North Coast Firefighters Mobilize to Assist Southern California Amid Devastating Wildfires

Battalion Chief Ron McLaughlin and the Humboldt-Del Norte CAL FIRE Strike Team on January 8, 2025 leaving Garberville for Southern California
As Southern California continues to battle devastating wildfires, including the Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in Los Angeles County, firefighters from Humboldt, Del Norte, and surrounding North Coast communities are answering the call for mutual aid.
CAL FIRE Humboldt-Del Norte Unit Deployment
The CAL FIRE Humboldt-Del Norte Unit has deployed a strike team consisting of five engines and personnel under the leadership of Battalion Chief Ron McLaughlin. The team initially headed to the states Southern Division in San Luis Obispo where the strike team will be reassigned as conditions evolve, placed where their help is needed the most.
“Our goal is to protect the environment and the resources,” Chief McLaughlin said. With hundreds of homes lost in the raging wildfires, toxins from the smoke is an element that firefighters must contend with. “The best thing we can do is put the fire out. Until the fire is mitigated, it’s going to continue to produce toxic smoke and impact air quality,” the battalion chief explained.
Though the Humboldt-Del Norte Unit is well into their off-season with the region thoroughly saturated from winter storms, fire remains a risk. Even as the strike team heads south, McLaughlin assured residents that local operations in Humboldt and Del Norte counties remain fully staffed.
Mutual Aid from Humboldt Bay and Fortuna Fire Departments

An American flag flies on the back of a fire engine as firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in Southern California. [Image from CAL FIRE]
Public Information Officer Talia Flores of Humboldt Bay Fire emphasized the importance of mutual aid. “This could happen in any community,” she said. “For us to send help to a community 12 hours away is a privilege, and we hope our resources make a difference.”
Flores added that local fire stations have carefully adjusted staffing to ensure uninterrupted service in their home districts.

Firefighters on the initial response battled the rapidly growing fires for over 24 hours before relief arrived. [Image from CAL FIRE]
Small Volunteer Fire Departments Offer Aid
The mutual aid request even reached small volunteer fire departments, including smaller districts in Southern Humboldt. Salmon Creek VFD also received the request for mutual aid though they will be unable to respond to this request at this time. Chief Dan Gribi of the Salmon Creek Volunteer Fire Department said his team is eager to help but is working to ensure that personnel and equipment meet the rigorous requirements for large-scale incidents.
“We’re not quite ready to respond fully at this point,” Gribi explained. “But it’s a point of pride that even the smaller departments are stepping up to help out where they can.”
Nearby volunteer fire departments in Shelter Cove, Miranda, and Briceland may be better positioned to assist immediately, Gribi noted.

CAL FIRE reports over 300 structures and residences destroyed in the Palisades Fire. [Image from CAL FIRE]
Personal Stories of Loss and Resilience
For some North Coast residents, the crisis hits close to home. Pele, a Humboldt resident originally from Altadena, near Pasadena, shared her emotional experience of watching her childhood community devastated by the wildfires.
“People are losing their homes, their lives, and everything they’ve built,” Pele said, her voice trembling with emotion. She described receiving frantic messages from friends and family alerting her to the rapidly spreading flames.
Her parents, still living in Pasadena, were forced to evacuate. Her father, who requires medical care, was transported to a hospital, while her mother sought refuge with friends.
“We don’t know if they’ll have a home to return to,” Pele shared. “Many schools, businesses, and homes are just gone. Watching it all unfold is heartbreaking.”
Despite her distress, Pele offered a message of resilience and community: “Keep your family close. Take things seriously, and don’t take anything for granted. Even a simple check-in with someone can go a long way right now.”
Dozens of homes burning to the ground in #Altadena #EatonFire. No firefighters in sight. What is going on? #Pasadena #HurstFire #PacificPalisadesFire #PalisadesFire #LosAngeles @PattersonNBC pic.twitter.com/9OaxR03Mgj
— CAL WIRE (@calwireupdates) January 8, 2025
The Fires’ Toll in Los Angeles County
The Palisades Fire has burned approximately 17,234 acres by Wednesday night, while the Eaton Fire has burned approximately 10,600 acres a day after it ignited. The fires have destroyed more than 1,000 structures and forced the evacuation of over 100,000 residents. High winds and dry conditions continue to fuel the flames, creating hazardous air quality across the region. The fires remain 0% contained, with firefighters racing to prevent further devastation.

