Pierce County firefighters are working 24-hour shifts in LA. Here’s what they’re seeing
Firefighters from Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula are reporting back from the front lines as they support the wildfire response in Los Angeles, according to updates from local fire departments.
The four-person team drove down to Los Angeles on Jan. 9 and got their assignments from a base camp set up for first responders at Zuma Beach, according to social media updates from the Key Peninsula Fire Department and Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One. The team includes two firefighters from the Key Peninsula Fire Department, Adam Morse and Kevin Koehl, and two from Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One, Jimmy Dane and Marty Pattin.
Assigned to the Palisades fire, the team traveled down to join a larger Washington strike team including firefighters from Pierce, Kitsap and King counties, Lt. Morse told The News Tribune via phone the evening of Jan. 15. They’re working to protect structures in the Bel-Air area, a residential neighborhood in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains to the east of Mandeville Canyon.
“To get to our assigned area, we drive through the Palisades area every day, and I mean the damage is really unbelievable,” Morse told The News Tribune. “It’s not anything that I’ve seen.”
He remembers when the Carlton Complex wildfire took out about 300 structures in Washington state in 2014. That fire, sparked by lightning in Okanogan County, remains the largest single wildfire in the state’s history, with damages totaling $98 million, according to HistoryLink.org.
“It doesn’t hold a candle to what I’ve seen here,” Morse said.
Since it broke out Jan. 7, the Palisades fire has burned close to 24,000 acres in Los Angeles County as of 2:29 p.m. Jan. 16, according to Cal Fire. Three civilians have been injured and eight have died. The fire has destroyed almost 3,000 structures and damaged over 500.
It’s the biggest of several fires actively burning in the region and is 22% contained, Cal Fire reports. The second largest, the Eaton Fire, has burned over 14,000 acres, destroying some 5,700 structures and killing 16 civilians. It is 55% contained as of a Cal Fire update at 3:56 p.m. Jan. 16. An incident map of all active fires is available at fire.ca.gov/incidents.
Lt. Morse told The News Tribune Jan. 15 at about 4:45 p.m. that the fire activity where the Key Peninsula and Gig Harbor crew is at is minimal, but not out of danger. The crew has been placed into an area with “red flag warnings,” which means that if the fire activity were to pick back up, the winds could drive it into their area, according to Morse.
“We are positioned to be the initial attack,” he said.
He explained that the firefighters have been going through the evacuated Bel-Air neighborhood and checking the homes to make sure no one has tried to return to them. They’re also assessing the areas around the homes to plan how they’d respond if the fires were to approach. Other crews with wildland engines are going closer to the center of the fire to search for remaining hot spots and mitigate further spread, while others with bulldozers are working to plow through and create hard firebreaks, which are areas cleared of fuel to stop a fire from spreading.
The base camp includes firefighters from Oregon, California, Nevada, Texas and Colorado, as well as elsewhere in Washington, according to Morse. There’s also urban search-and-rescue teams, which carefully go through the debris and damaged homes, that include members of the military and a Mexican national team, he said.
Morse and Koehl were on shift earlier this month when they learned they were being deployed to L.A.
“We were sitting at the station watching the daily news and we saw everything happening down here in California and how it was just kind of growing, and we sent a message to our chief asking if we could get down here, if he was going to to deploy us,” Morse said. “And several hours later he called us up and said: ‘Hey, make sure everything’s packed. You guys are leaving tomorrow morning.’”
Key Peninsula Fire Department spokesperson Anne Nesbit and Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One spokesperson Tom Wescott both said in separate phone calls that the team is set to stay in L.A. for at least two weeks. That’s a tentative plan, according to Wescott. The crew may be asked to extend their time there or they could be swapped out.
Nesbit said Jan. 16 that Key Peninsula Fire doesn’t know yet if firefighters will be asked to stay longer, but the department could swap out their firefighters while leaving their firetruck in L.A. if needed.
Gig Harbor Fire & Medic One spokesperson Tom Wescott told The News Tribune how fire departments coordinate to send reinforcements in the event of a major emergency.
When a state has an emergency, they can send out a request for resources across state lines through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC). It’s a national agreement to provide aid in times of disaster adopted by all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands, according to emacweb.org.
According to Nesbit, agencies decide if they can fulfill the specific asks from the state experiencing the emergency. The state might ask for a specific type of engine or tender, for example. Key Peninsula Fire posted on Facebook that they sent their newly-acquired Rosenbauer Timberwolf, a big brush truck equipped to fight wildland fires, with their team to L.A.
The federal contract provides for firefighters’ compensation. Nesbit said the reimbursement will cover firefighters’ work time and the expenses of using their firefighting apparatus. The Key Peninsula Firefighters labor union also wrote in response to a comment on their Facebook page Jan. 10 that the reimbursement includes the cost of travel.
Asked if the deployment will affect staffing capacity on the Key Peninsula, Nesbit said staffing won’t be affected. Part of the reimbursement pays for staff to cover for the deployed firefighters in their absence.
A one-day closure of Key Peninsula Fire Station No. 4 in Longbranch from the morning of Jan. 10 to the morning of Jan. 11, which Nesbit described as a “brownout,” was not related to the deployment of firefighters to L.A., according to Nesbit. Recent budget challenges the department has faced led to the temporary closure, she said.
“I think we’re all doing pretty well,“ Key Peninsula Fire’s Lt. Morse said, asked how the crew is doing. Working the 24-hour shifts — closer to 30, if you factor in the travel time to their assignment area — has been “a little exhausting,” he added.
They’ve been able to keep in touch with their families via text or phone call, and there’s been a flood of supplies donated from businesses and individuals for first responders. He said his crew is thankful for the ability to help.
“All the guys on my crew, we’re happy to do it,” he said.
This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 9:15 AM.
