SMYRNA, Del.- The scene in Yreka City, California over the last several days has been full of flames. Fires have been building and expanding causing damage in the area.
Delaware’s Initial Attack Unit has received a call to assist firefighters who have been working for days. While the fire has been mostly contained, there is still more work to be done.
"The McKinney fire is 55 percent contained," Delaware Wildfire Supervisor Kyle Hoyd said. "They’re anticipating some extreme fire behavior. They got some rain but that rain caused flash floods and they’re experiencing clean up efforts and problems with that."
There are twenty people headed out west to fight these fires and the level of experience goes from having none at all with some training to some people who have been doing this for decades.
Eric Brown of Rehoboth Beach went for the first time with the unit to Montana last year and says he is ready to do it all over again.
"We were out there for about two weeks," Brown said. "We did a little bit of work here, line work, prescribed stuff. We did some tree cutting. We did some home defense. Some other home defensing where it’s going up and setting up sprinkler pumps and making sure the relative humidity in the area is a lot better."
Erich Burkentine of Milton works for the Delaware Forest Service and will be serving as the leader of one of the teams. He has decades of experience going out to do this kind of work.
"You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable and outside of that you have terrain and other hazards that are you know local factors that you might run into," Burkentine said. "And then the fire itself you know, I mean that’s unpredictable."
The expectation is that the unit will be fighting fires on land for about a week before heading to some other areas.