Mass. Emergency Team Backs California Wildfire Effort

Aug. 04--It's all hands on deck in California, as the entire state -- especially the northern region -- has been swiftly and completely thrust into wildfire season.

As of Friday at 12:41 a.m. that 14 large fires had broken out, and they're still going, pushing 7,000 firefighters to their limits. On its own, the Willow Wildfire by Bass Lake, just north of Fresno, has 1,778 people working to contain, extinguish and manage the crisis.

Five of those almost 2,000 people are part of the Massachusetts Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue Team, a Beverly-based group comprised of 150 police, firefighters, EMS and civilians who have received formal training in incident management. The group responds to major disasters under a contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

However, the MATF-1 has never dealt with anything like California wildfire, so the five MATF-1 members at the Willow wildfire response -- Guy Nebery (team leader), Jay Bourgeois (liaison), Jay Schwartz (safety), David Coffey (plans) and John Cannon (logistics) -- aren't just lending a hand. Since arriving on site at about 5 p.m. Saturday, they have been getting schooled on how to handle a crisis of this magnitude.

"It's very unique in that it's a lengthy operation, many of our incidents involve a 24-hour work period," said Nebery. "This thing is going to go on for weeks, it's such a big process."

Nebery noted that not only is the time-length involved unique, but also the elements involved, such as aircrafts, and the number of people involved.

"We don't have these by us, so this is to learn how they manage a large-scale incident." said Nebery.

One of the things Nebery said seems to be helping the Willow wildfire response process is that the many different agencies involved -- Nebery estimates it to be 20 -- have built strong relationships with one another, helping them seem to work together seamlessly.

Nebery's team has been shadowing the California Office of Emergency Services Fire & Rescue Division, under the invitation of the group's president, Bill Bondshu.

"Bill has been to Beverly several times teaching advanced courses in incident management, and the last time he was out here, I mentioned that we'd really like to get involved with one of the big incidents out in California," said Mark Foster, program manager for the MATF-1. "So Friday afternoon he called up and said 'we could really use people out on the program here near Fresno."

With that, Nebery and the others set out for California the next day. They have spent their time their shadowing the OES management team as it orders resources -- meals, laundry, services, fuel. They've seen that OES helps figure out the financing, the operations, etc.

"What we're here to do is not learn how to put the fire out, but how to manage a community that just showed up so not everybody's standing around," said Nebery.

The MATF-1 has been on the scene of various other incidents, including 9/11, the flooding in Vermont after Hurricane Irene, the aftermath of superstorm Sandy in New York City, and their biggest local event, the tornadoes in Springfield.

"I think most of my people want to help someone out in a time of need," said Foster, of what drives his MATF-1 members to do what they do. "It is very interesting, exciting and rewarding."

The Willow wildfire has burned through 5,702 acres but is 70 percent contained, according to info on the official California fire database.

Nebery said the responders have started to demobilize resources (to be used elsewhere) and gear up for the stage of "reclaiming" the forest.

Nebery admits that what his team does is low risk -- for example, they are not in the fire line of the Willow wildfire. But he values what they do and feels it's important to learn everything they can to improve their own operations in the future.

"For us this is to bring back to our task force some of the skills [the California team] has ... to make things better for us," he said. "We certainly don't see anything of this scale so we have to travel but if you have an interest in your profession, you want to travel to learn more about it."

Staff writer Amanda Ostuni can be reached at 978-338-2660 or aostuni@salemnews.com.

Copyright 2015 - The Salem News, Beverly, Mass.