Hundreds of California firefighters help battle raging Washington wildfires
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Set us as preferred Santa Monica Fire Deputy Chief Tom Clemo has barely slept since Saturday.He’s spent the last three days based in a high school in Spokane helping manage the response to devastating wildfires sweeping across eastern Washington.Three blazes ignited in the Spokane area Saturday while the region was under a “particularly dangerous situation” alert — the same extreme fire weather warning Los Angeles County was under when the Palisades and Eaton fires began.Fueled by ample dry vegetation after a snow-poor winter, the Spokane blazes had, by Monday, destroyed more than 700 structures and forced some 67,000 residents to evacuate.Clemo serves as incident commander for California Interagency Management Team 7, a federally coordinated group trained to help lead the response to wildfires across the nation.“At 3 o’clock [Saturday] we grabbed all 123 members of the team, put them on the road, drove north to Spokane and immediately moved our operations personnel into the field to assist with the management in the initial attack,” he said.Clemo’s team is largely made up of firefighting personnel based in Southern California and the Central Coast, including members from Santa Monica, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has dispatched about 150 personnel and 20 engines to Washington, while individual California fire departments are also loaning crews.The Los Angeles County Fire Department, for example, sent an eight-person camp team and a three-person dozer crew to the Spokane wildfires on Monday, according to a department spokesperson.The three fires burning around Spokane are already on track to become some of the most destructive blazes in the state’s history.
The fires had collectively charred some 8,000 acres Monday afternoon with 0% contain...