A team of three firefighters from the Morongo Valley Fire Department were dispatched for two weeks in August to help fight two major fires in California—the Lake Fire near Los Angeles, and then the SCU Lightning Complex Fire near Gilroy. Managing editor Tami Roleff spoke with the team’s captain recently, who said it was an amazing experience…
“The satisfaction of when you’re done with your 24-hour operational period and looking around and seeing the work that you’ve done. One of the mornings when we got off, we left White Oak Ranch and that whole property was still standing.”
Fire Captain Brennain Gorter, said he and the other two Morongo Valley firefighters—Joel Romero and Gilbert Vasquez—felt a sense of accomplishment knowing that their contributions helped in fighting the large fires.
“It’s what we signed up to do, the opportunity to help and be a part of something bigger.”
The three Morongo Valley firefighters joined a strike team at the Lake Fire, where they defended properties against the Lake Fire.
At the Lake Fire, his strike team was tasked with defending properties, like the White Oak Ranch, as well as prepping lines to keep the fire from spreading. Gorter was very proud of his strike team being able to keep the fire from jumping across Pine Canyon Road.
After 10 days on the Lake Fire, his strike team was reassigned to the SCU Lightning Complex Fire near Alameda and Gilroy, where they worked another five days. At both fires, they worked 24 hours on and 24 hours off.
Gorter said the SCU Lightning Complex Fire was a completely different experience than the Lake Fire.
“It was a total different environment—it’s a different type of vegetation, different type of climate, a totally different set of dangers to watch out for.”
At the SCU fire, he said there weren’t as many structures to defend, so his team had another different experience—setting backfires to stop the forward spread of the SCU fire.
“It’s one of those things you kind of stop and think, ‘This is kind of backwards,’ but it’s a good learning opportunity and shows a lot about fire behavior.”
Gorter said he had set back fires before in other fires he had worked, but for Romero and Vasquez, it was their first time setting backfires.
And with the El Dorado fire burning near Yucaipa, he said Morongo Valley firefighters are ready to go again if needed.
“The department is really big in helping out where we can.”
His favorite part of the two-week experience was being with his coworkers.
“The overall camaraderie of being with the guys, living out of our engine. When you’re with the same group of people for two weeks, you find, the small things become your best memories.”
