Member News
IAFF Operations Center: Santa Rosa, October 9-23
The October fires in Sonoma, Napa, and Mendocino counties were one of the most significant events ever to affect the fire service in Marin and Sonoma Counties. Of the 391 Local 1775 IAFF members, more than 200 live in zip codes impacted by the fires. Local 1775 members lost homes and loved ones.
Your union, L1775, recognizes that every member made sacrifices and contributed to the effort to fight these fires, on the line or in Marin. For that, we thank you.
It is important that our members know what your union, the IAFF, through our Local 1775, CPF, and the International in Washington DC, provided to our memebrs and the community over the last month.
October 8
The Local 1775 Executive Board began communicating just before midnight October 8 when evacuation orders first went out. President Briare, Treasurer Larkin, and Political Director Ken Martin (60% of the principal officers) lived in the path of the fires and were evacuated. Marin residents, VP John Bagala and Secretary Todd Lando, recognizing that a large number of L1775 members lived in the path of the fires, began operations early on the morning of the 9th, making contact with Santa Rosa Local 1401 and generating a GIS map and list of members and families potentially affected. By Monday afternoon, they opened and organized what would become the IAFF Operations Center, 12 hours after the fires began, initially operating out of Santa Rosa fire station 10.
By Tuesday morning, the IAFF Operations Center had been organized with a command structure, with Bagala as Operations Section Chief, and volunteers from nearly every Bay Area IAFF Local arrived to provide assistance to firefighters displaced and affected by the fires. Rick Swan, IAFF Director of Wildland Fire Safety and Training, arrived early to provide direct access to Washington DC and the full resources of the IAFF. The Operations Center functioned for 2 weeks.
IAFF Operations Center
Here’s a synopsis of the services and support provided by your union through the Operations Center, managed jointly by Local 1775 and 1401 (Santa Rosa Firefighters) at the L1401 Union Hall in downtown Santa Rosa from October 9-23 (click below to read more):
In cooperation with Local 1401, we ran a multi-faceted operation to support our members and the community at large to the best of our abilities. We were integrated with the Incident Command Team and Base Camp operations to support suppression efforts and members in the field.
Local 1775 personnel started moving to Santa Rosa at 6:00 AM on Monday October 9th, with IAFF support operations beginning at around 10:00 AM. Vice President Bagala initially set up at Santa Rosa Fire Station #10, with Secretary Lando arriving from Santa Barbara in the afternoon. Operations were moved to the L1401 Union Hall at around 8:00 PM and the operation grew organically from there.
Rick Swan, Director of Wildland Fire Safety and Training with the IAFF arrived from Washington DC October 10.
Member Losses
A database of all IAFF members affected by the fires was generated and updated as intelligence arrived from the firelines. GIS mapping was used to monitor locations of fires and potential impacts on members and families in real-time, as the fires continued to grow through October 18.
Currently we have identified the following fire service professionals who have suffered loses:
- 32 Full Time (Active or Retired Active) personnel
- 22 Retirees (Retired Alumni) [this number continues to grow]
- 24 Family Members (Parents, Siblings, Spouses, or Children's homes)
- 2 Inactive (former) members who had separated (Inactive Promoted or Withdrawn)
- 1 local 1775 member lost a family member, and another was critically injured.
IAFF Disaster Recovery
$500 IAFF Disaster Recovery cards were distributed directly to members displaced by the fires. Additional cards will be distributed by online application to members who did not receive them directly in Santa Rosa.
Supplies and Equipment for Members
October 9, we learned that many members were without power, and generators were not available anywhere in the Bay Area. L1775 was able to secure 18 generators from the evacuated Harbor Freight Tools store in Coffey Park, with the support of Harbor Freight Corporate, for distribution to IAFF members who were without power. We provided garden hoses, pumps, nozzles, safety gear, and eventually sifting boxes and metal detectors for recovery of items and personal belongings to members in the evacuation zones and wo lost homes.
IAFF teams checked hundreds of addresses to assess their status for friends and family members who were unable to enter evacuation and fire zones. Supplies were delivered to active and retired members who remained at home.
Peer Support
We mobilized a large Peer Support unit, operating from the Operation Center, made of members from several Bay Area Locals (L1775, L689, L522, L230, L2881). With Jason Golden and Tom Moran serving as unit leaders, the IAFF Peer Support staff visited each fire station in the affected areas, made dozens of individual contacts with firefighters and families, organized peer support events, staffed an office for drop in visits, integrated with the CalFIRE Peer Support facilities at the base, provided family support, conducted follow up phone calls, emailed and texted individuals, and a myriad of other support services. Daily peer support sessions were initiated, and extensive media outreach was conducted to educate the public regarding the emotional stress suffered by firefighters.
The Peer Support unit, with the assistance of Local 1775 attorney John Grey, organized Friends of Bill (AA Meetings) – the first ever publicized AA meeting provided to members in a fire Base Camp.
SAVE Cards
Over 14 days we issued 1280 $100 SAVE Cards from the California Fire Foundation to members of the public displaced by the fires. IAFF members distributed the cards in person at the IAFF Operations Center and directly to evacuees in Sonoma, Napa, and Marin evacuation shelters.
Meals
By coordinating with Operation BBQ Relief, run by Chef Jim Modesitt and Celebrity Chef Guy Fieri, we helped provide over 57,000 meals directly to the Incident Command Post, Tactical Assignments, Shelters, IAFF personnel, and offsite locations.
Housing
We organized a robust housing and placement operation to provide short, medium, and long-term housing solutions for firefighters and their families who are displaced. All displaced firefighters and their families were either placed in housing or contacted and determined to not need support. We received hundreds of offers for low cost or no cost temporary housing for firefighters, and a master list was established for tracking and placement.
