Another Anniversary Passes By

So, after several 'drafts' over the recent months today's can be short and get posted the same day.

34 years ago, this very day of the week, Monday, November 2, 1981, I was winding down my first full day in what would become my "career" with San Bernardino County Animal Control. It didn't get the "care and control" tagline added to the department name until the late 1980's to look more public 'friendly'.

Every November 2nd I can't not remember the job I did for just under 25 years.  There is just the specialness, to me anyway, when the days line up to days I actually was there.

I was thinking this anniversary of trying to remember what it was like when I walked in as a new employee to the then office at 350 N. Mountain View Street in San Bernardino, California.
The building was, and still is, a "U" shaped building with the "U" towards Mountain View and most of the building then was for public health nurses and health programs, which is what Animal Control was and still is also, a public health department program. The straight north 'wing' of this 'U' building was all the Animal Control offices.
You walked in through a step up and entry door at the North East corner of that North wing.
As you came in you saw a long counter on the right with several desks behind the counter for the clerk staff. Looking straight ahead from the entry door and with the counter on the right you'd have seen the glass windows of the small dispatch room. A very small room, it had sliding glass windows so the dispatcher could open it up to talk with employees or the public if necessary. Small for one and tight for two.
If you worked there you'd walk to the dispatcher's area and through a swinging gate kind of thing to get towards the hallway that led to the offices. Those offices were various supervisor offices, the 'squad room' where the ACO's and field personnel would meet in the mornings after getting to the office. Not very many computers around yet in 1981, so the squad room was primarily just long tables against the walls with chairs for employees to still while doing, paperwork! Or while looking up information with the printed out license records of dog licenses.
The first few years that's what the Animal License Checkers, like I was then, had to refer to and haul around, very large, heavy, dot matrix printed out and loosely bound volumes of licenses and owners throughout the county. They always had blue semi hard card stock covers filled with folded over printed pages so there would be two sides.

This first day was a short "welcome to the county" orientation day. Then, starting the next day, Tuesday, November 3rd, 1981, I started my 2 weeks of office training. While a lot of it was trying to stay awake reading the very boring Procedure Manual, I did get real training from my direct supervisor, Lynda. Learning the 'script' I'd use while going door to door and literally 'checking' to make sure all the dogs we came across were  currently licensed. What to watch for and what to be careful of. What to look for in going in yards with dogs in them or tell tale signs that you might get ambushed by dogs that would be lying in wait hidden until you'd get too far in a yard to get away without getting bitten!
One of the reasons I got the job, as I was told later, was my background with different kinds of animals. I still needed to learn a lot though!

I was one of the first departmental employees to be hired directly for the department. Many of the field people, and even my supervisor and all of the other license checkers had started out as temporary employees through a program the state had in place at the time called the CETA program.
After I'd been a few months I found out that several of the current employees were really upset I'd gotten hired and were concerned they'd be let go, but it turned out that they all stayed on and became county employees themselves. They still had seniority though because the county used there CETA starting dates as their county start dates.
I got my first unpaid day of work too with Veteran's Day holiday being Wednesday the 11th that year and since I'd just started not having any kind of leave time built up to fall back on. Oh well.

In trying to remember what else it was like way back in fall 1981.
I had to buy my own uniforms, shirts, pants and jackets along with shoulder and flag patches which started what became a long line of expenses for me for the department.
Although talked about we were never were able to get uniform allowances in our 'General Services' Contracts like the Sheriff's department did for their guys in our contracts with the county.
Nobody had any rapid communication devices, no portable radios, only the radios in the cars and trucks. There was one almost a foot long and at least 2 pound "Handy Talkie" and that was given, along with the 'pager' to the "On-Call" officer in the "valley" even back in 1981.
This was back when the time changes were more linear, being 6 months of each I believe, standard and daylight savings time. The 7 month and 5 month split it is now wasn't in place yet, although I do recall when it was tried once to keep Daylight Savings Time all year long. Obviously it didn't work!

Another "License Checker", Sara, was hired at the end of November '81. She also worked her way up the ladder but didn't get past ACO and was an 'area officer' in the Hesperia and High Desert areas for many years. Sara also retired several years ago. It's almost 10 years retired for me, will be 10 next February.
As far as I can find out there are none of the crew that was around in those early to mid 1980s when I started and worked there. All retired, some deceased, but seeing what life after Animal Control would be like for them.

Today, A Decade Ago.......

