Firefighters Face New Challenges in Big Sur, How to Fight a Fire at Night

Battling the Pfeiffer Fire in Big Sur doesn’t stop just because the sun goes down. In fact, working during the night can allow crews to make serious progress. But it can also be a lot more dangerous.

On Wednesday night at the incident base, firefighters said heading out for a night shift is nothing like being on the day shift. That’s because there’s a lot of situations and circumstances to consider while fighting the fire and trying to stay safe at the same time.

More than 1000 firefighters continue to work around the clock, hoping to continue saving structures and prevent the fire from crossing Highway 1. Fire managers said crews use the same techniques and tools as they use during the day. But once the sun goes down, they ask every firefighter to take extra steps to prevent injuries. Fire fighting at night can be even more dangerous because all crews have, is a headlamp on top of their helmet to see what’s in front of them.

“Your whole imagery is only under that flashlight. So you have no perspective of a long distance. You can’t even see a tree that might be 50 feet away that could be a hazard to you,” said Pfeiffer Fire Deputy Incident Commander Dana D’Andrea.

When a firefighter doesn’t get a chance to see the lay of the land when the sun is up, it can be disorienting.

“I mean when you hear a rock coming down, you look up and that flashlight has like a searchlight. It’s looking all over, trying to figure our where is it coming from,” said D’Andrea.

Fire managers said sometimes they’ll have to cancel the night shift if it gets too dangerous. There are perks though. Humidity is higher at night, making it easier to gain ground. But not being able to fly aircraft to night to drop water is a draw back. Managers said the National Forest Service is just now bringing back the ability to use helicopters at night.

“It was in the 80s they had 5 or 6 that flew at night. Now they’re down to one coming back,” said D’Andrea.

Firefighters said they’ve been able to make a lot of progress a night with the Pfeiffer Fire. So they’ve been able to move the containment deadline up from Friday evening to Thursday evening.