Park service squashes rumors about delaying Cal Fire dozer during the Carr Fire

by Courtney Kreider

Wednesday, July 24th 2019

WHISKEYTOWN NATIONAL PARKS SERVICE, Calif. — After several rumors questioning the initial response on the Carr Fire, the National Park Service is clearing the air about what happened in those first few moments, saying none of their rangers ever got in the way of any Cal Fire unit. In fact, the request for bulldozer (dozer) operators was granted every time.

The Carr Fire started as three small fires, near Carr Power House Road off of Highway 299 W in the Whiskeytown National Park Service jurisdiction. It was started by a trailer with a flat tire, throwing sparks. Within a few hours, the largest of those three fires would grow to 1,000 acres, causing evacuations in Whiskeytown, French Gulch and shutting down a portion of Highway 299.

Many people have since question a rumor that a member from the National Park Service threatened a Cal Fire dozer operator with a lawsuit if they were to fight fire on parks land.

Chief Ranger with the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, Dave Keltner, was one of the first on scene. He confirms no one ever tried to delay the fire fight.

"We were asked every day for the first week or so to put those in line in the park and the Park Service said 'yes' every single time Cal Fire requested dozer line," Chief Keltner affirmed.

The Park Service headquarters is about 8 miles from where the fire started. According to Chief Keltner, he was there within a minute or two shortly after they received the 9-1-1 calls.

Carr Fire, July 23, 2018, multi agency response.

"The operations chief for the fire, a firefighter from Cal Fire, looked at me and said, 'I need dozers on this fire right now.' I said, okay. Let me make a phone call. I called our superintendent, Patrick Gubbins, who was acting superintendent at that time. He picks up and says hey 'what do you need' and I said, 'I need dozers. We need to get dozers on this fire right now.' He said, 'I already authorized it, I talked to the incident commander, we're good.' Within a couple of minutes there was a Cal Fire dozer, that was actually from Humboldt, that offloaded. They had been passing through, offloaded and started to go up one of the roads in the area and quickly backed out because of the intensity of the fire," Chief Keltner added.

The Cal Fire unit from Humboldt County had been one of the crews coming off the fire in French Gulch earlier that week. KRCR News Channel 7 spoke with the Captain from this unit who also confirmed that no one ever tried to delay their fire fighting tactics.

The memory is still raw for Chief Keltner, as the fire made its path through Whiskeytown, it also destroyed their ranger station.

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"It's been tough having six guys and two dispatchers working out of a trailer the size of your bathroom but we made it through the winter and we're back in our station now so that's good," Chief Keltner said. But most importantly he wants the community to know they did everything in their power to stop the fire.

"This is our community too. I live here. I was evacuated for 20 days. I didn't want the fire spreading out of the park and no one did," Chief Keltner emphasized. "We care about the community, everybody who works at this park works lives in this community. Some of our employees lost their homes. We tried to help Cal Fire fight the fire aggressively because that's what's going to save peoples homes."

Source: https://krcrtv.com/news/local/parks-service-squashes-rumors-about-threatening-cal-fire-dozer-during-the-carr-fire