Roberts returns from 17 days at NorCal fires California fires

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A 110-unit Middletown apartment building that burned to the ground.

Many Canyon Lakers were shocked and saddened to see the destruction caused by the recent fires in Northern California; but none so much as Jeff Roberts, a Canyon Lake resident and captain of Station 94 on Railroad Canyon Rd. who was involved in operations at both the Butte Fire (Alameda and Calaveras Counties) and the Valley Fire (Lake County).

Jeff first was assigned to the Butte Fire, which started September 9 in Amador County. That fire burned more than 70,000 acres, destroyed 475 residences and 343 outbuildings, and killed two civilians.

Jeff says his responsibility at the Butte Fire was as a division supervisor. As the fire spread over 100 square miles, his area encompassed 15 to 20 square miles, where he supervised 20 fire engines, four bulldozers and six inmate hand crews who constructed fire breaks. and set backfires to eliminate fuels so the firefighters could make a stand.

Jeff also communicated by radio with three air tankers and four helicopters who were assisting the crews on the ground during suppression duties.

Serving as a Cal Fire Public Information Officer in Middletown during the Valley Fire, Capt. Jeff Roberts is interviewed by a crew from “Good Morning America.”

Jeff next was assigned to the Valley Fire, which broke out September 12 in Lake County. He arrived on a Sunday morning, six hours after Middletown started to burn, and began serving as a public information officer (PIO).

Among his first duties was taking a film crew from “Good Morning America” on a ride-along for two days to view the destruction. The crew interviewed Jeff; then sent the footage to New York for airing. As PIO, Jeff also provided reports for multiple TV and radio news outlets from the Bay Area and Southern California.

A chart showing the state’s most damaging fires.

In addition, he provided information each afternoon to evacuees in a local shelter. He informed them about their houses and when they would be able to return to their neighborhoods. He worked with the Red Cross in helping to make sure their needs were met.

On his last day at the Valley Fire, Jeff says he had to take a wife and two daughters to the location where their husband/father had perished in the fire. “They sifted through the ashes of their former home and cried about losing their father,” he says. “That part was truthfully tough – to watch the people grieve over the loss of life and their possessions, block after block and house after house.”

Jeff says a team was constructed to recover animals that perished at many of the residences. “I didn’t realize how many people lost animals – horses, dogs, cats, goats, and even lizards and fish,” he says.

Jeff was in Middletown approximately 12 days. During that time, he was put up in a hotel at night, but only got four to five hours of down time and sleep. He worked 19- to 20-hour days for a total of 17 days.

Jeff says what shocked him most was the devastation in the small city of Middletown, where he saw whole blocks of houses burned to the ground next to blocks of houses completely untouched.

He says most inspiring were the four firefighters from Helitack Crew 104 who were burned the first day of the Valley Fire and were lying in a hospital, fighting for their lives and having their burned flesh scrubbed three times a day.

Between the two fires, more than 147,000 acres were burned, 2,400 homes were destroyed and six civilians were killed. The Valley Fire is the state’s third most destructive fire in history, and the the Butte Fire is the seventh most destructive. Jeff says he was involved in one other historic fire, the Old Fire in 2003, which is the 5th most destructive fire in California’s history.

Other firefighters from Lake Elsinore Battalion 2 who worked at the Northern California fires were another firefighter from Station 94, Engine 85 at McVicker Park and Engine 11 at Lakeland Village.