The Press-Enterprise has an article about a contractor in southern California that supplies fuel to fire trucks on wildland fires. Here is an excerpt:
For 25 days, Glen Avon resident John Teagarden’s fuel service supplied 164,000 gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline to the fire vehicles used to battle the blaze. Teagarden combined the savvy of an air traffic controller with the endurance of a triathlete to keep the machinery running.
Arnie White, a deputy chief for Cal Fire based at the Prado camp in Chino, worked with Teagarden on the Station Fire. White said Teagarden had a knack for timing the refueling of the vehicles so gridlock didn’t result from hundreds of drivers seeking to fill their 100-gallon tanks at once during shift changes. Teagarden’s company also pumped water from the San Gabriel Dam into the buckets of firefighting helicopters.
“He did an excellent job,” White said. “There were no hiccups in logistics.”
Like the firefighters, Teagarden worked long shifts, catching sleep in a trailer when he could. His company used two 4,000-gallon trucks and two 2,500-gallon trailers to refuel the fire trucks in the Hansen Dam and Santa Fe Dam areas of Los Angeles County. The firm has four full-time employees and 12 part-timers. Sometimes, an employee was sent with a trailer to refuel a fire truck that had run out of gas.
Teagarden’s company also supplies fuel for the generators that power the stoves and ovens that feed the firefighters, and the showers that cleanse the soot and filth that are the residue of the blazes.
Thanks Dick