Multiple fires continue to burn in Los Angeles County requiring aid from firefighters across the state. [Image from CAL FIRE]
A Unified Effort
The response from the North Coast—ranging from large state units to small rural departments is part of a unified statewide effort to protect lives and property in the face of disaster.




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I wonder how many people are going to die in this one? Not good. I would imagine many of the homeless and elderly without transportation will be victims. We may never know the true death toll. Good luck folks and stay safe.
Maybe elderly, but these fires are in pretty high end suburbs out near the hills so probably not a lot of homeless
Oh they’re there. And in an area where they can make a decent wage sitting on a curb with a dog, considering the amount of wealth floating around there with sympathetic donors.
That’s a cute fantasy. What inspires you to imagine stories like that? Do write any longer form fiction?
Only 1 of the 4 major fires burning in LA right now is in exclusively high-income suburbs of Palisades/Malibu. The other 3 are in areas that have a mix of high-income and low-income residents, and definitely unhoused residents as well. Altadena, Sylmar, and Hollywood
What the media is not telling the whole story and focusing on the rich? I don’t believe it.
Because that’s where the fire is. Should they report on Traffic in Redding or something else? Also, just a 10 second search on any of the media in the LA area pulls up a mountain of info and real time data from LA Times, to TV to social media and even CalFire and InciWeb. You’re the one saying such a thing. Everyone else is all over it.
What are you talking about? The palisades fire us burning is super fancy areas, the Eaton fire is burning in a very nice part of the basin. It’s getting big enough that it might start to impact some lower income areas, but not so far
I am impressed by the solidarity and professionalism shown by Northern California Fire Crews, and our Air Crews are the finest available…
I salute the folks in Cal Fire, wish you safety and health!
To that I totally agree. Best of luck to every member of the teams. Return home safely.
My prayers for the firefighters and the people in LA.
Sure is alot Like the fire that happened in Hawaii. This is so intentional!
Not intentional. Unless you count building in areas that burn regularly. These places burn. We replace the brush with wooden stick homes. The fires still burn through, just with our stuff as fuel. The winds come every year, there’s just millions of people out in front now. Somebody’s always starting a stupid fire, it’s just that a couple days ago it was in front of 60 mph winds.
To think that there is some Wizard of Oz character and a vast conspiracy to burn down homes intentionally is giving humans too much credit in a powerful world. Just because you never thought about it doesn’t mean fires haven’t been burning here for ever.
It was probably some fool who thought since Jewish space Lazer is out to burn K-rails, and there’s be no fires without a conspiracy and a little trailhead barbeque in the wind would be fun.
So why then are there patents filed for and granted for the designs of equipment that does such things ?
I’ll go along with Earthquake Weather: Not intentional. Still, plenty of reason to take a hard look at some of the leaders charged with addressing such crises. But could I have done a better job if I were in Karen Bass’s or Kristin Crowley’s (or Gavin Newsom’s, for that matter) shoes? Probably not. Who reading this think that they could? Still, these guys aren’t being viewed in the most favorable light by a lot of people at the moment. Bass, though, she went to Cuba in 1973 with the Venceremos Brigade, to help build schools and stuff, and be in solidarity with the Revolution, so she can’t be all that bad.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/07/karen-bass-cuba-venceremos-brigade/614662/
https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-venceremos-brigade/
It’s obvious the politicians are flat footed and flabbergasted.
Ya can’t put a fire out with a transvestite! There simply isn’t enough surface area.
It’s not only not intentional, it’s preventable:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2315797120
and https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/05/21/researchers-document-the-effect-of-pre-fire-mitigation-on-structure-losses-during-2017-thomas-fire/
98 mph winds and it hasn’t rained there in 10 months. Think about it!
Dry hydrants, empty reservoirs and thousands of homes destroyed, but hey, just like mayor bass mouth said last month “we’ve created a greener L.A”. No, you created a browner, burned, L.A. you incompetent twit. By the way Mayor, did you enjoy your trip to Ghana?
Yep this is all… the mayor’s fault. Also can’t believe she didn’t predict the freak off-season firestorm, how dare she leave the country ever.
If by “greener” is to mean cleaner air then sure. But the current mayor had zero to do with it. That would be Carter/Regan era EPA changes.
LA Times covered it. She’s in for a rough time. She couldn’t even look them in the eyes to answer questions. She also was warned that conditions were going to be present for this to happen.
Nope.
The reservoirs in this area are all at or above their historic averages.
