He missed his 5-year-old son Owen’s first day at Korematsu Elementary School, but Shawn Kinney had an excuse better than most.
Kinney, a Davis Fire Department division chief, was wrapping up a 24-hour shift on the line at the Rim fire. He’s one of 43 Yolo County strike team members among more than 4,000 firefighters working to contain the sixth-largest fire in the state’s history.
As of Wednesday morning, the Rim Fire had torched 187,466 acres in the mountains near Yosemite National Park.
“I just got up here, but this fire has grown exponentially,” said Kinney, 49, who arrived on Monday. “The terrain is very rugged, very steep, and it’s all ready to burn. I can tell that where we’re at, it hasn’t burned in many, many, many years.”
Kinney, a strike team leader trainee, worked alongside firefighters from the departments of Woodland, Willow Oak, Yocha Dehe and West Sacramento, led by West Sacramento Capt. Mike Taylor.
They were among those trying to burn up fuel from Highway 108 and the towns of Tuolumne City, Soulsbyville and Twain Harte, where evacuation advisories are in effect. A nighttime photo taken with Kinney’s iPhone shows fire and smoke glowing orange beyond the silhouettes of tree tops.
As he spoke, he had been awake going on 30 hours, as firefighters hustled to try to take advantage of moist air. The 12-day-old fire had been 23 percent contained, by then.
“With an unstable atmosphere, this is going to be one of the most challenging fires of my career and the careers of many other people,” said Kinney, whose 22 years of experience include the 2009 Station Fire, north of Los Angeles, which blackened 160,577 acres and killed two firefighters.
“We’re probably going to be here another couple of weeks.”
Capt. Joe Tenney and Davis firefighters Blas Ayala, Jamie Mills and Luis Parilla were on standby with foam as helicopters raced to and from Pine Mountain Lake Airport in Groveland.
UC Davis Fire Department Capt. Steve Dunn, fire engineer Sess Mercado and firefighters Eric Schultz and Derek Carthy worked to protect buildings in Groveland, as did UCD Capt. David Stiles, who was leading a mixed-agency team.
Chief Nathan Trauernicht said that his campus firefighters, who are manning a state-owned engine, have commented on the difficult terrain.
“It’s so inaccessible. That’s a lot of the reason that fire’s grown — there’s a lot of areas you just can’t get to without aircraft,” he said.
The UCD crew has notched seven days at the wildfire. Early on, said Yoche Dehe Chief Gary Fredericksen of the Yolo strike team, firefighters lacked food and toilets.
Earlier this month, the team sent five engines to the 2,462-acre Swedes Fire in Butte County. It was 100 percent contained on Aug. 22. On Tuesday, 20 Yolo firefighters responded to a seven-alarm grass fire in Fairfield that damaged five houses.
Though there’s scant cell phone coverage in the area of the Rim Fire, Kinney got lucky early on Wednesday. He reached his wife, Heather, and sons, Conner, 15, Liam, 9, and little Owen and —while still on the fire line — wished his youngest good luck.
