Fire Brigade News
Out of the ashes as they say, the poppies are glorious! Don’t know how long they will last but if you haven’t seen them it is worth a trip down the coast particularly right here in the Big Sur valley by the gorge.
April is just beginning and already the month is hopping. I got started with this article early so as not to forget all the action. Already (I am writing this on the 10th) we have had enough going on to last us for the rest of the month. We got paged to a vehicle accident by River Inn which seemed to be a simple non injury accident, just take care of flagging traffic. Almost immediately things got interesting. One of the drivers took off right after S.O. got on scene and the chase was on. Parks, CHP and USFS got in on it also. We continued to flag traffic all the while monitoring the traffic on the radio. Some of us thought, we certainly hope they catch this guy as it was not a very comforting thought to have the possibility of a guy wandering around with a gun on the ridges near our homes. We then heard the statement on the radio, shots fired, followed up by a request for fire and ambulance. The person that had run off had shot himself. We left some of our members to take care of the traffic and the rest of us went north. We brought the rescue gear and crossed the river on a log and walked south a distance and then straight up the ridge. AMR confirmed it was a fatality. We had to wait for the coroner and detectives before we could assist with the carry out. About 5 hours spent on this call. During the time we were waiting we had another call for a medical at Esalen.
The next day we got paged for the victim of a fall behind Henry Miller. This was a carry out as the person had already fallen down about 60 feet to the creek. We ordered up a helicopter for transportation due to the seriousness of the injuries. We got him out safely with help from Parks, S.O. and CHP.
Next we got called to the debris flow in front of the Lodge. We provided traffic control, did a search of the river when a car was reported to have gone in, (nothing there), provided coordination between agencies, and had 2 medical emergencies during the 5 hours we were there. What a mess! Amazing how all that could have come down Redwood Ck.! Mud, logs and rocks, up to 4 feet deep all through the parking lot out onto the road and clear down to the entrance. Cars buried in it, pushed to the top of the fence, into trees and the guard rails. Cal Trans was busy working hard to get the road cleared enough to get some of the traffic through, and then closed it for the rest of the night.
There was the rumor of the river backing up somewhere in the gorge area the next day, it was flown over with a helicopter and nothing was found.
Then a few days later we got a vehicle over the side just north of Esalen and later on that night a medical emergency just south of Gorda. There were a few other miscellaneous calls as well during this time.
Next a rescue at Salmon Ck, a man partially severed his hand, eventually he was helicoptered out by Coast Guard. About 6 hours on that incident. More miscellaneous calls, then a veg fire reported to be in the area of Sycamore Cyn. We had just gotten finished from long day training on the south coast, reloaded the engine and were heading home when the pager went off about 5:00PM. A power line had gone down and started a fire. The locals did a great job helping with the fire, protecting a couple homes on Rancho Rico. The Brigade was joined on scene by USFS and Cal Fire. Even CHP helicopter helped us by providing an “eye in the sky”. USFS took over and we were released about midnight. It burned about 2.5 acres. Thank you to River Inn for providing us dinner, it was really appreciated as we had had a long day. The next day a couple calls then a report of a structure fire at Ventana. Upon arrival at the housing area the fire had been almost knocked down by maintenance. That was one of those days we were still experiencing the heat wave, no fun to don heavy turn outs, instant sauna. The day after that we respond to the report a DBF is found off the road near the lighthouse. Foul play apparently, as I type the SO is investigating. Another medical call at Esalen. Nothing today (the 22nd) so far. We have had just about everything this month except a swarm of locusts. And summer hasn’t even started yet
The heat wave and wind will dry out the hills in short order. We are already gearing up for fire season.
Our VFF class is going well, we have some great new members taking it. Some of them have already been able to respond to calls. We get up this week end at 0:dark:30 as we say, to work the Marathon.
If you are ever on scene and take any photos of incidents the Brigade responds to, we would love it if you would email them to us at HYPERLINK "mailto:Bigsurfire@cs.com" Bigsurfire@cs.com and we will put them on our web site. Be sure and check out our web site at HYPERLINK "http://www.bigsurfire.org" www.bigsurfire.org.
By the time you read this BURN SEASON WILL HAVE ENDED!!! NO MORE BURNING! We encourage you to continue with your clearance, chippers can be used or your debris can be hauled off for disposal. When a fire is headed your direction is not the time to be doing your fire clearance.
Martha Karstens