South San Francisco Firefighters Help Battle Camp Fire

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — Silicon Valley and Peninsula strike teams are among the thousands of firefighters putting in long hours on the front lines of the most destructive and one of the deadliest wildfires in California history, the Camp Fire.

Deputy Chief Don Long with the Menlo Fire Protection District is leading a Northern San Mateo County Strike Team consisting of 20 personnel and five engines with firefighters from Foster City, the Central County cities of Burlingame, Hillborough and Millbrae, San Mateo, San Bruno and South San Francisco. Currently, 4,555 firefighters with 571 engines, 91 hand crews and 88 bulldozers are battling the blaze heading toward Oroville. More than 15,000 more structures are threatened. Approximately 6,500 homes have already been destroyed.

Over the weekend, the firefighting force was extinguishing a heavily damaged elderly care facility located off Bushman and Clark roads in Paradise as shown in the images here. The heightened concern with Paradise is the predominant senior population -- especially with more than 100 people unaccounted for even after many have checked in to shelters.

Long, a veteran of many California Wildland Fire deployments, describes the scene as devastating.
The district is prepared to send out more firefighters and equipment as it becomes necessary as well as the specialized drone team to get more aerial views like it did for the large infernos that blasted Redding and Santa Rosa.

"Sadly, we're getting very good at conducting and providing important aerial imagery and enhanced big picture situational awareness used by first responders," Menlo Park Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said.

Earlier, Schapelhouman noted how the region's topography is fuel rich and a death trap -- a notion Cal Fire's Brice Bennett confirmed on his way to the Southern California fires after working the front lines of the Butte County blaze.

The Santa Clara County Fire strike team has also been working the front line of the blaze which has now burned approximately 115,000 acres.

SEE ALSO:

• California Fires Latest: 31 Dead, 209,000 Acres Burned

— By Patch Editor Sue Wood / Images via Menlo Park Fire Protection District