California Burning

Wildfires are once again ravaging California, with three major blazes that have killed two people and burned more than 10,000 acres in an area from San Diego to Los Angeles. Though wildfires are not uncommon here, the state is catching fire earlier in the season and in more places than ever before. Thanks to its vast forests and hills of dry grasses, oak and underbrush, the state is naturally vulnerable to wildfire, and this year was one of the driest on record. A bark beetle infestation is killing trees in the south, creating further fuel for the flames. After a lightning storm started fires in Northern California in June and Big Sur's legendary forests later began to burn, the state's massive fire authority, Cal Fire, has been forced to turn to unexpected places for help. During another round of fires in early August, NEWSWEEK's Charlotte Buchen talked with Dan Burns, an assistant fire chief with Cal Fire (the official nickname of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection), about the various groups helping in the battle against the flames and the potentially "catastrophic" fall fire season. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Tell me about all the different resources you've had to pull-in to fight these fires.
Dan Burns: The inmate programs that Cal Fire has—that's our typical resource that we utilize. Between the engine crews and the inmate crews, on a typical large fire, we can handle it [with] no problem. But on this fire, Governor Schwarzenegger activated the National Guard. This is the first time we've actually put hand tools in their hands and sent them to the fire line. We also had Canadians act as division supervisors, and just recently, we have some personnel from Australia and New Zealand. Firefighting, in their part of the world, is equal to California, it's just a different part of the year. It's not currently fire season down there.

What do the guardsmen have to learn to be able to fight fire?
Well, we gave them a real basic training, just enough to keep everyone safe on the fire line. They had 40 hours of fire chemistry, fire terminology, what they can expect on the fire line. We covered a lot of material in the classroom, but it wasn't until we got out here that it all came together. They have done very well. There is classification of crews. A class 1 crew trains regularly and goes to the front lines of the fire. There are class 2 crews that can cut-line and stay together, but stay in the less intense areas. These National Guard crews, their work is excellent—spirits high and they're willing to learn.

How recently were they in combat?
There's quite a few that just returned from Afghanistan and Iraq. Some just returned a few weeks before this assignment. In California, there are only so many guardsmen to draw from. Their mission in Iraq and Afghanistan—that's their priority. It could possibly limit the amount of personnel available, [but] it hasn't yet.

Did you ever think you'd see the need to bring in all these people?
In California, you just never know, just because our fire seasons can be slow, or they can be out of control. Right now, the fuel is here; all it takes is the lightning to set it off. For it to happen this early in the season, is unique. Typically, we don't get this many and this large of fires until toward the end of fire season, September and October. If we don't get an early fall, this could be a catastrophic fire season.

Even with the inmates, the Australians, the Canadians and the National Guard, will there be enough resources?
The National Guard and the Army now has been tasked by the president for additional soldiers to be trained. As we speak, they're training. The plan now is to have 2,000 being trained, and that's a large group that we can draw from as fire season gets more intense.

© 2008