On Sunday afternoon, inmate firefighters battled flames that spread to just over 2 acres alongside their counterparts with Santa Cruz County, Cal Fire, Central Fire, Santa Cruz City and Bonny Doon fire departments—with help from California Highway Patrol officers—just north of Davenport, which was bustling with weekend tourists.
Cal Fire Battalion Chief Bryan Whitaker, the incident commander, said the call came in after 3pm.
“What we think is that it (sparked) somewhere near the highway,” he said, in an on-scene interview between the State Responsibility Area and Bureau of Land Management property where cows were grazing in the fog. “Then it started burning this way.”
This was one of two weekend fires that broke out right near population centers and were stamped out rapidly.
On Friday, firefighters raced to a blaze along Lexington Reservoir and had it under control by the early evening.
‘THey’re essentially remote-control cows at ths point’
—Zachary Ormsby, BLM field manager
CHP Officer Richard Ryken, of the San Jose Station, said that blaze ignited around 2pm.
He was dispatched to assist with traffic control by the dam, before being repositioned to the southern entrance to the Aldercroft Heights neighborhood.
(Drew Penner / Los Gatan)
“We had reports of flames and smoke,” he said. “Fire had an amazing response.
“They got it handled pretty quickly.”
Ryken said responders got an assist from the fact that the reservoir was right there, meaning helicopter water drops were fast and deadly to the flames.
Zachary Ormsby, field manager with the Bureau of Land Management Central Coast Field office, said Sunday’s fire in Davenport spread to BLM land just days away from the limited grand opening of the Cotoni-Coast Dairies, which is set for Aug. 15.
“In 2017, Sempervirens Fund and Conservation Lands Foundation worked with elected officials, and President Barack Obama added it to the California Coastal National Monument, which Bill Clinton designated in 2000,” he said, noting they’ve just put in fresh parking spaces there. “The parking lot was untouched by the fire; and the Bureau of Land Management had recently worked with PG&E to clear hazardous vegetation in that area.”
In total, 15 problem eucalyptus trees were eliminated from the landscape. These could have created a powerful wind tunnel and pushed the fire into out-of-control territory.
“It would have been a completely different scene if that would have happened a month ago,” he said. “We were just out there last week—and then on Saturday—giving tours of the property to Cal Fire to prepare for…an emergency.”
Around 100 head of Angus cattle graze at the location.
Through a partnership between the private lessee, the BLM, the BLM’s nonprofit Foundation for America’s Public Lands and Boulder, Colo.–based company Halter, the cows have been outfitted with technology that directs them where to chow down.
“The BLM leases the grazing right to raise cattle, which is part of our grant deed—and is also part of our vegetation management plan,” Ormsby said. “And those cows just got virtual collars installed two weeks ago, so they can be utilized more effectively for vegetation management.”
Halter’s geofencing and collar system prods the cattle by emitting an audible signal on one side of the animals, causing them to face the other direction. Then a vibration that follows encourages them to mosey along that way, he explained.