I have written previously a post or two about my experiences to an extent with these fires. Today I was searching online to see what was still available to be seen from what was posted about the events of 10 years ago today! It has a special meaning because it was exactly a decade ago and I know what we were doing because it was a major event in so many people's lives. 

I know that for it's time this event was of an incredible magnitude, the first time the entire population of the San Bernardino mountains was ordered evacuated, but even this fire event has since been eclipsed buy more recent, and increasingly worse, events due to the continuing drought conditions in Southern California. 

Back in 2003 I was a shift Supervisor Lieutenant in San Bernardino County Animal Control. And Stacy was working in the Field as an Animal Control Officer. Our daughter Laura, again in the Animal Control field now in Texas, was at that time working at the County run Animal Shelter in the City of Rancho Cucamonga.

This fire event stretched our department beyond it's ability to respond to the public concerns. Many, many, residents were caught off guard by the sudden closure due to the very fast spreading of the fire because of the Santa Ana winds, and almost as fast evacuations of mountain communities which forced those owners to leave their pets behind with no way, and no one, to care for them. A trend over the years was so many people moving to the mountains and willing to make the drive and commute from the mountains to the valley or even to far away places like Los Angeles. With many people "off the mountain" when the fire started and the evacuation orders came out, they were understandably upset when stopped at roadblocks and told they could not go home! 

Right from the start the department was in the job of evacuating pets and farm animals from the communities, starting in the Crestline and Rancho Cucamonga areas and going from there. Dogs, cats, birds, fish, horses, goats, pigs, and more, were evacuated.

The two animal shelters the County ran, Devore and Rancho Cucamonga, as well as all other area shelters were quickly overflowing with pets. I remember quite a few horse owners from the mountains that had the money, had their horses taken to stables out near the Corona area quite a distance from those mountains.

The main human evacuation center was set up in hangers at the old Norton AFB (San Bernardino International) and an off site animal shelter was set up at another hanger because so many mountain residents that were able to actually get their pets when evacuating were shocked to find on their arrival that the Red Cross center did not allow them to keep their dogs and cats with them while under care of the Red Cross, a liability issue was the reason given. 

A livestock holding area was set up at the Devore Rodeo grounds that Stacy was in charge of running and several large animals from the Big Bear Zoo, like their Buffalo, were taken there along with dozens of horses, many the backyard type that were not socialized to be thrown in with other horses as well as a large heard of goats from the evacuated part of the Devore area.

I took some video when I was in the Moonridge area of Big Bear with our crews evacuating peoples animals. It was another so very surreal scene from the fires to be driving around in an almost completely deserted community. 

 

A decade ago this date, October 29, 2003, was on a Wednesday that year and about a week since the fires had started. The two fires, the Old Fire that had started in the Waterman Canyon area of San Bernardino had, with the Grand Prix that had started out in the West end of Rancho Cucamonga, merged into one enormous fire when they met at the Cajon Pass area of Devore.  By this time most all employees had been working basically non stop with all overtime approved by the County as it was to be repaid by the state for the disaster. In retrospect Stacy and I had asked ourselves why we hadn't just taken our own 5th wheel down to Devore and slept in it? It would have been a lot easier than it was trying to get home from the valley with all the activity going on due to the fire. 

The job by this time was more towards recovery of peoples animals as many were feared dead due to lack of care and food and water since the power to most residences had been off for days. People were calling in giving approval for the department to gain entry "with as little damage as possible" to the callers house to get their pets if still alive or remove them if they'd died.

The Humane Society of the United States as well as representatives from Animal Control Agencies from as far away as Florida had arrived to help with this recovery and teams were sent to the increasingly growing list of homes owners wanted checked. I do recall that while most pets were found alive, there were a few that had died from no power or food/water or heat with the cold temps and no one there to keep the house warm. The only call that sticks out in my mind was the two people from our department that accidentally broke the front door of a house when going after the pets there. They tried to place it back as best as they could but it had been literally broken off the hinges. Days later when the owners were finally able to return to their home, and they were lucky to have a home to return to, they found that a bear had gotten into their house tearing up the place since the door wasn't secure.

The main 'Fire Camp' at Devore was a sight to see. A tent city with I remember being told was over 4,000 firefighters camping in shifts all over the area that had been the US festival in the 1980s. Many of us ate some meals at the Fire Camp, I remember good food from the forest service, I remember great food from the Sheriff Department's mobile food truck!

I attended many of the 12 hour apart, 6 am and then 6 pm, fire update briefings at the Incident Command Post to report any changes back to my supervisors. The biggest thing I remember being told at several of these updates by the 29th was that it had been accepted that the fire crews would NOT be able to contain the fire.

