upper waypoint

Nearly 90 Bay Area Fire Departments Have Helped Battle the LA Fires

Save ArticleSave Article
Failed to save article

Please try again

An Oakland Fire Department fire truck is seen in Los Angeles to support the response to the ongoing wildfires on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (Photo from Oakland Fire Department on X)

Firefighters and other personnel from nearly 90 fire departments spanning all nine Bay Area counties are helping to battle the cascade of wildfires that have ravaged large swaths of Los Angeles over the last nearly two weeks.

That’s according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, or Cal OES, which oversees the state’s fire and rescue mutual aid system, aimed at ensuring that emergency units are at the ready whenever the National Weather Service issues a Red Flag Warning for extreme fire danger.

Those participating include the San Francisco Fire Department, which said it had sent 29 personnel as of earlier this week. A group of 10 firefighters from Oakland, Hayward, and Fremont, all trained in urban search and rescue, also headed to the L.A. area on Monday with the sole intent of helping to search burned areas for bodies.

The extensive list of participating Bay Area departments, big and small, covers every corner of the region, from Gilroy, San Bruno, Watsonville, San Mateo and Hollister to San Ramon, Fremont, Kelseyville, Vallejo and Geyersville.

Sponsored

Since first breaking out on Jan. 7 and rapidly spreading throughout the region, the blazes have killed at least 25 people and destroyed upwards of 12,000 structures, scorching a vast expanse of more than 40,000 acres, according to Cal Fire.

Michael Hunt, public information officer for the Oakland Fire Department, said the first OFD team hit the road for Los Angeles around 11 p.m. on Jan. 7. As of Monday, the department had sent down 19 firefighters, including three engine companies, one water tender and three more senior department officials to help organize command efforts on the ground, Hunt said.

“We were already in touch with Cal OES when the winds were first forecasted,” he said.

Many significantly smaller Bay Area fire departments have also been assisting with the effort, including the single-station department in Albany, which has a total of just 21 firefighters.

Albany Fire Chief Jim Boito said three of his firefighters headed to L.A. last week in a brush truck — a rig designed to fight wildfires in rough terrain — joining a multi-unit task force battling the Eaton Fire.

“Their first charge is always to save lives and then property. All the resources went into saving lives. The crews down there are working great,” Boito said, adding that crews there are working 24-hour shifts with 24 hours off for two-week deployments.

Boito started working for the Albany Fire Department in 1996, with the devastating 1991 Oakland Hills fire still fresh in the Bay Area’s memory. The coordinated response to that fire, the largest urban wildfire at the time, was complicated by the fact that many different responding agencies couldn’t communicate with one another because their radios didn’t broadcast on shared frequencies, he said. Firefighting efforts were further hampered because some of the nozzles on the hoses used by some of the departments that came to help fight the blaze weren’t compatible with fire hydrants in Oakland and Berkeley.

In the years that followed, federal, state and local leaders examined the shortcomings of the collective response, coming up with detailed plans to prevent that level of miscommunication from never happening again. The effort led to a revamping of the state’s mutual aid system that had been in place since 1950.

“The problems we experienced in the ’91 fire have all been alleviated,” Boito said. “We learned some lessons.”

Among the lessons learned from the Oakland Hills fire was the need, during extreme fire emergencies, to summon not only other nearby departments, but also those farther away, and to have equipment ready and waiting for them.

Related Stories

Hunt, from OFD, said Cal OES now has rigs stationed across the state that are put into position to fight fires anytime there’s a Red Flag Warning, such as in October, when the Keller Fire spread in the Oakland Hills but was quickly contained.

Oakland’s diverse landscape has also helped its firefighters take on the mountainous terrain of Los Angeles County, Hunt said.

“Oakland firefighters are uniquely prepared to battle fires on complex terrains,” he said.

Hunt said Oakland and other jurisdictions that could be prone to a massively destructive urban wildfire continually train together in preparation to attack large-scale fires as a coordinated unit. That, along with mitigation strategies — like brush-eating goats, controlled burns and public education — has helped the region, so far steer clear of additional blazes on the scale of the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm.

“It all helps that they can all talk to each other and use the same equipment,” Hunt said. “It’s not an accident that we haven’t had a major fire here in 30 years.”

lower waypoint
next waypoint