In January, the world turned its eyes towards a catastrophic outbreak of fires in Southern California. The largest fire, the Palisades fire, commanded international attention for its massive size. The fire destroyed 6,837 buildings, burned 23,707 acres (almost 22 times the size of Piedmont), required 800 personnel with 22 engines, and killed 12 people, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Among those 800 personnel were eight firefighters from Piedmont.
When the call came in from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) at 1 a.m. on Jan. 7,
Piedmont immediately responded and sent a strike team of four: Captain Mike Carlisle, Engineer Sandor Lengyel, and Firefighters Tariq Harless and Kevin Sauder. The four, who work together as a unit during regular weeks, drove down with the rest of the Alameda team, which totalled 21.
Immediately after arriving, they set to work containing the fire two days straight.
One of the firefighters in the first strike team was Kevin Sauder.
“We’re basically being told by the incident supervisor, ‘As soon as you get there, you’re gonna be tasked with going to work,” Sauder said. “That’s what happened. We showed up, checked in, and started saving what we could.”
Strike team one arrived in the morning of Jan. 7. They camped in Rustic Canyon near the Pacific Coast Highway, arriving with 17 other members of the Alameda County strike team.
The fire had largely moved through the Rustic Canyon area already, and the primary focus for Piedmont’s firefighters was subduing the fires left behind.
“The fire had already blown through the area earlier that day, so we were trying to get anything that was smoldering or stop embers from blowing in the wind and burning fires past the initial firefront. We leap-frogged houses and saved what we could,” Sauder said.
A normal shift for a firefighter is 24 hours on, 24 hours off. That was not the case for the first portion of the Palisades fire.
“We showed up around 8 a.m., which is a typical start time for a shift there, and at 8 a.m. the following morning, we were told by our division, ‘You don’t have relief, there aren’t enough resources here. You guys are going to double-shift’,” Sauder said.
This 48 hour-long shift came after a long drive in the early morning from Livermore.
“It’s just about trying to stay awake. It’s easy for the firefighter in the back seat because you can sleep, but the reality is, most times you just stay awake because you’re looking for where exactly the fire is, updates, weather conditions, which is a big contributor to wildfires,” Sauder said. “Trying to stay awake is the hardest part.”
“A lot of firefighters are really objective-oriented,” said Lieutenant Zach Heliker, who arrived with the second strike team.
Paramedic Nicholas Christ compared firefighting to a track meet.
“When you’re running, you’re not thinking about what everyone else is doing in the stands. It’s the same with us. We pull up and go ‘Hey, this is our job’ and at that point, nothing else truly matters,” Christ said.
After nine days, a new strike team moved in to replace them, where they worked until the fire was fully contained on Jan. 20. By the arrival of the second team, the fire had come under firmer control.
“There were citizens still trying to gather personal belongings and leave, so we assisted a few folks and their families,” Heliker said. “It was a lot of the public service type necessities when we were there.”
There were some aspects of normality despite the extreme circumstances.
“It’s a kind of down-and-dirty regular shift change. It would be the same as our shift changes here: if we’re going to go home, we update the next crew on anything that’s broken, any faults, ‘Water’s over here, lunch is over here, the chow line’s over there, the showers are over there’, anything they need to perform,” Sauder said.
Sauder and the rest of his crew returned to Piedmont and their regular schedule, with one day on shift before his 48 hours off. Afterwards, Sauder went home and relaxed.
“It’s more or less the routine for me,” Sauder said. “The previous department I worked at, it was common to be gone for 14-21 days, and when I worked for Cal Fire, anything over 30 days was pretty normal.”
The extended trip did not faze Sauder, who helped contain other major fires like the Tubs fire, the Paradise fire, and the Thomas fire, among others, he said.
“I’ve been to enough of these to be kind of desensitized from the bad parts,” Sauder said.
While the firefighters worked on the ground containing the fire, the fires in LA gained particular attention for their politicization. Notable public figures like Elon Musk and Charlie Kirk circulated speculation that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies in the LA fire department contributed to the severity of the fires.
“It was disheartening to hear the political divisiveness over the fire coverage,” said Brannigan. “I can confidently say that DEI hirings were not a problem that exacerbated the fire or caused the fire, and it’s really a shame when political entities try to take advantage of tragedies like that.”
For the firefighters at Piedmont, the number one priority was always helping people.
“We’re just trying to do our job to help whatever way we can,” Christ said.
