Firefighter safety was the key to a three-day Brush Drill hosted by the Glendale Fire Department at Deukmejian Wilderness Park.
Firefighters from Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena, Los Angeles and Los Angeles County fire departments joined together for a reminder on how to keep themselves and their peers safe while fighting brush fires together.
Being a central location prime for a brush fire made Deukmejian in Glendale a great choice of location, said GFD Capt. Bill Lynch.
"It's a good place to host it, because it gives people a good opportunity to see what we have in the way of potential brush hazard," Lynch said.
Deukmejian is flanked by the San Gabriel mountain range and looks out to the Verdugo mountain range. No large brush fires have burned either mountain range for decades, making them particularly vulnerable, said GFD Capt. Matt Luchetta. Luchetta facilitated the tri-city event, which educated firefighters in groups on Tuesday, Wednesday and yesterday.
Luchetta said the Verdugos have not been significantly burned since the Sunland incident in 1980, which burned 6,400 acres. Previous significant burns to the Verdugos were the La Tuna Canyon blaze in 1955 and the 1964 Whiting Woods fire. He said the San Gabriels have not been burned since a 43,000-acre fire in 1975 that started in Mill Creek.
"Here's a perfect spot to get an idea of something that has already burned and will burn again," Luchetta said.
"History generally repeats itself, and the fire behavior will be similar to what it was in the past," Lynch added.
In addition to talking about past fires, Fred Bland, the supervisor of LACoFD's Camp 2 near Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, stressed the need for individual firefighter awareness of firefighters. Bland heads up the department's air and wildland division.
"We get a comfort zone with brush fires," Bland told firefighters Wednesday morning. "There's all kinds of green up there. What's your comfort level?
"It should never be that high," he stressed that even though the hills look green, the dead plant matter underneath the green plants make the hills susceptible to fire.
Last year's tri-city brush drill was in Pasadena. Officials from Glendale and LA county fire departments said the annual tri-city brush drills are a good opportunity for firefighters to familiarize themselves with other departments and their equipment. This will help them better understand each other's capabilities before a brush fire requires unified response.
