Fire Fighters Continue to Battle Wildfires as Record Evacuations Ensue

October 23, 2007 – California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) Local 2881 fire fighters are being stretched to the limit as wildfires in seven California counties have scorched more than 267,000 acres of land and hundreds of homes and businesses.

Mutual aide agreements have been cashed in with professional fire departments as far away as Nevada and Arizona. In addition, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered 1,500 of the state’s National Guard troops to help with fire evacuations and crowd control.

Meanwhile, a historic evacuation is underway with more than 400,000 citizens in total – 250,000 of them yesterday – asked to evacuate. This is the largest in the state’s history.

IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger is promising the full support of the International and will be in California on Wednesday.

“Our members are facing a disaster of unimaginable proportions. They are out there working back-to-back shifts, understaffed and under-equipped,” says General President Schaitberger. “ I want to, personally, make sure they get the assistance they need.”

“Our fire fighters are exhausted, but they are out there doing what they do best,” says Bob Wolf, president of Local 2881. “With such dry conditions and high winds, the fires are burning hot and they are burning high. Quite frankly, our members are the only thing keeping the state from going up in flames.”

Information coming in from the field indicates that fire fighters are low on resources and strike teams are being sent to the largest, most threatening fires.

“I am hearing reports of complete desolation from our members,” reports Wolf. “It’s like walking through a war zone. One long-time fire fighter has compared it to World War II.”

By land and by air, fire fighters are battling 12 blazes in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

The worst of the fires are in San Diego County where comparisons are already being made to the 2003 wildfires. Those fires burned 750,000 acres and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, killing 24 people.

“By the second day of these wildfires, we had the same amount of apparatus and fire fighters on the ground as we did on the sixth day of the 2003 fires,” Wolf says.

Flames are being driven by the gale-force Santa Ana winds, which carry hotter-than-normal air from desert areas in the eastern part of the state. The National Weather Service reports that these conditions will continue for at least another day. Some areas of southern California have received little more than an inch of rain since January 1, 2007.

There is no update on the conditions of the four fire fighters injured while fighting the fires and their names have yet to be released.

President Bush has declared a state of emergency in southern California, paving the way for federal aid authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts. Emergency measures, including direct assistance, will be provided, the White House said this morning.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison began surveying fire damage today. Upon arrival, Chertoff made it clear that lessons had been learned from Hurricane Katrina and that the public would not see the same mistakes remade here.