Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Firefighters help in California blaze

T.S. Last El Defensor Chieftain General Manager

TSLAST Twenty local firefighters returned last Friday from a two-week trip to California to assist in efforts to defeat the hundreds of wildfires that have ravaged that state.

The group are members of Southwest Firefighters Magdalena Crew 1, which left July 2 for the Butte Lightning Complex, located 27 miles north of Yuba City in northern California.

"The whole complex is 55,000 acres, and there were six total fires," said Mike Parker, the crew boss for the Magdalena crew. "In all, it took 80 structures. Our job was to assist the state in getting the fire out, lessen the smoke and get people back in their homes."

Parker said the crew typically worked 16-hour days fighting the fires.

"It was hard work, being in the dirt and the dust all day. But our guys are hard, hard workers," he said.

Most of the crew is made up of firefighters from Alamo, including four brothers.

"It sure was different having that many brothers on a crew," Parker said. "Two of them have been with us for a while, and two of them are rookies."

Melvin and Norman Guerro are veterans with the crew. Herman and Matthew Guerro are newcomers.

Parker said crew members spend the winter months training. When the fire season starts, they're deployed to wherever they are needed. Parker said he's leading a 10-person crew back to California to battle more blazes later this week.

The fires in California are more challenging than what they're used to seeing in New Mexico.

"They get a lot bigger burn and it's a lot hotter burn," Parker said, "and the terrain is really steep."

The dirt, smoke, heat and terrain wasn't the only obstacle they encountered.

"Poison Oak is really bad out there. That stuff is everywhere," he said, adding that one of the members of the Magdalena crew suffered the effects.

As a footnote, Parker said that President George W. Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger were inspecting the damage in the area while the Magdalena team was there. He said the crew knew the dignitaries had left when the port-a-johns were removed from the base camp.

tslast@dchieftain.com

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