As Fires Rage In California, Locals Try To Boost Morale Of First Responders

As the fires in California keep burning, we turn to 35-year-old Colin Arnold, originally from Milton, and now a firefighter-paramedic in California. For 10 years, he has been working side by side with fellow firefighters trying to contain wildfires. And he has seen how small acts can help boost morale for those doing that work. Right now Arnold is filling in for California firefighters who've left their local departments to go fight the so-called Camp Fire. Colin Arnold spoke with WGBH's All Things Considered anchor Barbara Howard about what he’s been seeing in California. This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Barbara Howard: So you're a firefighter-paramedic. What is that?

Collin Arnold: A lot of firefighters are cross-trained as paramedics, and that's because when you call 911 and you need a fire put out or you've got a medical emergency, we happen to be the closest resource. So a lot of us are cross-trained in both, and we’re here for whatever you need.

Howard; So this summer you were in Redding, California, working on the Carr Fire in northern California. It wasn't nearly as devastating as the fires that are burning right now in California, but still, three firefighters did lose their lives fighting the Carr Fire. And that fire burned over a quarter-million acres before being contained at the end of the summer. You were operating out of a base camp. It's not exactly the middle of things where the fires are, it's kind of on the edge?

Arnold: It is, and this was an unusual one for me. A lot of times these fires are in very remote areas, but this base camp was set up right outside of downtown Redding. We were a safe distance away, so that if the fire were to move they wouldn't have to up and move the base camp. So it was a little ways away from the fire, but it was also a very urban environment, which was unusual.

Howard: So people were there and they came out to support you?

Arnold: Every day you'd pull out and folks would learn the route from the base camp to the fire that the engines took every morning, and you would see families. They had pulled over on the side of the road in their pickups, and they were standing in the back waving it at first responders as they took off to the line. A lot of them had signs. Some of them were waving American flags. Some of them were just waving. Some of them were just standing. And every morning, everybody would roll out at base camp around 7 in the morning and there folks were, taking time off from their day, to stand there and wait.

Howard: What did the signs say that they were holding?

Arnold: They said everything from, '#Reddingstrong' to thank you firefighters and police and law enforcement and military, and a lot of them had pictures on them. They were clearly painted by young kids … whatever folks felt was a supportive message.

Howard: What was the effect on your colleagues in the truck with you?

Arnold: Those signs tied you back into why you were up there.

Howard: So you get up to the fires, and over 1,000 homes were destroyed this summer in the Carr Fire. Many had been evacuated. What was it like going into these evacuated homes?

Arnold: I remember one property we were at. It took us quite a while to get in there, and we were tucked away in the woods around this house. The homeowner had evacuated probably five days ago, and he left his doors unlocked and a note on the dining room table saying, 'Welcome to my home. If you need cold water, we've stocked the fridge.' And you'd open up the fridge, and there were probably 40 gallons of ice cold water in there. It really struck me.

Howard: So at the end of the day you go back to the base camp, or maybe go out and have a beer or go you know have a meal?

Arnold: For the most part, you just sort of sleep on your day off, but every once in a while, you'd wake up and you get a little bit restless. We were probably 10 days into the incident or so and we decided you know what, we want to go get some real food. We ventured out, found a great little taco spot, and sort of quietly took a seat on the corner. There's four of us on the team. I remember there was an older couple sitting next to us, and they just looked rough. It was clear that life was probably difficult enough as it was, trying to make ends meet. What the next 24 hours was going to bring was probably pretty unsure for them. And I just remember being struck looking over thinking, you know, here we are and we as a team are fairly stable. Our lives are okay at home, we chose to come up here and participate. We're doing OK.

And this couple didn't get that choice. They were uprooted and torn out of their homes in the middle of the night. And here we were having meals sitting across from each other. They left a few minutes before we did, and we got up to go pay the bill, and we found out that they'd actually paid the bill for us. I remember thinking this all seems very backwards to me, that we came up here to try to support them and in the midst of what must be tremendous loss that they're dealing with, they have the capacity to think of others. Everybody kind of looked at each other, and I think our first expression was a little bit of embarrassment. You know, we're one team of thousands of folks that are responding. Nobody should be buying us dinner. I think we were all touched by the fact that this table somehow felt like they owed it to us.

Howard: Well thanks for talking with us, Colin.

Arnold: Thank you, Barbara. Have a great day.

Howard: That's 35-year-old Colin Arnold, a local Milton boy who grew up to be a firefighter-paramedic. For 10 years, he's been working side by side with other California firefighters. This is WGBH’s All Things Considered.