60 seconds to launch: A day in fire season with Sonoma Valley firefighters

While assisting an elderly man on a medical incident around 2 p.m. at a senior living community, Sonoma Valley firefighters hear a call from their radio.

“That’s us,” one says. Three scramble out of the Sonoma Valley Fire and Rescue Authority ambulance into its firetruck 20 yards away, pulling out the fire protection equipment that they’re trained to put on in less than 60 seconds. Boots. Pants. Jacket.

Once in the truck, they put on their headsets which connect them to a fire transponder providing details about a growing blaze near Shellville. The first reports are of a half acre spreading uphill, a fire that would consume more than 100 acres before the end of the night.

Engineer and acting-captain Joe Gilmore says, “You chose a good day to ride with us.”

Not your average day

Not all days are like this. Most days begin at 7 a.m. with a morning debriefing and breakfast that each firefighter makes for themselves.

At 8 a.m., crews perform rig checks to ensure hoses work properly and lights and sirens are ready to blare at a moment’s notice.

Drought-plagued California has affected the cleaning duties at the station. In an effort to save water, fire engines are cleaned once every two days before a replacement crew enters the firehouse.

The rest of the day consists of training, broken up by lunch and dinner. Each crew member fixes their own lunch and breakfast but dinners are a communal event. In fact, Wednesday was the captain’s birthday and his wife brought a cake for the crew.

Yet any of that — whether it’s cleaning, reading or competing in video game tournaments in the clubhouse — is tossed aside the moment a call comes in over the radio in a muffled voice that only first responders seem to understand.

Gilmore was eating a delayed breakfast of hard boiled eggs, blackberries and oatmeal after an early morning fender bender forced him to rush out of a shower and throw on his uniform.

“At least I had a chance to shower,” Gilmore said. “Putting on socks with wet feet isn’t all that nice.”

It wouldn’t be the last interruption that day, which would end with a slice of birthday cake late in the night.

2017 changed everything

Since 2017 when fires tore through Sonoma County, decimating thousands of homes and taking 24 lives, firefighters have a new level of preparation.

They are asked to work longer hours and cover greater distances, all while the wildfire threat grows each passing year.

Jeremy Branconi, a paramedic firefighter, said the job starts when he is driving into work, staying aware of weather conditions that could lead to fire like the low humidity and high winds.

“During red flag warnings, we take down the American flags and have a red flag,” Gilmore said. “So we’re not going to be necessarily doing all those things we do on a day-to-day basis. We’re here for emergency response.”

Schedules that would have firefighters on-duty for two days on, four days off are more rare than in past years. Summer schedules can often be extended to three days on, three days off.

Gilmore was in the captain’s quarters being interviewed by an Index-Tribune reporter when a call came in — code 3, medical emergency requiring the use of sirens. An elderly man was struggling to breathe and needed to get to a hospital.

But you won’t see firefighters sliding down a pole to get to the engine. An incident when Santa Claus slide down the pole and broke his leg put a stop to that.

“Santa’s not allowed down the pole anymore,” Gilmore said. “I think it’s just as fast to run down the stairs.”

Fire on the hillside

With Gilmore as acting-captain, a team of five arrived at the senior living center, assessing the patient who struggled to breath.

“That’s game day,” Branconi said. “We shouldn’t really have to say a whole lot to each other. You can compare it to a quarterback calling out a play. You’ve already practiced on it all week long, just go out there an execute.”

Gilmore stood on the side with an iPad looking through the man’s medical information while a paramedic took his vitals signs. The team lifted the man into a gurney and moved him to the back of the ambulance where paramedics attached wires to his chest to get a “picture” of his heart.

That’s when a radio call changed the course of a day. Within seconds, they were racing towards the fire growing along Fremont Drive at Napa Road, near Schellville.

Sirens blared as the engine made its way through traffic. Upon arrival, firefighter Branconi brought out his phone to take pictures of the scene.

“You’re thinking about the area you’re responding to, the radio frequencies you’re going to be using,” Branconi said.

The fire started at the base of a dry grassy hill where a construction crew had been excavating the area. The crew attempted to douse the flames with dirt using bulldozers. One worker used a crane to stomp out flames and crush trees that threatened to spread to fire.

Gilmore hopped out of the passenger’s seat and began assessing the situation. He motioned to the south edge of the fire and identified a rocky slope that could be used as a edge setter, a place where the fire was unlikely to hop.

The crew was going to flank the fire.

The grass on the hill was dry and the wind was blowing northeast; conditions which helped the flames quickly climb to the peak of the hill and down the other side into the valley below, entering Napa County.

At the edge of the fire, Branconi held the nozzle of the hose, spraying as he went running up the steep side of the hill.

“Half tank,” Gilmore said to Branconi, signaling they had used half the water in the engine’s tank. Neither panicked for a moment, their actions on autopilot from hundreds of hours of training.

Other engines soon began to arrive, but that didn’t stop the fire’s northeasterly march forward. Anti-fire aircraft, including planes and helicopters, descended from the air, quelling the flames with water and fire retardant.

A fire that started shortly after 2 p.m. had engulfed more than 40 acres by 3:30 p.m. Gilmore, Branconi and others had set an anchor, a barrier to the fire’s spread that protects firefighters from being outflanked by the blaze.

“We’re able to stop the lateral spread,” Gilmore said. “And then once we get to a certain point, we can plug in resources up ahead and be able to slow the front of the fire.”

As the crew contained the fire on the ridge of the hill, a Cal Fire team ascended from the opposite side. The two crews met at the top and began putting out spit fires that remained in the grass.

The crews started their “mop up” phase of cleaning up the hillside for the next several hours. By 10 p.m., they were headed home, but not before another medical call rerouted them.

The Fremont fire, as it would be dubbed by fire departments, burned 116 acres in Sonoma and Napa county over six hour before it was contained. No structures were burned and no injuries were reported. As of Thursday, investigators were still looking into the cause.

“In a perfect world, we would have had a nice dinner and had cake at 6:30 or seven o'clock,” Gilmore said. “But it just so happened we were doing it at 11:30 or midnight.”

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.