Firefighters return from California wildfires

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KELO) — South Dakota firefighters are now back home after assisting with the recent wildfires in California.

18 Firefighters from the area spent 10 days fighting the fires down in California.

Three of those were from the Black Hawk Department.

“I was extremely grateful to be able to go down to California to help them. Not just to help with the fires, just being seen there by the public gives them a lot of ease. Especially with their winds they get every year and how they didn’t get any wet season this year,” BHFD Firefighter Steven Fischer said.

“We had a task force leader from North Dakota who was in charge of us. He helped out a lot and taught us some things and you know, if there’s downtime on the fire the biggest thing we do is train. There’s enough training that a person could do and you keep learning new stuff every day,” Black Hawk Fire Department Captain Haiden Janssen said.

These firefighters got into California late at night and on their first morning, they were already boots on the ground assisting on the Eaton Fire.

“All their hills are exactly like Bear Butte. Super steep, sandy, rocky, hard to climb, hard to access areas and that’s why they have so much aircraft because their aircraft do so much for those guys and the rest of them are handcrews,” Fischer said

“People in different states, they fight fire in a different way. It’s different from how we do it here from how they do it in California from how they do it in Texas. It’s all a different way but the same point you want to get to is extinguishing the fire and be able to help people and save communities,” Janssen said.

Other firefighters who helped in California were from the South Dakota Wildland Fire, Argyle, Fairburn, and Whispering Pines Volunteer Fire Department.