Missoula Firefighter Shares His California Fire Experience

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - Firefighters from all over the country and Canada responded to pleas from California authorities to help mitigate the devastating Chaparral fires that caused billions of dollars in damage, and took 29 lives.

18 firefighters responded from Missoula. One was City Fire Captain Josh Stewart. He described his initial steps in helping to fight the raging fires.

Missoula City Fire Captain Josh Stewart Helped out With the California Wildfires

“The first thing we did getting there was just to check in with the Mobilization Center,” began Captain Stewart. “From there, we got put on a strike team and sent to the Palisades, and then upon arriving at the Palisades, basically got put on supporting different operations of extinguishment. Most of the fire was pretty much out at the time,   so at that point, we were basically going around and putting out hot spots around homes and neighborhoods and checking around homes where the fire had burned.”

Captain Stewart described the different patterns of damage done by the fires that were pushed along by the Santa Ana winds.

“It was kind of interesting,” he said.” You would see a set of buildings, apartments, or houses, and then along the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) there'd be like, you know, for a mile or so in the Malibu area, where everything was just burned down to nothing. You'd see chimneys and maybe some metal framing, but a lot of destruction.”

Captain Stewart Described the Harrowing Conditions for Firefighters

Captain Stewart attempted to describe what it was like for the California firefighters and those who came to help.

“The (Santa Ana) winds were so strong that even when they were going in behind the fire front and trying to put these homes out, the water wasn't going anywhere in the direction they were spraying because the wind was just pushing it all back. It would be like trying to fight a fire or spray water when we had those big wind gusts (in Missoula) back in July. You're talking wind forces that are blowing trees over and ripping roofs off, that kind of wind power and you're trying to put a fire out in it, some of that stuff was spotting like over a mile away.”

Stewart Said Human Lives are Far More Precious Than Possessions

Bringing his experiences back home, Captain Stewart encouraged Missoulians to do everything possible to protect their homes from fire, but human lives are just so much more important.

“Keeping things around the house, outside like wood piles and things like that, away from your house; keeping clutter and stuff away from the house; that’s no big thing for us because those sort of things can all be replaced, right?” he said. “But people can't. So when there's an evacuation order, people just need to evacuate. There's nothing in their homes or on their property that's worth their life.”

Stewart said he and his fellow Missoula firefighters were in California for 18 days in all, and he’s happy to be home.