Preparing for fiery battle Preparing for fiery battle (July 09, 2004)

Firefighters drill with wildfires at Camp Parks
by Teresa C. Brown

First came an invisible wall of heat - stifling, oppressive, blistering. The searing heat was a breath ahead of a swift grass fire that swept across Camp Park's grassy hills like a scorching wave, leaving a black smoldering trail in its wake.

Marked by gray smoky billows gorging the skies, the fire was one of many controlled blazes in the Wildland 2004 drill, a two-day firefighter training exercise held last week at Camp Parks.

In its 11th year, the drill involved a total of 800 firefighters from 28 different agencies in the Bay Area, said Capt. Dave George of the Contra Costa County Fire Department.

In addition to the firefighters from the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department, men, women and trucks from departments as far as Berkeley, San Francisco, Rodeo-Hercules and Santa Rosa also participated.

Over the course of two full days, firefighters torched and extinguished more than 200 acres of grassland on the military reservist base in Dublin.

Overall, the two-day drill cost about $6,500, George said.

The drill provides fire agencies with training that some departments do not have the ability to offer their firefighters. The San Francisco Fire Department, for instance, appreciates being able to come to this drill because it does not have similar open expanses for drills, he said.

Additionally, the exercise gives firemen from different agencies a chance to work together on a team, providing them with an opportunity to work with each other as they might in a real-life situation, George said. As a team, they must work together to control and extinguish the wildfires.

During the exercises, one or two firefighters would start a blaze, and then each team practiced one of four different strategies while extinguishing the blaze, George said. They practiced progressive hose lay, structure fire protection, mobile attack and hand tools.

In progressive hose lay, the firemen are constantly extending the hose by adding another section. In structure fire protection, the firefighters work to protect an imaginary structure from a fire, George explained.

For mobile attack, firefighters walk, with fire trucks following, along the fire, dousing the flames with water to extinguish it.

The fourth practice, hand tools, is hot and grimy work, George said. As the name implies, firefighters use hands tool, either a shovel or what resembles an oversized hoe. They follow the fire line, creating a gap in the grassy field while other firefighters follow with a "back pump," a water-filled backpack, spritzing a small amount of water along the fire's edge. Using the hand tools, the firefighters are able to extinguish a fast-moving fire quickly, he said.

After extinguishing each blaze, the firefighters review the practice. Practicing the fiery battle gives Bay Area firefighters the necessary experience for the day they face a wild land fire.
Smell smoke?

Open burning season for Alameda County began July 1 and runs through April 30, 2005. Open burning allows residents to burn unwanted vegetation on graze land within burn requirement regulations and under the direction of public fire officials.

Burning is also controlled under the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which designates days as either a burn or no-burn day. The BAAQMD designates days by 3 p.m. the previous day, based on when air pollution will be reduced by good weather conditions.

Prior to burning, the day's status must be confirmed by called the BAAQMD, (800) HELP-AIR (435-7247). For information about burning regulations, call (415) 749-4900.

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