‘This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,’ says Greg Stenmo, a battalion chief with the Angeles National Forest.
PASADENA, Calif.—On a recent frigid morning, more than a thousand first responders gathered at the Rose Bowl stadium for a daily briefing before heading out to battle a fire that has decimated nearby communities at the edge of the Los Angeles National Forest.
The stadium grounds are now a central command for fire crews from all over the Western region, as well as the law enforcement and military personnel that are stationed throughout evacuation zones.
Many of the men and women here have been in the fight since the beginning—sleeping in tents on the stadium’s lawn, working grueling shifts, and battling a merciless trifecta of weather, terrain, and competition for finite resources as concurrent blazes rage in other corners of the county.
“I think about the people you guys have left to be able to be here to help us rise from these ashes and restore our great county,” an operations section chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention told the crowd.
The phoenix he invoked is an apt totem for those who run toward infernos. Greg Stenmo, a battalion chief with the Angeles National Forest, wore one embroidered on his beanie, an insignia of the Little Tujunga “Hot Shots” crew—an elite, special forces of firefighting that take on some of the most monstrous wildland fires in the country.
He has seen the worst of what California wildfires have to offer—the town of Paradise in 2018 in Northern California, the Station fire in the Angeles National Forest in 2009, and the loss of comrades along the way. Still, this time is different.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” Stenmo said. Thinking of the thousands of homes that have been razed to the ground just miles from where we stood, he added, “I can’t grasp it, it seems unreal.”
In fact, Stenmo’s own brother lost his house in the Eaton Fire.
“As someone who works in this community, loves this community, and has been affected by this, I’ve been telling everyone ‘thank you.’ They never hear that from each other, but from my family to them, I appreciate them answering the call this time of year to be here.”
