Fire update from Avalon’s mayor

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After spending all night and most of yesterday on the fire lines, Avalon Mayor Bob Kennedy, a volunteer firefighter, returned to town this morning for a critical 10:15 briefing that will determine one of the most pressing questions of the morning: whether to resume cross-channel tourist traffic as early as today.

Kennedy began his work on the fire lines Thursday at the ‘point of origin of this fire, KBRT Radio station tower about seven miles west of Avalon.’

There, he said, ‘I was manning Engine No. 2, putting water on hot stuff.’

‘Initially,’ he said, ‘I thought we were going to lose our community. But proper training and deployment limited our losses to one residential unit and eight or nine warehouse-type structures.’ The warehouses were located at a wildlands interface area known as Falls Canyon.

The fire, he said, was about 30% contained as of 9:30 a.m.

He said he was looking forward to a series of important meetings and then ‘a cold beer and a nice dinner and bed.’

Kennedy, looking exhausted and seriously sunburned, said the Avalon Fire Department was back to normal operations this morning and ‘our focus now is on an interior attack and mopping up a few hot spots at the edges of town.’

Looking back, he said, ‘We stopped the fire at Falls Canyon with a lot of hard work and ballsy moves.’

-Louis Sahagun in Avalon