling volunteers with their trailers and stuff like that, and we recovered llamas, pigs, wild ducks, chickens, dogs, cats, horses, and cows.
And if somebody called us or stopped by asking for help to get their animals out. “The volunteers rescued covered a lot of animals.”
So we finished with your homes’ priorities, and we kept our officers up there throughout the period, keeping an eye on those people who were walking around.
The Market remained open, and the gas tanker was allowed to file the station.” We were going to need gas and supplies.” Said Lutz, “I was very proud of my PO because, at first, we were getting a lot of BS on the Internet about the market burning and the school was burning.” He said if you want to know the facts, go to the Victor Valley’s Facebook page. “That’s all we put on the facts and all the data that’s not boring. So that is the function of the Sheriff’s Department. I want to thank the pizza shop, I eat so much pizza.” He also thanked the WFSC, CSD, and Snowline.
James Littlefield from the helicopter operations spoke. Littlefield oversees the placement of the helicopter. He reports from the Desert Airport and coordinates where his fleet will go. “All three fires are scrambling for resources, so part of our job is to coordinate and figure out how to get stuff out fast.” Said Littlefield, “We are coming from Shasta and up here about midnight because they started about 1:30 in the afternoon.” It was a massive job for the team. “I’ve never seen in my whole life; I’ve been here; pretty impressive.”
“The mobilization system is coordinated at a geographic coordination center, and every time there’s a new Fire, that can be filled with a dispatch aircraft sitting on the ground unless there’s a direct line threat, aircraft get diverted to prevent another large fire. I describe to you the initial response from each agency,” said Chief Garcia, “We’re fortunate to have the resources we have here. So, there is no place anywhere in the state of California where retarded is delivered at night by helicopters.”
One helicopter can drop 3,000 gallons of water retarder and is available around the clock. There are helicopters in Ventura, Los Angeles, and Orange County.
Littlefield concludes, “I’m saying that in the United States, we deliver retarded in the national forest adjacent to a county and in no other state jurisdiction other than right here in California.”
“I’ll leave you with this last number, and this is what cemented how dynamic and challenging it was, “ said Garcia.
About 32,008 fuel tons per acre, at about 50,000 acres, is 1,600,400,000 tons of brush and trees that have not burned for over 100 years.
“So why was it so difficult? Why was it on fire? The fuel bed out there was unprecedented.” Said Garcia. “It’s under investigation. All that mother nature will return to the forest. So, I thank you for your time.”
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