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| Our home arroyo (by Meme) |
11 Oct. 2016, 11 A.M.- just received a telephone call from
Area Code 831 (Monterey County). Since I’d been there just last month I
answered (yes, I pay attention to caller-ID) and found that a young lady
originally from Santa Fe had been called from a number associated with my LLC @
4 A.M. It was probably a robo-call, but it spring-boarded me into these
reflections:
The phone
rang about 8:30 the day after Labor Day; it was Santa Fe Zone inquiring if I
was available for an assignment as a Safety Officer to the Soberanes (so-bron-es) incident in
California. I soon was scurrying about to get my retiree’s “Casual Hire”
approved and bags packed (I’d winterized and cached them the day before).
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| Coastline range |
Early
flights the next day: the leg into the Monterey Regional Airport I sat across
the isle from organizers of a special event that would pose safety concerns
& considerations for me in the coming days. More about that momentito.
Picked up at the airport by a
driver from the Ground Support Unit; she stayed with me through the check-in
process, until I got my own GSU ride (Ford F-150). The Soberanes fire was
originally managed by a Cal Fire Type I Incident Management Team (IMT1), and
had been going since late July. When I arrived an IMT1 from Alaska was managing
the under Unified Command (State & Federal – Los Padres NF). I received my
in-briefing from “Team Safety” and learned I was going to be the Safety Officer
coordinating safety efforts at the camp established at Andrew Molera State Park
near Big Sur. I’d transition with an Alaskan IMT Safety Officer that had been
there for several weeks.
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| A near miss |
The incident experienced a fatality
(dozer operator from a roll-over) early on: several accidents, mishaps and near
misses since were foremost in our risk analysis (due to many narrow, steep,
one-way roads) and mitigations (road guards enforcing our one-way travel
requirements).
This might be a spot to mention
that while I was there this became the most expensive wildland fire in U.S.
history (costs now over $250 million). Some may ask, why? From my perspective,
there are several factors: the fire being in the vicinity of Carmel & Big
Sur (Cal Fire ordered over 300 engines to protect structures); State resources
in California are expensive (their contracts call for 24-hour per day pay from
portal-to-portal, or from when they leave to when they return home from the
incident. Also, when feasible their contract calls for hotel/motel rooms vice
camping out at camps & bases. Pretty reasonable when you consider some of
the 100+ degree conditions they are asked to perform their suppression
efforts); managing a wilderness fire using a confinement strategy means a “Big
Box” to geographically hem in the fire, lots of aircraft work ($$$) and
plenty-of-patience. All this drives up costs. Has it worked? It remains at 97%
contained (10/15 is estimated), with over 1,000 tactical and support personnel
assigned (at one-time I believe it was
over 3,000).
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| Poison Oak |
What were our primary safety
concerns? Aircraft usage was very high (as already noted): it is high risk –
high gain + drone intrusions at a retardant dip base along Hwy 1 that could
have been disastrous; driving and roads were major concerns too. On a
day-to-day basis the medical unit was treating a lot of poison oak irritations
and the infamous “camp crude” (upper respiratory infection) that seems to love
foggy damp conditions, like where our base was located (about ½ mile off the
Pacific).
The Best Buddies Ride was the
special event referenced above. It featured 1700 participants riding from
Carmel south on Highway 1 to Hearst Castle at San Simeon: right past our camp
and major ingress/egress points on the busy Saturday following Labor Day
weekend. There was a great potential for undesirable conflicts (pods of bicyclists
& heavy equipment do not often mix well on narrow curve riddled roads). We
were informed that the event sometimes has a medevac necessitating the closure
of Hwy. 1 (our escape route), but the event would go on as planned. It did, and
without incident.
Yea!
https://www.bestbuddieschallenge.org/hc/
We’d had several “near miss” accidents along
the narrow Coastal Ridge Road (CRR), but the following day (Sunday, 9-11) was a
miss and near fatality: a water tender (WT) working along the CRR rolled off the
road and over & over-n-down an 80% slope for 250-300 yards. The tender was stripped of
its water tank and the driver was ejected (landing suspended on some brush),
with the seat belt remaining buckled. The incident fortunately had a medevac
helicopter dedicated for such emergencies (staged at Fort Hunter Liggett), and
within well less than a hour the driver was airlifted out and delivered to an
ER at a Regional Medical Center in Salinas. As it turns out this wouldn’t be
the only time Kern County’s copter would save-our-bacon (next would be a night
extraction for a medical condition: presenting like stroke). Night capable helicopters
(long-line short-haul), with paramedics, are certainly the way to go amigos. BTW- the WT driver survived with many broken ribs and other painful injuries, but THANKFULLY he is OK (Humdullah!)
The Alaska IMT1 timed-out (3-weeks)
while I was there, and were replaced by CA’s Interagency IMT1 Team 4 that I’d
worked with last season on the River Complex. They left me “in place” and
ordered replacement safety officers for our future transitioning efforts. With
fire activity slowing down nationwide, those resource orders got filled sooner
instead of later: I had a nice lengthy passing-of-the-baton to my replacement
(a retired Forest Supervisor from the Pacific Northwest) and got to come home
2-days early to-boot. Always enjoy getting home safe-n-sound. My thoughts a
good wishes to ALL that worked the Soberanes and other incidents this year:
GRACIAS!
Over the years I’ve been fortunate to have worked from camps
and/or bases at some fairly nice locations (and some less-than-stellar). I must
say being at Big Sur was definitely a nicer locale.