Public Information
Our social media and public information efforts provided daily content to the IAFF and E18 Studios, as well as CPF and FireStar Studios. We posted regular updates across several social media and provided “B-Roll” video and imagery for the upcoming IAFF magazine and video productions. Our outreach efforts exceeded 3 million social media views, and more than 1 million web “hits” providing the public with positive information relating to firefighters, their efforts, and the losses suffered by our members and families.
Our Public Information efforts have tried to focus the discussion on the firefighters themselves and their roles in the community, especially the potential behavioral health consequences and inherent risks associated with the job.
We conducted numerous media interviews including international news organizations (the BBC), National News (CNN, NBC Nightly News, ABC), Local News (KGO, KTVU,KRON,), Print Media (Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, LA Times, Marin Independent Journal), Radio (KSRO, KCBS), and for several online news sources.
Legal and Financial Support
L1775 member and attorney John Grey, with former President of Local 1401 Tim Doherty (who lost his home in the Tubbs fire), established a legal support team to provide no cost legal advice and referrals for affected members. Tax Professional Jayme Gallenson, a L1775 family memebr, helped establish a free tax advice network for any person affected by the fires.
Lawmaker and VIP Briefings and Fire Tours
We conducted fireline and operations center tours and hosted briefings for VIPs and lawmakers, including: IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger, General Secretary-Treasurer Ed Kelly, 10th District Vice President Frank Lima, Northern CA DFSR Brian Rice, CPF President Lou Paulson, IBHS Building Safety and Wildfire Science researcher Dr. Steve Quarles, Governor Jerry Brown, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Diane Feinstein, Congressman Jared Huffman, Businessman Tom Steyer, State Senator Mike McGuire, State Assemblyman Marc Levine, Santa Rosa Mayor, Council members, and many others. Politics – Governor Brown, Senator Feinstein, Senator Harris, Congressman Huffman, State Senator Mike McGuire, Assemblyman Marc Levine, Santa Rosa Mayor, City Manager, City Council Members, and Fire Chief Gossner.
Fundraising
We established the official fund-raising effort for firefighters who lost homes through the GoFundAHero.com platform, raising more than $270,000 to date. We have collected approximately $25,000 in gift cards for IAFF members, and solicited more than $250,000 in corporate matches, to allow us to distribute more than $500,000 to retired and active IAFF members who suffered losses. Funds will be distributed beginning this month.
Donations
Physical donations of clothing, goods, and materials have been impressive and we are now coordinating our efforts with our friends at the Deputy Sheriff's Association and the Police Officers Associations. A well organized and publicized effort to collect donated bicycles for fire victims was organized on-site by L1775 member Mike Coleman, Southern Marin Fire.
Additional Efforts:
Recovered several safes for IAFF members. In one case, 8 IAFF members were dispatched form the Operations Center to recover a large safe. The safe was opened with hydraulic rescue tools and the contents recovered.- Tommy-palooza – an IAFF peer support and decompression day for member families organized by Tom Moran, Southern Marin Fire and Peer IAFF Support Specialist.
- Intakes for displaced firefighters
- SAVE Card distribution (Ops Center, ICP, Shelters) led by Tim Pratt, Southern Marin Fire.
- Delivered meals to homeless
- Delivered meals to tactical units and fire-stations
- Peer Support team visited all fire stations to provide direct contact and peers support for members immediately upon returning from the field, led by Jason Golden and Tom Moran, Southern Marin Fire.
- Housing Placement
- Social media
- Fundraising
- Address checks – damage assessment for members displaced and unable to check themselves
- Generators
- Garden Hose, tools, safety gear distributed to members.
- Politics – Governor Brown, Senator Feinstein, Senator Harris, Congressman Huffman, State Senator Mike McGuire, Assemblyman Marc Levine, Santa Rosa Mayor, City Council Members, City Manager, Fire Chief Gossner.
- CPF Burn Foundation Placement. Richard Rojo’s (SNR) grandmother was severely burned and grandfather died. Family members were placed in touch with CPF to assist as needed.
- L1775 met with Wildfire and Building Scientist Steve Quarles of IBHS, and provided him with a tour of the burned areas and assisted in data gathering and photography related to post fire analysis.
- Chive Charities and Gary Sinise Foundation.
- Bike Drive – collecting 1000 bikes, organized by Mike Coleman, Southern Marin Fire.
- Halloween Costumes
- Organized Friends of Bill (AA Meetings) – first ever publicized AA meeting provided to members in Base Camp in the Peer Support trailer.
- Danny Gemma (SOM) Manny Avilla (MLV) organized dumpster delivery and garbage collection at homeless site.
None of this would of been possible without the incredible support and cooperation of the IAFF Locals in our area; L1401 (Santa Rosa), L1775 (Marin), L798 (San Francisco), L689 (Alameda City), L522 (Sacramento), L55 (Oakland/Alameda County), L1186 (Vallejo/Benecia), L1230 (Contra Costa), L230 (San Jose), L2805 (Gilroy), L2881(CalFire), L3546 (San Ramon), L1165 (Santa Clara), and many others. Our State Association, California Professional Firefighters (CPF) and all of its resources have been brought to bear. We especially want to thank the dozens of IAFF retirees from various locals who volunteered and assisted in the IAFF Operations Center.
This was an incredibly emotional, dynamic, often times chaotic, but always rewarding endeavor that could not have succeeded without dedicated members who had the labor education, emergency experience, and commitment to one another that is the hallmark of the fire service and the labor movement.
There is still a long road ahead, but our brothers and sisters are ready.
In Solidarity,
VP John Bagala
Secretary Todd Lando
President Bob Briare
Marin Professional Firefighters
IAFF Local 1775
