On the morning of Aug. 23, the Santa Ynez Mountains were barely visible from the junction of highways 154 and 246. The normally scenic view was obscured by smoke from the nearby Rey Fire, which began several days earlier on Aug. 18 in a section east of Lake Cachuma and was heading toward the Los Padres Forest.
As of the morning of Aug. 26, the fire had charred more than 33,000 acres of the Santa Barbara County backcountry, according to Pam Bierce with the National Incident Management Team (NIMT), and at least 39 percent of the fire had been contained.
Six miles from the lake is Live Oak Camp, home to the annual Live Oak Music Festival, where thousands of firefighters were camped out for more than a week. But they weren’t there to have a good time. The campground was designated as the temporary, ad hoc home base for the nearly 2,000 fire personnel from across the U.S. battling the Rey Fire.
Dan Turner, a logistics section chief for NIMT—a multi-agency team consisting of firefighters from across the U.S.—said that during a major fire he “pushes a button,” that’s the usual terminology he and his team of 56 use for getting the camp set up, gathering personnel, and making sure firefighters have everything they need to fight fires.
Nearly a half-mile into the campground, porta-potties, signs, fire trucks and pickup trucks, and semi-truck trailers mark the entrance to the camp. A little farther in, up a small hill, more trucks begin to emerge, as well as dozens of tents clustered among the oak trees where many of the firefighters sleep. Snaking through the campground a little farther, there’s a group of trailers bustling with activity.
This is known as the camp’s “main street,” according to Turner. Each trailer serves a different function—housing teams that provide logistics, financing, or news media relations. The trailers are called Camp-in-a-box, a service provided by California company Expeditors, which Turner said contracts with the U.S. government to provide mobile incident base units. Camp-in-a-box includes trailers, generators, forklifts, and yurts.
When an incident breaks out, Turner “pushes a button” to make the call to set up a base camp. The Rey Fire camp took 2 1/2 days to establish, Turner said.
Inside the camp is everything the 1,976 fire personnel—including more than 1,500 firefighters—need to get by.
Local caterers bid to provide food to the fire personnel. If not immediately local, Turner said, then they use the next closest provider. Semi-truck trailers of food are hauled in each day.
Infrastructure for handling potable and gray water is established. In order to prevent the spread of invasive species, weed washers are brought in to wash vehicles that may have been exposed before heading out into the bush.
A company is brought in to spread wood chips on the ground to prevent dust from billowing up.
A staging area is provided where personnel receive fire briefings at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day. Most personnel in the camp work 16-hour shifts, Turner said.
Nearby, a mobile printing unit inside a vehicle the size of a Greyhound bus prints up to 40,000 pages for maps, briefings, and fire plans each 12-hour period. The chirping and distorted talking emanating from handheld radios is constant. It’s a 24-7 operation.
Mobile sleeping units with bunks are brought in. Each one houses up to 42 people and provides controlled lighting and air conditioning. A union agreement provides hotel rooms for Cal Fire firefighters, according to Turner, many of whom were staying at hotels in Solvang.
Showers are provided, as well as two laundry facilities—one each for the firefighters and for inmates who also help fight the blaze. The inmates haven’t been convicted of violent crimes and are nearly finished with their sentences, Turner said. They’re supervised by security officers while camped out and by Cal Fire officials while out in the field.
Among the fire crews are Hotshots, elite units who’ve passed a physically and mentally demanding selection process and received specialized training. They’re the ones who combat the hottest parts of the fire, Turner said, adding that some inmates could also be considered as such, given their training and experience.
Other elite units include helitack crews—firefighters, who Turner said, essentially fast-rope into areas not easily accessible by foot or car.
And there are the “coyotes,” or crews of 20 trained to fight fires remotely on their own for up to 10 days at a time, if needed.
Also at the camp are unaffiliated volunteers, some local, who Turner said have received fire training on their own.
Rental cars and hired drivers are also brought in to provide transportation to firefighters who’ve flown in, Turner added.
According to John Cambra, a Tuscon-based firefighter-turned public information officer originally from Boston, fire resources are coordinated through the Resource Ordering Status System, or ROSS, a system through which fire teams are generally ordered. Cambra recently came from the Blue Cut Fire, in the San Bernardino Mountains.
These camps cost around $1.5 million each day, Turner said, but the actual amount depends on how much is happening. Water drops from very large air tankers, or VLATs, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each trip. The cost for the Rey Fire is relatively low compared to the one for the Soberanes Fire burning in the northern part of Los Padres, which Turner said has ballooned to more than $100 million.
After 14 days, firefighters are given two days of rest, Turner said. As far as recreation goes, the camps are lacking.
“There’s no time for recreation, really,” Turner said. “This is their jobs and their lives.”
Staff Writer David Minsky can be reached at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 1-8, 2016.