South Bay firefighting crew battles Woolsey wildfire
Photos courtesy Manhattan Beach Fire Department A crew of 21 firefighters from South Bay fire departments has been fighting the Woolsey fire for the last week. The crew, which includes five four-man engines and a battalion chief, is part of an enormous collaborative effort that brought together 3,592 firefighters attempting to contain what would eventually become a 93,662 acre blaze stretching from Malibu to Thousand Oaks. The South Bay strike team arrived late last Thursday, the day the Woolsey fire ignited, from causes yet to be determined. The fire, abetted by the Santa Ana winds, blazed across the Santa Monica Mountains all the way to the Malibu coast in an unprecedented seven hours. Manhattan Beach Fire Department Capt. Tom Desmond, a 24-year firefighting veteran who has been a part of strike teams fighting wildfires in previous years, said the Woolsey fire has been uniquely destructive. “It’s just massive, and the devastation is so great because it’s really in neighborhoods,” Desmond said. “A lot of times, when you fight these kinds of fires, you are up among some homes but it’s mostly forest. This one, it came in neighborhoods and destroyed entire neighborhoods. And added…
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