BIG SUR, C.A.—Wrapping up a week of triple digit temperatures , firefighters in California are still working tirelessly to contain fires that have already wrecked worse damage than last year. In recent weeks, more than 1,500 wildfires have charred 85,000 acres across the Golden State.
Working long hours and hailing from all over the country, 2,300 fire personnel are battling the blazes. The Epoch Times caught up with firefighters fighting the Basin Complex fire, one of the biggest fires burning now.
Cody Ratley, 20, firefighter for 1 year
"This is my third day here. It is a good experience, you just do you work, your assignment, just go all day."
"I've seen other fires but not like this one."
"We don't know until when we will stay—until we get relieved or we will go to another fire? We never know."
"Yes, we are tired by the end of the day, we get a lot of stuff done, they keep you busy."
Steve Mora, 24, firefighter for 3-4 years
"We are working 12 hour shifts right now, we are working the day shift and we rest during the night. Other crews are working during the night shift and rest during the day, it is constant swapping of crews here."
"Luckily no one in our team has been injured, we have been blessed in that, it is a big plus when everyone goes home safe."
"We have been here since June 28. Acre wise, this is the biggest fire I have been on."
"We wake up, do our assignment just like everyone else. Once we are done we ask our next assignment, and keep going until this thing is cleaned up and things picked up to back to how it was. It boosts morale to see people come up and thank you, but in the end we are here, like anyone else, doing the job we like to do and doing the job we are asked to do."
"We met crews from Minnesota, Idaho, Oregon, Montana—it's kind of neat to meet people from other areas and swapping stories 'hey how you guys fight fires over there, what kind of fires you guys have..' gives us ideas, gives them ideas, it's kind of nice."
Garrett Sanders, Sergeant, Monterey County Sheriff's Office
"[I've] been working in the Big Sur area for the fire for the last couple of weeks."
"First we give advisories to certain areas and then when the fire is a threat, when it is too dangerous to stay behind, we give mandatory requests that they leave within a certain time frame. In Big Sur, it is a three to four hour window and in other areas we try to give them 24 hours."
"Sometimes people don't want to leave, so we get their information, who can we contact and notify in case something happens, [and they have to] sign a form that they were aware that they were asked to leave. We cannot force them."
"We had a lot of people who opted to stay and decided when it was time to leave on their own—if they see the fire was close. When they saw the fire was coming too close they left. Some of those residences were burnt, so it was a smart thing that they decided to leave. So far no casualties."
"This is a big fire, a serious threat. I worked before with evacuations because of the floods and it wasn't nearly as extensive as this fire. During the evacuation we needed nearly 16 deputies."
Justin Scribner, Public Information Officer, at Los Padres Fire Center Base Camp
"We got six firefighters injured. Most of those are heat related injuries. Nothing that's been serious."
"To fight the fire to date has cost $27,835,300. It is because the associated cost with supporting an incident this large. We have a total of 2,299 personnel assigned to this, they are assigned to be here 24 hours a day. [Also due] to cost associated with feeding and housing, portable toilets, the cost to support that large amount of people."
"A lot of the firefighters are staying here at base camp, in set up tents."
"We had a total of 24 residences that were destroyed from the fire and Highway 1 has been closed. And that has a big impact on Big Sur, a community that is based on Highway 1 with a lot of stores, restaurants that have been impacted due to the closure of the road. In either direction we are not allowing any public in."
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