https://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain
Always with the lies and gaslighting.
You mean the Pacific Palisades (Santa Ynez) reservoir that was offline and empty when the fire started, leaving hydrants empty and low pressure through the area affected?
Dry hydrants, empty reservoirs and thousands of homes destroyed, but hey, just like mayor bass mouth said last month “we’ve created a greener L.A”. No, you created a burned L.A. you incompetent twit. By the way Mayor, did you enjoy your trip to Ghana?
Not true. Tha lakes and reservoirs are almost full. Power went out and the water to hydrants needs it to pump water.
What I read is simply that the use was so overwhelming, the storage tanks went dry. Not a power failure. Pumps to refill tanks can’t get ahead of the drain.
“Sorenson said that utilities need to consider how much water-storage capacity to develop in neighborhoods on the urban fringes.
“Given the known risk of wildfire in these hillsides, it is fair to question whether more water storage should have been added in previous years and months,” she said.
The existing water system in Los Angeles has “severe limits,” said Gregory Pierce, director of the UCLA Water Resources Group. “At least the way we’ve always built systems and wanted to pay for systems, you can’t really expect systems, even like DWP’s, to be prepared for this.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/why-hydrants-ran-dry-as-firefighters-battled-california-s-deadly-fires/ar-BB1rcgQO?cvid=71eda646a7494d5ba05dbc45a01ca25a&ei=12
9,000 homes in the Pacific Palisades…
3,000,000 gallons of firefighting water storage to protect those homes…
Do the math…
333 1/3 gallons of firefighting water per home…
Clearly inadequate…
Nice to see Canada is lending a hand with some water scoopers.
Live shot from top of Topanga Peak, just to the north of Palisades. It’s creeping towards Malibu and elsewhere now. I’ve been reading about lack of media coverage if any aircraft are fighting the fires and yes, there are many. Flightradar24 I see at least two dozen various firefighting aircraft.
.
“Our goal is to protect the environment and the resources,” Chief McLaughlin said.
Until the fire is mitigated, it’s going to continue to produce toxic smoke and impact air quality,”
Somewhere the part that was left out that the firefighters first priority is “To protect life” and “To save property” and after that all other important incidentals.
The things that just about anyone can see is that they didn’t clear the brush and other extreme fire danger. They didn’t plan for adequate water supply. They cut the Fire Department funding by 17 million dollars! No wonder the insurance companies want nothing to do with California.
Humboldt County shines in comparison. Not only was the fire budget not cut, we passed Measure Z to give fire departments extra funding. Previous to Measure Z Southern Humboldt’s volunteer fire trucks wouldn’t have even made it to Piercy much less Los Angeles.
We have bush clearance and controlled understory burning. We shine by comparison to L.A.
Well now they have no environment and ran out of resources, however they wish to define that. And more than a few insurance companies terminated fire insurance policies before the New Year. Whatever super thin silver lining exists, would be job openings for people needed to process all the rebuilding permits and such. And logging companies. LOTS and LOTS of lumber is going to be needed to rebuild those homes and businesses. Guess where it’s coming from?
We often forget we are connected- by government if little else. Yes, insurance rates will go up. A thousand or more homes a total loss in one of the country’s most expensive area is either going to be made up by everyone paying a higher rate or the insurance companies will be bankrupt.
Canada the lumber is coming from Canada
Right On! HB1 visas for thousands of carpenters. Eliminate tariffs on Canadian lumber
I find it hard to believe that was the fire chief’s actual statement. Sounds more like the person writing the article pulled one little line out that they thought was important. No firefighter thinks they actually work for the Air Quality board.
I agree entirely. I know the Chief knows his job. That was the part left out.
And where’s the North Coast’s State and National Park firefighters?? Get their asses down there for structure protection and to serve as Resource Advisors in their jurisdictions! They receive firefighter benefits and retirement pensions, let em earn it.
There’s gotta be at least 10 state park and 15 national park trained firefighters that could use the experience.
USFS and NPS have sent engines south.So has Hoopa tribe. I don’t know about the only 4 state park firefighters we have up here. Most state park fires are fought by Calfire. The state agency assigned to that..
I realize that manpower, not equipment, is what’s needed.
And I know I’m being selfish.
But did we have to donate our “surplus” firefighting equipment to Ukraine in 2022??
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-california-donate-firefighting-equipment-ukraine-2012160
Here’s an article showing the climate change being arrested at the site of one of the first fires using his blowtorch of climate change to start them
https://nypost.com/2025/01/09/us-news/kenneth-fire-in-west-hollywood-hills-being-probed-as-arson-1-in-custody-reports/