Sonoma County firefighters work in shifts on uncontained Big Sur fire

Two teams of Sonoma County firefighters early Thursday morning will head out of a Cal Fire base camp, fire engines restocked with more hose line and fuel, drinking water and food, and head back into treacherous terrain where a huge wildland blaze continues to blacken the hills along California’s central coastline in Monterey County.

They might pass a third local strike team coming in for a rest after 24 hours on the line. The crew starting their break Thursday morning, led by Petaluma acting Battalion Chief Chad Costa, was slated to have worked Wednesday through the night in a particularly tough area where flames were threatening a small community.

“There’s a pretty good chance it (the fire) could reach them,” said Jack Piccinini, chief of Windsor and Rincon Valley fire departments, who is at the fire working on a Cal Fire management team.

There are nearly three Sonoma County strike teams on this Soberanes fire, totaling 13 engines and almost 60 firefighters from throughout the county.

They are a small percentage of a firefighting force of about 3,000 from throughout the state helping on this latest deadly and destructive California fire. The fire’s toll now includes the death of a bulldozer operator crushed when his dozer overturned, the loss of homes and thousands of acres of state and federal park land and private property. That property stretches from Highway 1 along the coast south of upscale Carmel Highlands and pushes inland to remote, tiny communities tucked into steep canyons thick with timber and brush, akin to Sonoma County’s Russian River region.

“We’re working hard, all sore and tired and we all have gravelly voices,” said Dave Welch, a Rancho Adobe battalion chief leading his first strike team in about eight years.

Welch and his five-engine crew Wednesday morning returned to base for a break. They are working on engines able to travel rough terrain and had spent 24 hours about four miles inland as the crow flies, where the nighttime temperatures didn’t drop below 80 degrees.

Welch estimated the night’s efforts included hiking 8 to 9 miles, putting out 2 miles of hose and then several hours spent setting fires to burn away fuel and create a containment line.

“The terrain here is brutal,” Welch said. Not just the steep incline and unsure footing, but the dirt is fine and kicks up, mixing with the smoke. “I feel like I’ve smoked 10 packs of cigarettes.”

Another local crew is supervised by veteran strike team leader Dave Cornelssen, a battalion chief with Windsor’s Central Fire Authority. His group also worked through the night, assigned to protect homes overlooking the Pacific Ocean near Carmel Heights. Cornelssen said when more crews were needed in the hills, they left their urban fire engines and headed up into the countryside, laying out about three miles of hose line.

The fire wasn’t burning toward the residential area, but if flames turned, the hoses would be in place to help stop them, he said.

This blaze started near Soberanes Creek in a coastal state park. How the fire started still was under investigation Wednesday.

Costa’s team, which headed out early Wednesday for a 24-hour shift, was sent to protect a residential area near the community of White Rock Club, along the southeast edge of the fire. This is Costa’s second time as a strike team leader.

“It’s one of these spots that continues to be a real problem for us. They’ll get some firefighting in,” Piccinini predicted.

Meanwhile, their Sonoma County counterparts Wednesday were taking a 24-hour break at the firefighting base camp at Toro Park near Salinas.

“We’ll get more hose, get rested and go out again,” Cornelssen said.

You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 707-521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@rossmannreport.