Bay Area Firefighters Head East to Battle King Fire

By Isabel Angell and Olivia Allen-Price

A contingent of Bay Area firefighters is joining the massive force that's combating a huge, fast-moving blaze burning in the Sierra near the main road from the Bay Area to Lake Tahoe.

The King Fire, which started last Saturday night, has burned about 18,500 acres near U.S. 50 north and east of the community of Pollock Pines. The fire is 5 percent contained. Cal Fire reports that more than 1,632 residences in and around the town of 7,000 are threatened, with 800 other structures in harm's way.

The area the fire has covered in just four days, equivalent to 29 square miles, is a little more than half the area of San Francisco.

More than 2,500 firefighters from around the state are battling the blaze. A strike team from the Bay Area headed east Wednesday afternoon and they expect to be fighting the fire by this evening.

"I think we all know that this is probably one of the most serious fire seasons we've had in over 30 years," said Tom Siragusa, assistant fire chief in the San Francisco Fire Department and a strike team leader. "I worked for the Cal Fire in 1976 and '77, the two last years of this type of drought, and [there were] very similar conditions."

The Bay Area strike team consists of units from a number of different departments. The San Francisco Fire Department is sending a single four-person engine. Two engines from San Mateo County and two from Marin County will also join the strike team.

"It's an excursion, one I've done many times before," Siragusa said. "I don't expect anything other than to go to work, and take care of the rest of the 21 members of the strike team."

He says that working on a strike team is an adrenaline-producing experience, but by the end of a fire workers are thoroughly exhausted. The group from San Francisco has committed to 15 days, but they may do less.

Firefighters who want to join the strike team have to undergo a lot of testing, Siragusa said.

"They have extra-special training to be able to go out on these strike teams, and it's not just anybody that's in the fire service that can do this -- or wants to do this," he said.

This post includes reporting from the Associated Press.