OC Fire Watch volunteers work to spot fires before they start

For Orange County Fire Watch volunteers, the day out started as an early summer drill in Mission Viejo, but they quickly had to switch gears when they detected a fire.

“During a mock activation in June — which is not really the peak of fire season — I actually spotted a fire while I [was] checking into the Fire Watch rotation,” said OC Fire Watch volunteer Ray Hutchinson of Dana Point, who is a retired Orange County Fire Authority firefighter.

It’s this kind of reporting that underlies what OC Fire Watch does: spotting potential fire dangers, reporting smoke and fires and educating the public.

“I boil it down to see and be seen,” said Hutchinson. “Just us being there reminds people to be careful — also if someone is bent on less than good intent, they know someone’s watching.”

The concept began in 2007 when Irvine Ranch Conservancy (IRC) created a volunteer program to help monitor fires, said OC Fire Watch program coordinator Tony Pointer.

In 2014, the county merged IRC’s program and OC Parks’ program, which had developed independently. There currently are 315 volunteers in the program and Pointer expects that number to be close to 500 by the end of the year.

“We cover a wide geographical area that encompasses most of Orange County where there’s open space,” he said.

Those places include Laguna Canyon, Santiago Canyon, Ortega Highway, Caspers Wilderness Park, Carbon Canyon Regional Park, Newport Beach and Irvine open spaces.

The areas not covered by OC Fire Watch are under a larger network in Orange County involving partner programs, including Anaheim Fire & Rescue’s program and Laguna Beach’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).

“We kind of work together as a big collaborative network to try and cover as many locations as possible,” he said. “We communicate what days we’re deploying, what resources we’re deploying and we try to complement those deployment plans.”

Wearing bright green vests and sporting red-lettered OC Fire Watch magnets on the sides of their cars, the volunteers spend their deployments keeping watchful eyes for fires and suspicious activity, reporting smoke and fires to local authorities and providing wildfire education to hikers and motorists.

They may even hand out bottles of water on hot days.

“They work closely with first responders on a consistent basis,” Pointer said.

OC Fire Watch volunteers deploy when the U.S. National Weather Service issues red flag warnings — a marker for when fire danger is highest.

In 2017, Orange County had 18 red flag warning days, Pointer said. OC Fire Watch volunteers deployed all 18 days. Pointer said at least two of those deployments were five to seven days long — they usually run about two to three days at a time.

While volunteers cover 26 locations, last year’s red flag warnings expanded to coastal areas, increasing the number to 36 locations.

“Some of our volunteers put in just for Fire Watch, hundreds and hundreds of hours,” Pointer said.

During the recent Canyon 2 fire in Anaheim Hills, volunteers showed dedication by signing up for Fire Watch shifts while their own homes were threatened.

Orange County Fire Authority Battalion Chief Brian Norton, who coordinates with OC Fire Watch, said one of the program’s biggest successes is its engagement with the community and the visibility of its volunteers.

“It’s a very robust network,” Norton said. “It is important to note that wildland fire protection involves three key factors: prevention, education and suppression.

“Their presence during periods of heightened fire weather, their partnership with first responders obviously reduces the chances of fires from happening.”

Jessica Peralta is a contributor to Times Community News.