WASHINGTON -- California National Guardsmen are expected to remain busy this year, as part of ongoing firefighting efforts in a state that is battling the largest wildfire in its history.
About 760,000 acres have burned or on fire now across the state. That equates to about the size of Rhode Island or 60 times the size of Manhattan, said Maj. Gen. Matthew Beevers, assistant adjutant general of the California Joint Force Headquarters.
Nearly 1,000 California Guardsmen have been activated, along with 22 aircraft and over 100 vehicles, to assist the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
An additional 200 active-duty Soldiers from the 14th Brigade Engineer Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington have also been moved to fire lines to stamp out hot spots at the Mendocino Complex Fire. The fire has scorched roughly 350,000 acres, making it the largest ever in the state.
The majority of the state's worst fires, including Mendocino, are about 60 to 70 percent contained, the general said.
While there are no current plans to call up more California Guardsmen, who are activated for about 30 days, the general said that could soon change since the fire season has just started.
The annual Santa Ana winds in the southern part of the state have yet to happen, he said, and extreme fire behavior generally occurs much later in the summer and into early fall.
Recent drought conditions and a lack of snow during the winter time have also not allowed for any kind of recovery, leaving fuel sources extraordinarily dry.
"This will be a busy year for us," he said Wednesday at a Pentagon briefing on the Guard's monthlong firefighting efforts. "But we train for this every year."
Every spring, helicopter crews in the California Guard, who normally perform medical evacuations, train with Cal Fire personnel on water bucket operations.
"We'll dip into a lake and drop it on a notional fire line," Beevers said. "That's done every year and it provides a great opportunity to ensure that all of our aircrews are ready."
Sgt. Julian Ross and other UH-60 Black Hawk crew members are now performing real-life missions to protect people and structures from the fires.
"It makes me feel really proud to be out there to help support our communities," he said at the briefing.
Battling heavy smoke and wind in hazardous areas with other rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, Ross compared the dangers of the current mission to combat.
"As far as intensity, it's like being in a combat zone but we're not getting shot at," he said.
Being in a helicopter, his crew has also had to look out for "firenados" --- a whirlwind induced by a fire.
"They do affect us, because they're strong enough that they can actually pull us to the ground," he said. "So, our protocol is that if the winds are not variable for us to fly, we try not to fly into those conditions."
Guardsmen have also been fighting fires in three other states.
In Colorado, two Black Hawk helicopters and crews were activated Tuesday to conduct water bucket operations.
Nearly 460 personnel were activated July 20 to provide fire support in Oregon, where Chinook helicopters have already dropped more than 700,000 gallons of water on fires, according to a news report on Defense.gov.
And in Washington State, two Black Hawk helicopters and at least seven 20-person hand crews were mobilized Aug. 5 to fight fires.
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