If the weather hadn't finally changed, the winds died down and it rained with the humidity going up, they could not have stopped it and felt it would have gone all across the mountains to burn out after passing through the Big Bear area. 

The state had sent up a fleet of enormous blade caterpillars to cut fire breaks. But with the winds the breaks were ineffective at slowing the progress. It was going to be a fire that could not be put out, very similar to the just contained a few days ago, Yosemite fire that had started in the summer. But the rains came or it would have gone on for a lot longer with much more devastation in the mountains. 

And lastly in this recollection, I had been to Emergency Response Planning committee meetings that were held several months before this all happened in the Lake Arrowhead area.

The scenario that had been deemed the most plausible cause of an event like this one, and the one that had been planned out to the extent of training the evacuation routes and ways of evacuating places like all the summer camps facilities was this; 'a homeowner in the Lake Arrowhead area, in an attempt to remove a tree on his property that like so many others was dead from the Bark Beetle. This owner, not really prepared to take on a task like this without help, still goes to cut down the dead tree with his chainsaw. As it falls dead limbs fall on power lines going to his or a neighbors home arcing and catching fire. The fire very quickly spreads as the tree is tinder dry with numerous other dead trees and with dry shrubs all around as the owner had not cleared away the recommended amount', and while not entirely out of the scenario, the winds that were the main mover of the fire, were not projected to be at the magnitude they turned out to be, just the usual afternoon winds as the valley tries to equalize the pressure with the High Desert as it does daily. 

In the scenario, the winds still push the fire along but at a rate that still gives emergency response time to evacuate the areas away from this central point in the mountains. 

But the real fire started by an arsonist below Crestline and spread upward and Eastward incredibly fast with the gale force winds that had been blowing for several days prior to the start.

Yes, it was quite an event. One of those "defining events" for many in our department. 

I remember the "California Golden Pine", that was the name given to the thousands of dead trees in the forest due to the beetle and drought. I remember at the time the estimate was around 80% of the forest was dead from drought and beetle infestation. 

Even overshadowed by the worse fires of more recent years, it still has many memories to so many people. 

Ah the memories!

Is there Life after Animal Control?

So it has been a little over seven years since I last wore my badge and uniform and ventured out on a call.

Do I miss it?

You can see so many TV shows, usually about police officers but I expect it would also apply to other careers, like animal control, that portray the retired officer as very often an alcoholic or almost so, person, that could never quite adapt to life without the excitement of the daily routine and the comradery of law enforcement life.

Well, I have actually met people like that, back in my animal control days, and even where I live now, where the old ACO or officer still stops by to visit at the old station every week. Just to 'check in' and tell old stories of old glories and barrage any new hire that maybe hadn't heard them before.
I have told a few tales of tails but they've mostly been in these posts, so I guess my desire to type all this, was it was part memories and part therapy?

I have told a few stories to local law enforcement that for a while were considering starting up an area animal control response and liked the fact that both Stacy and I had so much experience.

But no, maybe I've been lucky in that regard by moving not only out of the area that we worked, but totally out of the state and far away from that state to boot.

But,........... do I miss it? Well,.......... in a way yes,....... but mainly no, I don't miss the job enough to be doing anymore, at this time in my life.

And actually, there is a person I know, we became Facebook friends and kind of reconnected a bit, (but to me the only reason to use Facebook is finding and then keeping tabs on old friends you want to and family), that had been an ACO for several years then his life went in a totally different tangent after he was injured on the job, to only be back to 'chasing dogs' in his mid fifties.
No, not for me!
Even if they had started a local animal control it would have advisory and part time tops!

But when I left the job in 2006 I was really disillusioned and burned out from the almost 25 years I'd already been there. I was so sick and tired of the inequity of the department, some people could do no right and several that didn't deserve it were the ones that could do no wrong, no matter how bad, including one that had medical issues that contributed to his having several vehicle accidents and losing his ability to drive yet was allowed to stay on as a "field" supervisor! Yet most of the people I'd known over the years that lost their ability to drive were immediately terminated since the job was driving and you couldn't drive you couldn't work.

No, just stupid stuff like that, bullying supervisors that would never have any repercussions for the bad behavior they did, and not one of those "powers that be" would even listen! It just kept getting worse and as always more calls, more work with less people and concern over quantity of calls versus the quality of those calls handled. I got soooo sick of those "do as I say not as I do" attitudes of those 4 people in the power positions.

