Cal Fire training underway in Santa Clara County

Fire training exercises are underway this week in South Santa Clara County. Cal Fire crews are honing their skills ahead of what’s expected to be a busy fire season.

The exercises, east of San Jose, are two-pronged. The first is to get rid of invasive grasses that have grown over the spring months. The second is to teach recruits some new techniques ahead of this year’s fire season.

“This is the fun part of it,” Corey Jacobsen, Cal Fire firefighter said. “Getting out and training and playing with fire. Seeing what it’s going to do. And practicing what we’re going to do in the real time thing is great. That’s the best part of this job.”

Jacobsen is one of about 40 firefighters training at the Smith Creek Cal Fire facility. Crews rotate exercises from long hikes carrying gear to laying hoses. They’re even putting out small grass fires which in itself could help during next year’s fire season.

“We have the opportunity here,” Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mike Mathiesen explains, “Under a vegetation management burn plan, put some live fire into this field here and get rid of invasive species of grass which will allow native grasses to re-sprout next year.”

Techniques taught here are put into the firefighting arsenal as the season grows more dangerous.

“There’s always that rumor in the fire service that every year is going to be the worst one,” Jacobsen said. “You hear it a lot. I heard it last year. And we actually saw a lot of good fire last year. This year, I do believe is going to be worse. We haven’t gotten the water, and that little bit that we did just get made the grass grow 4-5 inches and now it’s brown again. We definitely have the fuel loads and the right moisture to have a bad year.”

Crews are also adjusting their firefighting tactics because of the drought. They know they have to be careful using water, especially because a lot of their water sources have dried up. Air tankers and water tenders have to travel further to get the water. Their ‘turnaround times’ could get longer.

“The turnaround time,” Battalion Chief Mathiesen explains, “If the engine company runs out of water, you don’t have a water tender right here, right now to refill it, then we have to send it away to find a water source. That can be anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour. And if we don’t have enough water, or we don’t have enough engine companies to continually pump water through those hoses, then the firefighting stops.”

However, they’re digging back into their tool box to pull out old equipment. Backpumps are usually used by helitack crews but every engine carries them also. They can hold up to 40 pounds of water, and if used properly, can put out a lot of grass fire using very little water.

“We know what they are,” Jacobsen said. “We don’t pull them out very often. But this year, we will use them more because of the fuel levels, because of the grass, because of the drought.”

These same drought conditions dictate the prescribed burns. They are following the same rules as everyone else – watching the temperature, humidity levels and wind direction. They know controlled burns can rage out of control in minutes.

“We had a 4-5 foot grass crop up here and all you need is an ignition and a wind and it’ll pick up and start a fire,” Battalion Chief Mathiesen said.

Fire crews will be back out training on Friday.