Firefighters return from Yosemite

With the Telegraph Fire near Yosemite almost fully contained, Sonoma Valley firefighters are home after a week on the Mariposa County fire lines.
“They are back in town,” Sonoma Valley Fire and Rescue Authority Division Chief Bob Norrbom said Monday, adding that the crew returned Sunday night.
Sonoma Valley Fire and Rescue Authority Capt. Sean Lacy, engineer/medic Les Bender, and firefighters Jack Ayers and Eric Padgett left for a seven-day assignment around 3:30 p.m. Sunday, July 27, in the SVFRA’s state Office of Emergency Services engine.
The OES maintains a cadre of engines and crews throughout California, including one in Sonoma Valley. The truck, dubbed “OES-319,” was joined by four others from Santa Rosa, Benicia, Georgetown and El Dorado County as part of a standard five-engine strike team.
The Telegraph Fire began July 25 and was reportedly caused by someone target shooting. By Tuesday presstime, the blaze was 95 percent contained and had burned more than 34,000 acres of rugged terrain. Twenty-eight homes and 90 other structures had been destroyed and 38 people injured in the blaze which summoned more than 1,900 firefighters and 100 engines from across the state.
Sonoma’s OES engine has been out four times this year – including one run before California’s fire season began June 2. The first call came May 22, when crews responded to the week-long Summit Fire near Santa Cruz. On June 11, OES-319 headed to Chico for six days, then returned to Butte County on June 22 for 25 days to help fight a series of lightning-struck fires still being contained by firefighters from the western United States and several foreign countries.