The Sebastopol Fire Department was tired even before the Tubbs Fire lit up the Sonoma County horizon early Monday morning.
On the previous day, many woke up before the Sunday sun rose to prepare eggs, sausage, coffee and pancakes that fed 869 people during the department’s annual breakfast fundraiser. Throughout Sunday morning, Sebastopol’s 33 volunteer fire fighters welcomed the town, bringing families plates full of hot breakfast, handing out stickers and hats to kids and fostering community spirit in the way that only a fire department can.
Twelve hours later, the department was scrambling to respond to frantic dispatch calls from Santa Rosa requesting any and all able bodies and available engines to fight an unprecedented fire raging from Calistoga into Santa Rosa.
“It was pretty much chaos,” said Steve Thibodeau, a 33-year veteran with the department.
Thibodeau, who lives on the county side of Ragle Road, arrived at the station and began answering dispatch calls while an engine manned with five firefighters made its way into Santa Rosa. As more volunteers arrived, the department sent out its ladder truck and another engine to tackle the fires raging in near downtown Santa Rosa, Journey’s End mobile home park, the Coffey Park neighborhood and the million-dollar homes along Fountaingrove Parkway.
“It was just chaos for the first two days,” Thibodeau repeated. “There was no time to figure out where to go.”
At noon on Monday, after manning the station’s phone and answering dispatch calls for 14 hours, Thibodeau relieved the first crew.
“We relieved some of them simply for fatigue,” Thibodeau said. “Some needed medical aid.”
Mike Simpson, for example, had blisters on his feet because he had arrived to the station Sunday night from his house without socks.
“We come from our beds,” Thibodeau said. “We’re in shorts. We’re in flip flops.”
Thibodeau and his crew were dispatched to Calistoga Road in eastern Santa Rosa, then to Dutton Avenue in northwest Santa Rosa before breaking at the Oliver’s Market on Montecito Boulevard in Rincon Valley where California Highway Patrol officers brought burritos. It was his Thibodeau’s first meal of the day. While resting and eating, the Oakmont area and Annadel State Park became priorities, Thibodeau said.
“We self-dispatched to White Oak Drive, way up the hill to the top of Annadel,” he said.
Stationed at the edge of the park with large houses to both sides, the crew’s main task was structure protection. With the wind at bay, the crew was able to control the burn and make defensible space around the houses by trimming trees, branches and bushes. The crews almost ran out of gasoline, requiring volunteers who remained in Sebastopol to bring fuel to the engines twice.
Thibodeau encountered 40-foot flames on his own, fighting the best he could as he began to choke on the fire’s thick, black smoke.
They remained there overnight with relative success. By noon on Tuesday, the crew was resting and eating lunch.
“All of sudden the wind picked up,” Thibodeau said. “We hear Engine 1 from Santa Rosa on top of the hill above us ask for help. They had a blow up of fire.”
The crew raced up hill, abandoning their post to engage in a quick attack to save a house. The effort lasted eight hours.
“We saved it,” Thibodeau said. “It was really awesome.
As Tuesday edged into the midnight hour, Thibodeau and his crew took turns sleeping on chaise lounges near a swimming pool in the backyard of a house they were protecting. When Wednesday morning came, the Sebastopol crew was sent to the staging area at the Glen Ellen Fire Station to get their next orders. Thibodeau and his team were dispatched to Moon Mountain Road on Highway 12, north of Sonoma.
“It’s a gnarly road,” he said. “It goes into the hills and is rugged terrain and has vineyards running along side.”
Engines 8380 and 8361 were assigned to protect the Moon Mountain Christmas Tree Farm. The 160-acre farm is almost 100 years old and in its fourth generation.
“There was a lot of history for us to protect,” Thibodeau said.
As the commander, Thibodeau scoped out the property with Ed Ferrando, figuring out how to set up the best defense to maintain the farm.
“We had fire to the north and west sides of us,” Thibodeau said. “The flames to the north were 400 feet high and about half a mile away, I kid you not.”
With lines laid and fire apparatuses positioned in strategic locations, the crew readied themselves for the blaze.
By Thursday, one of the battalion chiefs told Thibodeau the farm was going to burn. Luckily, outside resources were pouring into the county, providing relief and aid to the local fire fighters.
A “hotshot” crew from Plumas County, located on the state’s northeastern border near Nevada, was dispatched to help engines 8380 and 8361.
As a hotshot crew, the 20 fire fighters were tasked with groundwork. Hotshot crews are considered “elite fire fighters,” due to their extensive training, high physical fitness standards and ability to undertake dangerous, stressful assignments. They’re armed with chainsaws, hand tools, ignition devices and water delivery equipment meant to hold lines, build defensive space and fight fire with fire.
The team that met Thibodeau wasn’t just any hotshot crew. The Plumas Intragency Hotshot Crew is the first nationally recognized hotshot crew. It is one of about 45 current hotshot crews in the state and have already worked a handful of large state fires, including the Evans and Minerva fires.
“They did a phenomenal job,” Thibodeau said.
The hotshot crew lit a backfire Thursday night on the north of end of the farm with success, he said. With distance between the farm and the fire, the crew slept after more than 15 hours in the field.
They left for Sonoma Valley for fuel, food, showers and rehabilitation. After returning to the staging area in Glen Ellen, the engines 8380 and 8361 were sent back home to Sebastopol.
Although home, the fire department still had its work cut out for them. The engines were in terrible shape. They had lost hoses and needed to reorganize everything. Over the week, generous community members swarmed the department with everything from bottled water and Gatorade to Clif bars and cooked chickens.
As late as Sunday afternoon, some of the crew — including Sebastopol Public Works employee Randy Bratton who was dispatched with the first engine — was still out fighting the fires near the Sebastiani Winery in Sonoma.
A week into what Thibodeau calls a career fire, he’s able to reflect on how the Tubbs, Pocket and Nuns fires have affected the county — and how they’re a call for a better, more financially sound system for departments across the county.
“This was a new experience, especially for us,” he said. “We drained our city resources.”
The Sebastopol Fire Department is the only city volunteer department in the county. The city pays for one full-time employee, Chief Bill Braga, and the equivalent of another half-time employee; those funds are partitioned into roughly 20 paid shifts a month that volunteers sign up for. The department answers roughly 900 calls annually but is slated to hit about 1,100 this year, Thibodeau said, adding that the limit for efficient volunteer departments is about 500 calls.
“It’s not enough,” he said.
He’s hopeful the city and county will be able to have more support in funding fire departments, but acknowledges there’s a lot of rebuilding to be done beforehand.
Thibodeau said the experience has made him rethink his family’s own disaster strategies and plans. It’s also put a hiatus on his occasional cigar.
“I think I’ve had enough smoke,” he said.
