A strike team of dozens of firefighters from throughout Stanislaus and Merced counties were summoned to battle the Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County which has inflicted historic devastation to residences and businesses in Altadena.

The region has seen the worst devastation in Pacific Palisades where multimillion dollar homes have been reduced to ash and rubble. So far at least 27 persons have been killed and an estimated 150,000 left homeless and more than 10,000 structures destroyed.

The Newman Fire Station has deployed six personnel to Southern California through the mutual aid system to assist with the ongoing wildfires.

“During the initial phases of the fire, the crews were immediately sent to the fire line, where they were fighting multiple structure fires,” said Newman Fire Chief Keith Bowen. “The crew was proud to report that one of the structures they were committed to was not lost during the firefight.”

Some of the West Stanislaus County Fire Protection District Brush 57 were assigned to Strike Team XTB 4227C. The crew spent Jan. 12 in the most critical wind area protecting a few structures that are still standing and mopping up some hot spots. They spent their 24-hour shift on Jan. 14, providing structure defense and tactical patrol around the structures in the Fernwood community in the Topanga Canyon area.

The crew is reaching the end of their 14-day deployment and will be returning home to Newman soon.

“The crews are saddened by the significant loss seen during the fire,” Bowen said. “It is fair to say that they miss Newman and look forward to being home with their families. We appreciate the thoughts and prayers that the community has given.”

Engine 54 remains at the Palisades Fire mopping up hot spots, providing tactical patrol and structure defense in the Carbon Canyon Road area just outside of Malibu.

Cal Fire Merced, which helps the Gustine Fire Department, sent two strike teams, of what is referred to as a “Charlie” said Jared Slate, with Cal Fire.

“A ‘Charlie’ consist of five total fire engines and one battalion Chief,” Slate said. “There are also dozens of other employees that are down there doing specific tasks they are specifically trained in.”

Jeff Serpa, the former Ceres Fire Battalion Chief who is now with Modesto Fire Department, and others have been assigned to the Eaton Fire on the eastern flank of the San Fernando Valley. The strike team was dispatched shortly after the massive firestorms erupted like a blow torch on Tuesday, Jan. 7. The crew left Stanislaus County at 11 p.m., drove the five-plus hours and arrived at the Eaton Fire in and around Pasadena.

“I have not experienced anything like this in my career,” Serpa said Monday morning.

Fire engines from Modesto, Stanislaus Consolidated, Burbank-Paradise, Denair, Turlock Rural and West Stanislaus fire departments are part of the strike team.

“We were immediately assigned to Division Zulu which was in the area of Altadena and immediately went to work protecting structures, evacuating residents and trying to limit the destruction,” said Serpa. “We did our best with what we had. It’s always a struggle with amassing enough resources to battle a fire like this.”

Without question, the biggest enemy was the fierce winds that defied the logical path of storms when fires swept down hills in addition to up hills.

“It’s extremely difficult to fight a fire when you have 60 to 80 mph sustained winds and 90 mph gusts but our primary job was life safety, getting the residents out of their homes and then once we had them evacuated within our area we immediately went to work protecting structures.”

One building saved by Serpa’s team helped to save the Super King grocery store near Lincoln and Woodbury in Altadena.

“We had roughly softball sized burning embers landing on the roof of a grocery store that we pulled up to first thing,” said Serpa. “We had numerous houses burning, we had others threatened, we had people that needed to be evacuated. It was literally all hands on deck.”

While firefighters relied on neighbors to advise about elderly residents who may have needed assistance getting out, it was difficult task keeping residents from returning to their homes to retrieve valuables, personal belongings and heirlooms.

“They evacuated a couple of different elderly care facilities using city buses, basically put them on a bus, got them out and took them to either to a similar facility in another city or took them to the evacuation center which was in Pasadena.”

As of Monday morning, Serpa said that the fires were largely contained but crews are concerned about Santa Ana wind events forecast into the next week.

“That really puts everybody on a heightened state of alert. Everyone’s on pins and needles wondering what this thing is going to do. Is there going to be another start? Is this fire going to kick back up? So, everybody is just very cautious.”

Serpa explained that in an urban firestorm, embers are picked up and scattered across a wide area of residences and businesses, simultaneously setting off multiple structure fires at once.

“You’ll get dozens and dozens of fires that start and crews start going into these fires and by the time they can get into the area, now we have 20 or 30 structures burning and in 10 minutes we have 40 or 50 structures burning. It multiplies exponentially. In an hour we have 100, 250 structures burning.”

A typical fully involved structure fire will get the attention of five engines. In the Eaton Fire, a structure fire might get one firefighter trying to douse the flames “because that’s all we have,” he added.

Serpa saw some houses miraculously remain unburned in blocks of devastation.

“In the neighborhood we were in, we would have two or three or four houses burning and we would go to the next one that wasn’t burning and that would be our stand. Our men and women did phenomenal work holding their ground, really taking that stand against people’s property and saying, we’re not going to have any more burn.”

“We were engaged in like a five-block area. We lost roughly two dozen homes but we saved probably twice that many, conservatively, including the grocery store. We do the best we can. Some of them we win, and some of them we don’t.”