No I really don't miss that part. I wouldn't want to do the job now with so many hyper critical 'citizens' that I expect now a days quickly and easily record perceived injustices on their smartphone to post on YouTube. Back then people griped, a few would haul out a camcorder, but most seemed to understand what the job was and what the job entailed. But with 'modern' morays as they are and most too quick to judge without knowledge,....... no, not for me.

What I would do though if it was possible would be just to try and make a better memory out of all of it. Those same smartphones that are the bane of so many departments would also be so great for grabbing better bits for memories sake.
Not much was truly portable and small back in those analog days. And if it was it cost way more than most people, like me, could afford.

The video I had taken and all the photos I've got, all required a thought out measured action due to the size of the gadgets needed to do those things. Now with my own Galaxy Note II, I grab it out of my shirt pocket and take a photo or video right then in a matter of seconds.
No getting it out of a case putting the battery in turn it on put the tape in and let it start up then get ready to even take the video or not too much differently to just take a photo. But I wish I had taken so much more now!

But with this digital, Internet, world, I can still relive some of it.
Such as I have a couple of 'Police Scanner' applications on both my iDevices and my Android phone that I have listened to the frequencies of my old area, just as I used to when I lived in that area with my own scanner radios.
Only thing I could do living there is my scanner would follow along with the rapid tower changes of the radio traffic as it went from tower to tower, those 800 Mz radios were after all the same as cell service back then, and with a special scanner you could stick with pretty much one channel and get the entire transmission.
No, listening on line you get just someone's scanner and sift through the calls. But the area channel splits and call signs haven't changed, so I am familiar with most of them, I recognize calls and areas and 1300 miles away I can still hear on occasion my old dispatch calls, ACO numbers owned by new people I don't know but with them getting the same kinds of call I had gotten those years ago and for all those years!

Like the other day, it seemed like most of the field people were scrambling to get their afternoon "10-48" (break) just like they did when I worked there. I found it very funny in that part of an
ACO's day seemingly hadn't changed at all, years later it seemed like they still take a break on the way to the shelter so they can't get any late calls. Just like back in those olden days when Bob, or Henry, or Ray, Maurice, they'd often try to bend the system as much as they could.
And with all those photos I can look at them and recall where it was and what I was doing in them. I can't recall the day of the week or the dates though, except for a few of them. Standout days and dates.

But back to topic, is there life afterword?

Of course there is! Life goes on after all, but what kind of life is there?

I know of many, that while I was there those 24+ years, would quit and then a few years later try to get back on. Most didn't, often because of their own behavior when they worked there before.
The ones that did, and I think of only 2 that ever did, were not there very long in their 'second life' and left again.

For myself and Stacy, we lucked out again in our new lives so I can't complain and throughly enjoy the truly slower pace and less crowds of our current home. I've told many people that where we live now is very similar to the San Bernardino mountains of about 40 years ago. Not crowded, actually green and even snows in the winter. Both the green and snow I read don't happen much there any more.

So I sometimes chase the memories, I'll watch the videos I posted on YouTube, reread my posts here, look at and remember the photos I took then, I'll listen on a scanner app to the Sheriff, emergency and Animal Control calls and remember when I was the one getting many of them or going out with a Sheriff Officer to a call, and I'll try to remember every detail of the life back then, the people involved and be glad I'm still here and able to do this.

A long forgotten draft, of a long forgotten song that fit the job.

This shows how much I haven't been keeping up with things! I had typed this last August and never posted it till today.

There are many, many, jobs people have, that, like a career in animal control, are thankless and seldom considered a "good" job to have. I feel Animal Control is a job, depending where you live and work of course, that can be a really great and secure job that can fly 'under the radar' of many jobs were a profession like a Firefighter or Policeman (or woman) could seldom do.
The lyrics below are from a late 1970's Alan Parson's Project album titled "Turn of a Friendly Card".
Alan Parson's albums usually have 'themes' and the theme of this album was actually about gambling.
But this short song and it's lyrics, to me anyway, represent very well what much of working for San Bernardino County Animal Control could be like, the public or the supervisors could be the "scornful thoughts that fly your way", with the "you gave the best you had to give" being how many if not most of the employees felt like 'back in the day'.

