Santa Rosa Fire Fighters Local 1401 sends crews to fight wildfires in Los Angeles County on Tuesday, January 7th, 2025.
photo credit: Santa Rosa Fire Fighters Local 1401

Paul Lowenthal, Division Chief Fire Marshall with the Santa Rosa Fire Department, says this kind of scenario is all too familiar.

 

“So this is kind of similar to what we experienced in 2017 where we were expecting and received some pretty significant winds and ended up with a number of large-scale wildfires. Not only in Sonoma County, but in Napa as well. And that prompted a request for a pretty significant amount of resources and strike teams and task forces, and other needs from, not only the region, but really across the state to support us. And that's exactly what you're seeing now in Southern California," said Lowenthal.

 

Lowenthal says these Sonoma County firefighters have firsthand experience with the exact situation that is happening in Los Angeles County.

 

“A lot of the firefighters that worked in 2017 are finding themselves in Southern California, and those firefighters in Southern California, were some of the same firefighters that were up here in 2017. We have a system in California called the Mass Mutual Aid system, and it allows resources to be pushed from jurisdiction to jurisdiction when there's needs like this," explained Lowenthal.

 

Lowenthal says there are at least 15 engines and their crews from Sonoma County working right now on the Southern California fire lines.