Over 50,000 acres of land were destroyed during the Los Angeles wildfires from Jan. 7-22. In response to a call for help from Los Angeles, Washington sent out nine strike teams in total. Shoreline, Bothell and Kirkland Fire Departments and Fall City and East Side Fire Rescues each contributed a fire engine and four firefighters, together forming one unit called a strike team. They left Washington early in the morning of Jan. 9 and arrived at Zuma Beach, California the next afternoon.
“We got there, got everybody together to get something to eat real quick, grab supplies and meanwhile, a strike team leader goes and checks in at the instant command post and finds out what it is that they need from us,” Shoreline Fire Battalion Chief and Department Wildland Team Coordinator Jacob Yake (he/him) said. “We got about two bites into our dinner and got told to muster up — that we’re going to head out. And from that point on, then we went out and were assigned to a specific area on the fire in the Palisades fire.”
When they got there, most of the damage had already occurred. Yake said that when they arrived, cars had been pushed out of the way by a large bulldozer.
“All those cars were burnt up or damaged. The carnage was pretty unreal when you see it. It looks like a bomb went off,” Yake said.
Yake said they arrived at the south east side of the Palisades fire around 10 p.m. to fight a fire that was working its way up a hill in an upper Brentwood neighborhood. They waited for the fire at the top of the hill until it reached them at 6:30 a.m. the next morning.
“It wasn’t a wind driven fire at that point. It was definitely terrain driven. So, it was trying to climb up hills and being pushed around a little bit by some wind,” Yake said. “You could feel the heat about a half mile away.”
A wind-driven fire is spurred mostly by the wind, which makes it spread faster. A terrain-driven fire mainly spreads along the ground, generally with less wind, but they have a lot of vegetation and other fuel sources to burn, so they are hard to contain.
“The things out there were so dry. We had been told they hadn’t had any rain in nine months. And the fuel — the trees, the shrubs — burned like grass and went really, really fast,” Yake said.
To counteract this, they cut down vegetation around homes to remove potential fuel that embers could catch on while spraying water in front of the fire to keep the ground damp.
“The biggest key to us winning was all of the fuel removal and getting it away from there so it didn’t have something to catch if a spark got in there and get away from us,” Yake said.
If something caught fire, it would’ve been very hard for them to control the fire, so they made sure to put out any embers that got on any homes.
“Helicopters were coming through at what felt like every 15 to 30 seconds in dropping water, which is what did the most work out there,” Yake said. “We prevented it from getting into the houses and did a lot of good work with the vegetation removal and all that.”
On that day, none of the houses in the neighborhood they were protecting burned down. Not everyone lost their homes, but everybody was impacted by the fire, since around 16,000 structures were destroyed in the Palisades and Eaton fires combined.
“Each one of the structures is someone’s home or someone’s business, so it’s very personal for everybody down there,” tractor driver Jared Linke (he/him) said.
They found hot spots — very hot embers underground, like burned roots after the fire has passed through the area — and put them out to make sure wind wouldn’t blow the embers and cause more fires elsewhere.
“If the winds came and blew out some of the embers that were still going underneath the top layer, and then blow to a neighborhood that’s still standing, then those embers land on someone’s roof, in their yard, and then set it on fire, — that’s what they’re worried about,” Linke said.
To find a hot spot, they are given the specific area where it is on the map, go out to where it is and use a thermal imager to find exactly where it is and how hot it is. They then put it out by digging up the embers and putting water on it.
Shoreline Fire and the rest of their strike team were in Los Angeles for 14 days, but they were gone for a total of 18 days with driving included. According to Yake, there were around 5,200 firefighters and other personnel assigned to the Palisades fire. That meant that there was a lot that needed to happen just for all of the people assisting LA to just be there. Housing, parking, food, resources — the organization and accommodation necessary to receive the firefighters was considerable.
“We had an impact on the community just by being there. So in a lot of ways, it was good, but a lot of ways, it was a major inconvenience for a lot of folks,” Yake said.
The rest of the time Shoreline Fire was there, their job was to show the community that there was help. Once areas were cleared after the evacuation, residents were able to go back to collect their valuables. They would station through the night around homes of people who had elected to stay put, in order to make sure their house didn’t burn down and the neighborhood was safe.
“They were super gracious of our presence and being there. They would offer up water and Gatorade and sandwiches and coffee and come and talk with us for a while — find out where we’re from,” Yake said.
Linke said how he was happy to help out in the fires, and make an impact in the LA community.
“When you can’t see it firsthand, it’s just harder to relate to,” Linke said. “It was just nice to help out, be part of a good crew.”
