Firefighters beginning to head home as Gifford Fire containment numbers continue to rise
Dave Alley
SANTA MARGARITA, Calif. – With containment numbers of the Gifford Fire rising on a daily basis, demobilization of the Incident Command Post in Santa Margarita is now underway.
“We’re in the demobiliozation phase for a lot of the engines,” said Gifford Fire information officer Rich Eagan. “Now, you’ll probably see close to 800 to 1,000 per day for the next, I would say 96 hours or so.”
At one point the base camp at the Santa Margarita Ranch number nearly 5,000 personnel.
However, with the containment of the fire at 61% as of Friday afternoon, personnel at the camp can begin to reduce after firefighters made significant strides in putting out the blaze over the few days.
“I’ve been doing this job for 35 years now, and I’ve never seen a fire effectively manage so quickly in my career,” said Eagan, who works with the Chula Vista Fire Department. “We basically, contained 130,000 plus acres in about two weeks time, so that’s very impressive to me.”
Eagan credits two main factors that helped crews get a handle on the fire, especially on the northern flank in the hillsides east of Santa Margarita, near Pozo.
“The major components were that backfiring and the cooling of temperatures and the increase in humidity,” said Eagan. “The weather has been very favorable. Guys are going to get this thing buttoned up soon.”
On Friday, the hillsides near Pozo looked nothing like they did just 48 hours earlier when flames, both from the main fire, combined with those that were intentionally set during the burning operation, scorched the landscape, producing a huge plume of smoke that could seen across the Central Coast.
“(You can see) the success,” said Jonathan Harris, San Diego City Fire Department Captain. “There’s no smoke in the sky, no plume. There’s probably little hotspots there, but as it was the day before, there was large fire behavior, but now there’s nothing that’s going on and it shows your success and how hard we worked out.”
Even as containment numbers continue to climb, firefighters point out it’s still not fully extinguished and their efforts are still needed for the next several days at least.
“There’s still work to be done,” said Darrell Roberts, Chula Vista Fire Department Strike Team Leader. “We’re not dropping our guard on the fire. A lot of the resources worked really, really hard yesterday in the firing operation to make sure that we can turn the corner on this fire and hopefully put to bed in the next series of days here.”
While there was no major plume of smoke on Friday, firefighters were still very much in action in the hillsides, especially near Pozo along Hi Mountain Road where flames burned just hours earlier.
“We don’t have it fully suppressed, but we’re getting closer,” said Eagan. “Now, we’re just basically in what we refer to as the mop up phase. Hitting the lines and using hand tools, that kind of thing to suppress this fire. We’re almost there, but not yet.”
Still, with the situation vastly improved, some of the crews members packed up Friday and headed out, leaving the Santa Margarita camp they’ve called home the past several days.
“It’s a great feeling to know you’re heading home with your loved ones,” said Harris. “They haven’t seen us in a while, so it’s good to give them a phone call and let them know you’re coming home. The excitement that your loved ones hear that you’re coming home is pretty good.”
As the crews head in all directions to their homes across California, those on the Central Coast should expect to see fire engines filled with happy firefighters on local roadways over the next several days.
“Our folks are going to go home,” said Roberts. “They’re going to say hello to their families. They’re going to decompress for a day and most of our folks will jump on a fire engine in their hometown and they’ll continue to serve in a neighborhood where they’ve been serving for decades, some of them, and we’ll prepare all our gear to come right back out, and most likely, the chances are that we will.”