On September 28 a group from the Fire Safe Council took a field trip to learn more about the Cottonwood Fire. Our learning was aided by the Forest Service, and guided by Freddie Espinoza, who was the operations chief for the fire, as well as Dave Fiorella, the incident commander. We were also lucky to have Laurie Rosenthal, the district ranger, and Mark Barr of Calfire, who was a division supervisor on the right flank

As we all walked and drove the ground of the fire, we had three main reactions. The first had to do with the heat. It was hot on an early fall morning; what was it like the day of the fire when it was 107 with 4% relative humidity?

The second reaction was the steepness of the terrain. Bee Canyon is very narrow with steeply ascending sides. The North Fork drainage is worse, with much higher and steeper walls around the river bed. If that was not challenging enough, the ground is often rocky, and the firefighters were in there at night. We marveled at the physical endurance of the firefighters, and their skill in negotiating that ground at night. And to top it off, the firefighters who arrived on scene the evening of August 27 were on the line for 40 hours. It is a great complement to both them and their training that the only injuries were five heat related problems.

Our third reaction was appreciation for the skill of the leadership. Dave Fiorella had set the strategy to keep the fire out of the North Fork drainage, a path to Idyllwild and Pine Cove. While it was still dark the morning of the 28th, Freddie Espinoza and Mark Barr were able to have their teams set back fires on the western slope of the drainage, making use of the west turn of the wind. When the wind turned back to the east in the daytime, the fire had no fuel to burn on its eastern flank. It then went north, up a long ridge towards Indian Hill, an easier area to control, and was eventually stopped at the top of the ridge.

Another admirable aspect of the leadership was interagency cooperation. One of the great things about our area is that key people in these situations all know each other from MAST (Mountain Area Safety Taskforce). In a wildland fire people from many agencies--Forest Service, Calfire, Caltrans, CHP, Sheriff's Office-work together almost seamlessly. When the fire started to threaten state responsibility land the morning of the 28th, the command shifted from the Forest Service alone to a unified command with Calfire, all without problems.

In addition to our pride in the personnel who suppressed this fire, we can feel relief that that the fire did not burn hot enough to damage the soil. We should be seeing new growth very soon.

This is not to say we should become complacent. There are other threats to our communities, and the winds of October have yet to arrive. We should continue to do all we can to remove dangerous fuels from our property. But we can also remember that in August of '09, the Cottonwood fire threatened our communities, and was skillfully fought and defeated by a lot of outstanding people.