FIRE CONTROL 7
By Jay Dimoff
IN WHAT HAS BECOME AN ANNUAL KICKOFF TO THE FIRE SEASON,
SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY FIRE HAS HELD A FIRE CONTROL 7 (FC7)
BURN AT THE START OF EACH OF THE PAST SEVEN SUMMERS.
This year’s event took place at Little Mountain in San Bernardino
during the first week of June. The department and its cooperators
have developed an improved working relationship and provided
new fire recruits with vital hands-on experience through live
fire training. Over the years, the participation has continued
to grow, and the scope and complexity grew along with it. In
fact, what started off as burning a few acres for some live
training has become a major project covering hundreds of
acres. Further, not only is this program meant to develop
young firefighters, but it helps expand the knowledge of
both company officers and chiefs—the opportunity to
train with live fire in a controlled setting is invaluable.
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FIREWIRE • Summer 2018
Accompanying the growth of the yearly FC7, as well as
reflecting the organization’s growing needs, in 2016 County
Fire took a step in faith and set the groundwork to start a San
Bernardino County Type 3 Incident Management Team (IMT).
Under the direction of Assistant Chief Kathleen Opliger, who
has been an incident commander and operations chief for
federal teams throughout her career, the effort to build
the team commenced, as committees were developed,
applications were se nt out, meetings were attended and
ultimately the plan was put before the fire chief. After
completing a mountain of paperwork the team was given the
green light; County Fire’s IMT was off and running. The team
provides all-risk incident management for incidents that exceed
the scope of the initial attack resources, and has provided incident support for incidents
and events at California Speedway, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino Orange Show,
the Valley Fire and numerous other venues requiring specialized command and control.
This year’s FC7 burn included the obvious training for the fire crews, but also deployed the
SBCFD IMT to manage the complex incident. The burn was drawn up by the IMT commands
Staff to be a fuels mitigation project as well as a fire training exercise. Little Mountain is a
series of rolling hills with annual grasses within an urban interface that historically suffers
multiple fires every year. By reducing some of the available fuel during the training, San
Bernardino County Fire was able to reduce the potential loss of property in the future.
With a coordinated fuel mitigation burn, the fire could be managed and directed in a safe
manner all while providing a valuable training experience.
Overall, the burn was a huge success, with firefighter training, elimination of fuel in a
target hazard and valuable real-world practice for County Fire’s IMT. Special Operations
Division was very active in the project, providing work from the hand crews, dozers and
air assets. The week-long operation provided excellent training to multiple assets in the
department and all without injury or incident.
Captain Jay Dimoff is currently assigned to Station 226 in San Bernardino.
FIRE CONTROL 7
Summer 2018 • FIREWIRE
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