Here's the lyrics;


Nothing's good the news is bad
The heat goes on and it drives you mad,
Scornful thoughts that fly your way,
You should turn away, cause there's nothing more to say,

You've got nothing left to lose, you've got nothing left to lose,
No you've got nothing left to lose, who'd wanna be standing in your shoes

You gave the best you had to give,
You only had one life to live,
You fought so hard you were a slave,
After all you gave there was nothing left to save,

You've got nothing left to lose, you've got nothing left to lose,
No you've got nothing left to lose, who'd wanna be standing in your shoes

Nothing ventured, nothing gained,
No more lingering doubt remained,
Nothing sacred or profane, Everything to gain, cause you've got nothing left......

Just Whose Jurisdiction Is This Anyway?

So again it has been a while since posting my thoughts and memories of my career in Animal Control.
So many things happened in a day and all those days! Almost 25 years worth, how to remember it all?

The one thing that lately has been reminding me most of that job? The TV show Southland.
I remember posting about the show when it first started, in that very first episode, the newbie had a dead person locked in a house with a aggressive dog and how they handled it by calling out the area ACO to get the dog out first.
Now, a whole lot more happens on that show than I or anyone else in our department had to deal with, but some of the scenes in this new season of the show are situations that I, as well as many in the department, did deal with!

In recent episodes there were segments like this one, the police cruzer comes across a crazy naked guy jogging/ running in the street, they tell him to run a direction and then continue on commenting about how he's another areas jurisdiction now, so they're done. Of cousre we didn't do that with people, but with dogs we did!
The backstory to this is that many of our areas came to boundaries of other area cities, like an unincorporated area we'd be in would butt up against the City limits of San Bernardino, or the City of Rialto, or the City of Fontana, or even Riverside County is some sections. So I, or we, would be out chasing a dog or dogs that were actually still there when we'd finally get to the call.
This scenario was most often in the spring and fall when the female dogs were in heat and packs of male dogs were around for that. But this type of call could also be any time of the year if a dog had taken up residency in a neighborhood (don't feed the strays!!!).

Many dogs would look at you and run away, until it was near it's own house. Then the dog would often stand there and start barking at you or the truck you're in. That's a different situation though, I'm talking about the dog or dogs that would just run around and around in an area. Never stopping at any house or place just running to get away. I or we would chase it around trying to get the dog to go into any yard or go into an area where we could corner and catch it. Many did just that, many did not though and some of those would take off and run anywhere. So if we'd spent a lot of time chasing it and it was apprent we weren't going to catch it, and we could 'steer it' towards a nearby cities boundary limits, that's what we'd do! Sometimes we'd call dispatch and let them know to call that cities Animal Control before leaving the area, sometimes not and just indicate "UTC" or 'Unable to Catch' on our Daily Report Form for that call. Then it was drive on to the next call and hope we wouldn't get called back for this one!

Another segment was a bit greusome. In the show the police respond to a call to meet up with the Railroad Police because a person had been hit and disected by a train and was litterally, all over the place, around the tracks. So whose call was it going to be? The railroad cops didn't want it and the police didn't either. What part was "more of him" on?
Well, in the show the female officer is aruging over her cell phone with another govermental agency about a different problem and in hearing her getting pissed and arguing with the agency the railroad police relent and take the responsibility for the cleanup.
So imagine the same or a similar situation with dogs or cats. There were several areas with tracks running through them. Sometimes dogs would be in the wrong place wrong time and get clobbered by the fast running  Metro Link trains. Those trains flew through areas and sometimes due to the speed, dogs got hit. Especially since many areas of the tracks were blocked off by block walls to help with noise and prevent free access for safety. But animals would get in there and when scared by the vibration and noise they'd run and run back into the trains.
Sometimes though, area kids would find a dead animal, usually killed by a car in the street, and they'd take and put the animal on the tracks, just to see what happens I guess, and let a train hit it.
We'd get the call and pick up the pieces we could get. The worst time was when this call happened for us in the hot summer. Those days it didn't take long at all for the entire mess to smell really, really bad.

A similar situation would be a call in an area that was so close to that invisible boundary that it could be our call or not. These calls were the most annoying if was almost "quittin' time" or at night when on call. If there was a 'R-P', Reporting Party, the thing to do was call and try to get more information before heading out. As I have posted before though we couldn't usually be certain that the On-Call Duty Officer had actually done anything more than tell the Answering service to "send the area officer" even though they were supposed to check the information of the call.
Quite often though, and I expect it's all worse now since many more people have cell phones then back then, the person calling was just "driving by" and saw the animal get hit and didn't know after that or saw it run off and didn't know where it went. So, what would you do?

