With studies indicating that Southern California’s wildfire season is expanding, experts are already warning that there will be no shortage of wildfire risks in the coming months. And in order to help protect property, wildlife and the natural wilderness, the Orange County Fire Authority has established the OC Fire Watch and is constantly working to educate the public on ways to continually protect the community from wildfire.

The OC Fire Watch program is a volunteer-driven effort, led by the city of Irvine, the Irvine-based Orange County Fire Authority, OC Parks and the Irvine Ranch Conservancy, along with the city of Newport Beach, that provides hands-on training and education to community volunteers, teaching them how to spot, respond and report wildfires to the proper authorities.

Tony Pointer, Irvine Ranch Conservancy’s Fire Watch Manager, explained that the OC Fire Watch program will deploy trained volunteers when the National Weather Service issues a Red Flag Warning and determines that an offshore wind event has pushed fire danger into the extreme category.

“Because we’re always in a year-round fire season, we have fires in Orange County, weekly. We’re always going to have fires in a fire-prone area, during drought time, living in the wild land urban interface,” Pointer explained. “We focus on the times where the ignition potential is in the extreme and makes the fire behavior exceptionally dangerous.”

Pointer added that IRC’s volunteer wildfire monitoring unit is not specific to Irvine, but a collaborative effort within a network of other Fire Watch teams, which include the cities of Anaheim and Fullerton, as well as in Los Angeles County and across greater portions of the state.

“It’s the next generation of the ‘Look Out’ towers. What they wanted with Fire Watches is to be able to interact with the public, let them know why it’s important to be vigilant,” Pointer explained. “Since we’re surrounded by residential areas in the wild land urban interface, it’s not like we could put up a tower anywhere and have good visibility.”

However, considering the new health regulations caused by the pandemic, the OC Fire Watch program has needed to adapt to the current circumstances, giving volunteers a chance to contribute their time from the safety of their homes.

“We were staffing throughout the whole COVID-19 pandemic. On every red flag warning, it depended upon what we did for training, so we did a lot of virtual activities and part of those virtual activities were incorporating more hybrid models, where there were folks at home on YouTube, or wherever they were,” he said.

Thanks to technology, he has been able to livestream Fire Watch training sessions in order for volunteers to stay informed. Pointer added that the annual Fire Watch Symposium was held virtually this year, which was something new.

“In these COVID times, the Fire Watch Symposium had a slightly different format than the previous years and our normal activities,” Pointer said. “This year, the symposium was presented virtually on IRC’s YouTube channel and Facebook page, making it easy for the public to attend the symposium from the comfort of their own home.”

In addition to virtual training exercises, Pointer also encourages both volunteers and the public to keep tabs on wildfire prone areas by monitoring dozens of ALERTWildfire cameras in real-time online.

On Saturday, June 5, Pointer led a group of a half-dozen volunteers on a Fire Watch training exercise, which spanned nearly 50 miles between Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea, to Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park near Mission Viejo.

“When we look at where ignitions come from, a good portion of ignitions in Orange County come from our roadways and they also primarily start along those toll roads areas – where roads drive through the wild land urban interface,” Pointer explained. “And right now, that 241 corridor is one of our most ignition-prone in Orange County.”

Sporting bright yellow Fire Watch vests, and driving in vehicles with large Fire Watch car door magnets, OC Fire Watch volunteers are not hard to miss. Pointer explained that is part of the concept of the Fire Watch program, to act as a deterrent to man-made fires.

“One of the cornerstones of what we do relates to visual deterrents. So one of the reasons that the volunteers have the magnets and wear bright vests is to put individuals on notice that there is somebody out there that can be an early reporter,” he explained. “So, if we see something suspicious, we call 9-1-1, just like any other average citizen would.”

Now, with peak wildfire season approaching in Southern California, Pointer, who has been with the IRC since 2016, says OC Fire Watch is gearing up for a busy season. Pointer reflected on the recent wildfires near Irvine – the Silverado Fire, and most recently the Bond Fire of 2020 – emphasizing that the area is under constant threat of wildfire.

Last year, Pointer said even with Fire Watch monitoring the areas near the 241 for nearly 12 hours daily, both blazes ignited during a shift change between OC Fire Watch and the Canyon Area Fire Watch.

“The challenge in Orange County, particularly that corridor of the 241 in Santiago Canyon, is we just had a fire in 2017, then we had the Canyon Fire right after, which burned other segments of Irvine Ranch open space. Both ignitions [Santiago/Bond] occurred before our Fire Watch segments started,” he said. “We typically staff from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. at 36 locations throughout the county, when we’re not on Canyon Watch staffs overnight – so it was when Canyon Watch was on, but we were just getting our rosters together.”

However, since OC Fire Watch does not carry firefighting equipment, Pointer added that it was his responsibility to clear his volunteers out from the fire area, once fire crews are on scene.

Currently, OC Fire Watch has approximately 300 volunteers, but has not been able to add to the existing roster due to the pandemic.

For more information on how to become a OC Fire Watch volunteer please visit Letsgooutside.org.

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