How Utah firefighters responded to the call to help with the California wildfires

A group of 64 firefighters from Utah responded to California’s call for frontline help with last week’s destructive wildfires, and find themselves on the ground in the Malibu area working to prevent the large destructive Palisades fire from spreading.

“I think the biggest thing for a lot of us is just feeling like we’re maybe on some kind of a movie set, or some kind of apocalyptic movie. The sheer destruction is, kind of overwhelming,” said Kelly Bird, a spokesperson from Unified Fire who is in California with crews of Utah firefighters.

Last Thursday, the group of firefighters and mechanics from various agencies in Utah met together and made their way to California to join the fight. The group drove through the night and arrived in California Friday morning.

The Utah crews are working to help contain the Palisades fire, the biggest and most destructive of the fires burning in Southern California.

What have the Utah firefighters been doing in California?

After they arrived Friday, the Utah crews were assigned to work on the fire line in Encino. They worked in a defensive, structure protection position, preparing for the Palisades fire to hit that area. This work focused on protecting residences, finding hazards, checking water pressure in hydrants and other prep work.

These firefighters work 24 hours on and 24 off, so after working through Saturday they had Sunday off. On Monday morning the Utah crews were were reassigned to the Malibu area.

Bird said they were assigned to residential areas that the fire had already burned through and wiped out pretty significantly. There they did mop up work, “going through the different residences and looking for hot spots, looking for anything that was smoldering and smoking, and just making sure everything was fully extinguished.”

They then spent Monday night on patrol, ready to tackle any flames that started due to the strong winds picking back up.

Tuesday is another day off for the Utah firefighters and they will be reassigned again on Wednesday.

What life is like for these Utah firefighters

Bird said residents in the area have taken very good care of these Utah firefighters, with plenty of food being donated as they help fight the fire.

“People find us wherever we are, and they bring us catered meals, they bring us burritos, they bring us snacks, granola bars, cases of water, cases of drinks, and it’s just non-stop,” Bird said. “We’re just glad and happy that we can provide that little bit of relief for them.”

The Utah crews were originally going to be housed in a Hotel in downtown Los Angeles but then were moved to Santa Monica.

The firefighters are staying in an office building, taking over space on a vacant third floor. Portable bathrooms and showers have been brought in for the crews to use. The crews have their own sleeping gear, they have taken their own spots on the floor with the firefighters sleeping in sleeping bags and on cots.

Utah firefighters shared what the destruction from the fires is like

Bird said that the biggest difference between this and other fires he’s worked is the amount of urban areas that have been impacted, as most wildfires happen in the mountains, further away from cities. The amount of destruction from these fires is unlike anything he’s seen before.

“Just the magnitude of and volume of people that have been impacted, is definitely impactful for us,” Bird said.

He shared that as they were working, they came across one house that had been destroyed that they could tell had been a very nice house.

They looked it up and saw it was advertised $12 million home in a nice location, Bird described his realization at that moment.

“This was somebody’s … their everything. This was something they had worked for and built and enjoyed, and now it’s gone,” Bird said. “And you know, that happens over and over and over again, with all these people here losing their homes and losing all their personal possessions.”

According to Bird, the fire is dying down but he expects the Utah group will be in California through the entirety of their 14 day deployment.

The conditions in California with dry conditions, low humidity and high winds made it the perfect place for fires to ignite and spread rapidly.

“Once those winds and fire mix, there’s there’s just no stopping it,” Bird said. “So the reason why it wiped things out is that just it overwhelmed the whole system, and they weren’t able to get a handle on it because the winds just blew it from one structure to the next in a matter of seconds.”