Yeah the money was good enough to just take a drive to see if you could find it. And sometimes you actually could find the injured animal, usually a dog by the way. Cats were almost never still alive after getting hit. But you couldn't be sure, do you really want to go?
Sometimes you could, and I did if it was a 'sketchy' call, wait and see if any other calls came in about it. Then go if they did and worry about it if they didn't! But would you want to be the gambler?
Even when I was a supervisor with this kind of call I often would hold off to see if anyone else called in about it before sending someone.
And if the call was close by? No reason NOT to go. Then you'd be looking at a 'triple time call' especially if you could be there and back in less than an hour. No, I'm talking about the calls where you'd be looking at forty-five minutes to an hour or more just to get there! But then you're a gambler again because if the animal was still alive and not too bad off then it was a trip to the 24 hour vet clinic and then shelter afterword. More money? yes, but more hours of no sleep too!

But, you get out there and it's too late. Animal didn't make it, often the outcome. And you find that it is on the wrong side of the street, or on the wrong corner of the intersection, one area had three of the four corners of an intersection in the City of Fontana, only one was County. Or the animal is in the gutter when the County starts on the grass. What then?
First I'll say right off the top, if I had gone all the way out to the call I'd just pick it up. It didn't matter to me, I'm already there! Just throw it in the dead box in the back and go home and impound it the next day at the shelter. I know of many ACO's though that chose not to pick it up because it wasn't in 'our' area, only to get the call again later because someone would drive by and see fur "move", from the wind usually, and swear the animal was still alive lying there in pain. Then they'd have to drive back out and pick it up anyway!
I never did this, but I did hear bragging about it over the years, an ACO actually dragging the animal to the city area just so they wouldn't have to pick it up. As I said above, if I was there, to me there was no reason not to pick it up!
Actually, that August night that Princess Diana was killed I was out on a call, "HBC", Hit By Car, "dog alive across from Serrano High School in Phelan". Came in about 2 AM. This was before XM Satellite radio so I often listened to 'skip' AM stations when out on call at night. I listened to KSL from Salt Lake City as they were live from London talking about the accident and that she had been killed. As this was close to where I lived I was there in less than a half hour but the dog was dead too, a very large dog that had not been dead too long but had been hit too hard to make it. I put it in the truck and went home. As I wasn't working the next day, I had another area ACO come by and pick it up and take it to the shelter.

Till next time

Just a short post for the moment, I've been really busy since August so haven't been able to update.  But I thought I would note a milestone of sorts, if I still worked for the S.B. County that is. Today would have been 30 years in were I still there. I can think of only two or three from my "era" that are still there.

3o years ago today was a Monday, 11/02/1981, and I was a nervous new employee at San Bernardino County Animal Control.
I took the job when offered because of my liking working with animals and pets, although you really don't work that much with animals, it was really a people job, and because of the security of a county job.  And I thought back then that I'd work it for a while until 'something better' came along. Nothing did for 25 years! Then getting "outta Dodge" and leaving California came along!!!
I wouldn't go back.

But I do like remembering and writing these memories about all those years.

The Fires of October 2003

This is a relatively short, 12 minute video compiled from videos I had taken during the 2003 "Grand Prix" and "Old" Fires of October in San Bernardino County.

What follows is a repost of a blog I wrote in October 2008 about this topic of the Fires of 2003. I couldn't really go into much more of the story than this post! Then it was 5 years, now it is almost the 8th anniversary of theses events;


I was on the Internet watching with interest about the annual firestorms that have become as normal down in our old area of Southern California, as the leaves turning gold up here.

Rewind to November 1981 and I was a new employee of San Bernardino County Animal Control, and just a little over a year before there had been the devastating Little Mountain fire that had taken out most of the homes in the North end of San Bernardino. So most of the people working there then had their stories of all seen and done during those fires. For many it had been the biggest event to be involved with in their entire lives. Back then and for many years, fires happened in the late summer and while most were quick brush fires, seldom did the fires just keep coming with the mass devastation to San Bernardino County that there has been since the summer of 2003.

Of course many things have changed to make it to get to where it is now. Whether it is due to global warming or the continued evolving of the Earth isn't the topic here.
But the climate had changed in the area. I remember when I was in elementary school we were barraged with the impending ice age that was being predicted.
But I also recall summers that had changed over the years from dry heat to almost always moist and thunder stormy for much of the summer months. I remember winters that went from what seemed like rain at least once a week all winter to maybe a week or less max for all the fall and winter.
So all the trees and plants in the area would be green in the spring and brown in the mid summer. With the change in weather patterns that became green in the winter with the rains and dead and brown most of the rest of the year!
In the mountains the continuing drought caused the forests to be susceptible to bugs and disease. It apparently went on pretty much unnoticed for many years by most people and agencies. Lots of dead trees here and there.

