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Salinas Fire Department returns from Southern California on the heels of the Palisades Fire

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SALINAS, Calif. (KION-TV) -- Central Coast fire agencies are returning after spending several days battling wildfires in LA county.
"I got down to Malibu, and the winds were the craziest winds i've ever experienced," Cody Johnson Captain of Salinas Fire Department if you didn't have both feet planted on the ground, it felt like you're going to get blown over."

Johnson talks about the moment he and his crew arrived to help put out the Palisades fire, hoping to prevent more homes from being destroyed.

"They were going from house to house, trying to triage which houses can be saved, which ones were already burning," Johnson said.


Crew worked 48 straight hours.
"That first, 48 hours, I had us resting for an hour and then working for an hour," Johnson said. "We just worked in terms of two, through the night. That was, kind of our recipe to try to get through that first 48 hours."

The destruction was devastating with entire neighborhoods reduced to ash.


"Ash pits where houses used to be, usually you'll get a few houses affected or, you'll have a house or two survive, but there is entire little clusters of neighborhoods that I drove through that were completely burnt to the ground," Johnson said.


After several days fresh crews were swapped in to control the fire.

"Just based off of, the conditions that were present, how dry everything was, how hard the wind was blowing, it just makes it incredibly difficult, even with a lot of resources on hand," Johnson said.

Multiple crews from the Central Coast have been deployed. The Salinas fire department assisted in the Los Angeles Palisades fire, and at this time, no additional resources are down south. 

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