BREAKING LOCAL NEWS – Additional San Mateo County Fire Units and Personnel Deployed"

Fire Agencies from throughout San Mateo County have stepped up to send any available additional personnel and apparatus to fires in the North Bay and State. 15 Type 1 Municipal Fire Engines with 66 personnel from every fire agency in San Mateo County had already been deployed to the fires in the North and calls for additional assistance have been non-stop.
 

Early Thursday morning (today at 3 am), four more Engines from Belmont and Central County Fire Departments along with the Menlo Park and Woodside Fire Protection Districts combined with a Fire Crew from Piedmont assembled a combined Type 1 Municipal Strike Team consisting of 22 personnel, five Fire Engines (four per unit) and a Command Vehicle (with two commanders), were deployed.


A total of 19 municipal Type 1 Municipal Fire Engines with 84 personnel have now been deployed from within San Mateo County with still even more personnel serving on Management Teams, OES Units and in other positions like Fire Line Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) and Paramedics bring that number over 100 personnel from within San Mateo County Fire Community, which is somewhat unprecedented.

Over a thousand Fire Units and Personnel are being deployed from across the State of California under the coordination of Cal-Fire and the Governors office of Emergency Services (Cal-OES) to multiple fires in Northern California. Local Fire Agencies are backfilling their fire stations with reserve fire equipment and off-duty personnel who are called in to make sure each local community that is contributing to this effort continues to experience the highest level of "normal" community emergency response coverage.


Fire Chief Schapelhouman said “every local fire agency is contributing absolutely everything they can to our neighbors in the North, we have two Fire Engines with eight personnel with an additional two Fire Line Medics in staff vehicles and members of our National Urban Search Rescue Team, specifically Human Remains Search Dog Teams and hardware like half a dozen dog crates that were needed to capture or hold stray animals sent up to the fires. Basically, any way that we can help, or contribute, we try to fill the need.”

 

That spirit of cooperation, compassion and contribution goes well beyond the formal to the personal, as local Firefighters, their families and/or friends who have had their own homes either threatened, or destroyed by these fires, pitch in to help each other.  “It’s hard not to find anyone who hasn’t been directly, or indirectly, affected or touched by what’s going on. Nobody is making a big deal out of it because so many people have had their lives turned upside down, or worse, and there’s so much left to do to just get the fires out, let alone to start the recovery process, which will take years” the Chief said.“

How to help firefighters who have lost their homes – Update:

Go to: http://client.prod.iaff.org/

File Photo – September 2017 Strike Team - Northern San Mateo County Strike Team
Northern CA deployment.jpg

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