Now we're up to early 2003. The dead trees are noticed. It was estimated back before all the fires began to happen in May 2003 that the forest was as much as 80% dead in sections, with the overall forest health at over 60% dead trees. Jokes were made about the "California Golden Pine" in reference to all the dead trees in the San Bernardino mountains.
So committees were formed, hearings were held, what would be the 'worst case scenario' since so many people were now full time residents of the mountain communities? I attended several of those hearings, the biggest was a day long think and discuss tank at the Lake Arrowhead lodge and was put on by a formed organization called the Mountain Area Safety Task force (MAST). With representatives from local and state law enforcement, fire departments, local and state road and highway departments and community leaders, scenarios were discussed, evacuation plans were devised and everybody mainly hoped for the best.

The scenario that became the 'model' as most plausible to occur was this, mountain resident decides to remove the dead tree in his yard. While cutting it down, since this citizen is not equipped to properly and safely remove a tree, a section of it falls on any nearby power lines and causes the lines to arc igniting the tinder dry dead tree. The fire spreads very rapidly and other nearby dead grasses and trees also ignite. It was anticipated that this scenario would be out of control in less than 20 minutes if there were any breezes at the time. Still handle-able for a few hours with minimal structure loss with no winds. No one was anticipating the annual strong Santa Ana winds in the equations.

M.A.S.T. getting into action, has the four main highways up the mountains closed and they become one way, down, to facilitate evacuations. The mountain school buses would evacuate any and all summer camps in the areas being evacuated, then assist with civilian evacuations of those effected areas.

That was the general plan anyway. Cal-Trans left piles of fold up barriers at all the major intersections to facilitate road closures. People were told via the press, and on local TV and radio stations to be ready 'just in case'. Nobody expected the entire mountains to ever have to be evacuated, just areas at a time with the Lake Arrowhead area as a likely first fire spot.

The first event occurred in June 2003 below the Running Springs area and started almost halfway up the mountain from the Highland area. It was bad but was pretty quickly handled with only some evacuations required. A second fire in the almost same area of Running Springs in early September '03 was MUCH worse with most of the village evacuated and this fire was to be the start of the worst fire season in San Bernardino County for several years.

It started on September 5th and if I'm remembering correctly it began with the classic smoker throwing out a still lit cigarette, it lands in the dry weeds and with the winds from passing vehicles to fan it, starts a fast moving grass fire. This time though, the grass starts the dead trees and between the grass and trees it pretty quickly works its way up the mountains towards Running Springs. With all the dead growth in the areas, no chances were taken. Very quickly mandatory evacuations were ordered. Our department was also mobilized to help evacuate peoples pets and livestock. Minimal staffing was kept in the valley with everyone else being sent to the fire. The staff from the valley met at the first ICP (Incident Command Post) with the two mountain officers already working at the evacuations. As the fire burns through the area of the Command Post, it gets moved up the mountain area to a flat lot in the Running Springs area itself. So up we all went got set up and then start coordinating evacuations with transfers of those pets to the shelter for housing. People were sent out in teams of two per truck to facilitate rapid removal of whatever animals were at the residence they were sent to. Luckily there were only a few large livestock animals that had to be moved.
That fire became a four day event. Staff were assigned for 24 hour coverage although most all animal evacuations were taken care of the first day and a half. The new Animal Control "Command Post" consisting of a 24 foot long toy hauler trailer with a service radio and generator installed, was used for the first time. Before that, all nighters such as these were spent sleeping in the front seat of a standard sized truck cab. NOT FUN as I know from my personal experience! I'll always wish the county had gotten extended cab trucks back then!

So, that fire was a first test of responses, plans and such, and I know a lot of people were hoping the worst had occurred.

Turned out it was only a small taste of what was to happen in the fall, when the Santa Ana winds always blow.

