Fire agencies around Tahoe Basin respond to deadly southern California fires
GREATER LAKE TAHOE AREA, Nev./Cal. – Fire agencies around the Tahoe Basin have sent engines and personnel to fight the numerous fires ablaze in southern California. The Palisades Fire, Eaton Fire and Hurst Fire are just a few of the fires active in the Los Angeles area. There’s currently five fires that have together burned over 10,000 structures, burned almost 30,000 acres and killed five people according to preliminary information pending coroner confirmation.
It has led to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) to call for mutual aid and coordinate incoming resources to the fires that are fueled by Santa Ana winds.
Tahoe Basin fire agencies have responded with 12 engines and over 50 personnel.
“I can tell you the first strike team that we sent down,” Fire Chief Ryan Sommers said on Thursday, Jan. 9, “arrived yesterday morning and they went right to work on the line fighting fire.”
The team was tasked with stopping the spread of the active fire as it burned structures down in a neighborhood impacted by the Eaton fire.
Sommers, Fire Chief for North Lake Tahoe Fire Protection District, was the regional Operations Area Coordinator (a position that rotates among Tahoe Basin chiefs) at the time Cal OES made the mutual aid request. It fell to him to coordinate their response among Tahoe Basin fire agencies.
“We will call out to all those departments and ask them if they are able to send any equipment or single resource overhead to a fire in California,” Sommers explained.
Each department will usually send one reserve engine, sometimes two if they can spare it, and overtime personnel, so it does not impact the department’s ability to serve the home front.
With 12 engines, Tahoe’s support created two strikes teams, which each consist of five engines. The other two engines joined up with other agency resources to create a full strike team.
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Engines and personnel from the Tahoe Basin respond to southern California fires.
Provided / NLTFPD
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Engines and personnel from the Tahoe Basin respond to southern California fires.
Provided / NLTFPD
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Engines and personnel from the Tahoe Basin respond to southern California fires.
Provided / NLTFPD
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Engines and personnel from the Tahoe Basin respond to southern California fires.
Provided / NLTFPD
“That’s a big, big fire down there with a lot of problems and it’s going to take a lot of people to mitigate that the correct way,” Sommers said, “Not only just to put the fire out, but then, all of the hazmat cleanup for every structure that burned down, trying to maintain water quality and all of the aftermath of such a disaster.”
It hasn’t been six months since the Davis Fire, when the region similarly called on external resources for aid.
“It’s reciprocating,” the Chief said, “We do that for each other.”
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