The rest of the summer there were fires all over the area. Some good sized ones but no "big" ones. In late October 2003 just as now, the Santa Ana's were blowing pretty strong. At the bottom of the Cajon Pass wind gusts can and often do, exceed 60 mph. It was a "Indian Summer" warm day with the winds blowing pretty strongly. Early on a Saturday afternoon I heard about a fire that had started in the area of the Old Waterman Canyon road which was the old highway that was bypassed by the new highway up the mountain. Later it came out that it had been intentionally set by a guy in an older Chevy Astro van. People had seen it being started but with the winds it went from small to totally out of control in a about two hours.
Just 6 hours later it had spread and was working rapidly up towards the town of Crestline. By that evening it was mandatory evacuations, and within three days the entire mountain from Crestline to Big Bear was being evacuated. This fire was given the name "The Old Fire" for the point of origin in Old Waterman Canyon. Less than a week later it was evacuations for EVERYBODY that lived in the mountains. Many residents were caught off guard and many more were caught while down in the valley and were unable to return home. People in many areas had just a few hours to pack up and get out. As most thought it would be just for a few hours, they didn't concern themselves with packing up the pets and taking them with them.

As the fire progressed, many areas of the mountains lost all power. Pets were locked up in homes with no food or water available but what was left out for them or the dogs and cats that could drink from the toilets, many exotic fish were lost in tanks with no filters or power. With owners not able to return, calls began to come in with requests to get the left behind pets out. The department had been working 24/7 to evacuate animals, now it was stepped up as much as possible. Prior permission was gotten to as carefully as possible break in to most of the homes to gain access to the confined animals. Of course, some access was more careful than others, the one I remember being told about was the residence where the front door broke free falling into a glass coffee table and glass shelves breaking a lot of items. Then after getting the animals the door was secured as good as possible until a local wandering black bear got into the house through the broken front door.

As the days went on several homes were entered only to find that the pets had died from lack of food and water. The Humane Society of the United States rolled in and with their crews, they helped take up the slack by the now exhausted staff of the department. As the fire had burned through most of the western most communities by now, the mission shifted to getting food and water for house bound pets and no longer removal. So the teams continued to get into homes, and would leave enough food for several days. Although several Red Cross Evacuation Centers were set up in the general area, many mountain residents were being housed at the old Norton Air Force Base facility due to its proximity.
An area was set up for holding owned dogs and cats there also. Many owners were shocked and upset when they found out that Red Cross centers would not accept pets with the owners. So at those facilities there were problems with people keeping pets in their cars while staying there.

Glen Helen, a county park most famous for concerts and for having the US Festival in the 1980's, is at the intersections of the freeways I-15 and I-215 at the base of the Cajon Pass. This became the main "Fire Camp" and became the joint command post for most all the involved agencies. It was an impressive site seeing hundreds of tents, thousands of firefighters, as well as a city worth of trailers, motor homes and equipment for the fighting of the two giant area fires. The Sheriff's department rodeo grounds at Glen Helen became the area for storing livestock from Devore to Big Bear, about 60 miles of communities. Even a Zoo from Big Bear had several of their large animals stored for a time during the fires when Big bear itself was evacuated.

In the end it was the weather that stopped the fires. It lasted until just after Halloween a little over two weeks if I'm remembering correctly. I do remember being told by a Fire Commander that if the weather hadn't gotten colder and rainy and the winds had not died down, they were not going to be able to stop it until it burned all the way to Big Bear. It was a fire so big it couldn't be stopped by all the people and technology they had for fire fighting.

For us, well Stacy started out with the rescue teams then was sent to the livestock holding facility at Glen Helen as it was being set up. There she was in charge of the facility. I was on some of the rescue teams in the Big Bear area, transported supplies to staff in the valley and the mountains, transported livestock to Glen Helen. I worked the Com Center emergency response command center which was a room with representatives from all the area agencies each with a desk and a phone to take calls or questions from the public or the media, answered many, many phone calls from concerned people from wanting to know about their pets to people from all over the state and country wanting to volunteer or help.

Our daughter Laura was working at the Rancho Cucamonga shelter then, so she was working there and transporting animals.

It was over 6,000 animals that were taken in for the fires. Over 150 large animals and goats were kept at Glen Helen, with many more sent as far as 100 miles away by their owners through private transports.

Yes it was lots of memories for us and everybody involved. Would I say it was our shining moments that defined us in the department? I wouldn't, as it was just a few weeks out of my 25 year career there, and I had a lot of 'adventures'!

Yes there was excitement, a lot of aggravation with our own department, a lot of lost sleep, and a lot of money made with all the mandatory overtime. I have video I took, news stories I recorded on the VCR at home, and several people got together photos of what they'd seen and people that wanted those got them.

I'm sure with the almost every year fires and evacuations new employees are getting their chances to have their memories to talk about a few years after.