Crime & Safety

Fire Crew Sent to Fight Kern County Wildland Blazes

Novato Fire District team is part of a five-district Marin strike force sent in four-wheel-drive trucks near Tehachapi Pass east of Bakersfield.

A five-member crew from left at 5 a.m. Sunday and headed for the mountains east of Bakersfield to help battle five wildland blazes there.

Battalion Chief Jeff Veliquette said his team arrived safely in its Type 3 four-wheel drive truck at about 1:30 p.m. as part of a Marin County strike team from five agencies, joining a separate team from the Marin County Fire Department.

The staging area was on Highway 178 about five miles east of the Bakersfield city limits and the fires were in the Tehachapi range to the east. Strong winds, and lightning prompted the need for statewide help.

Find out what's happening in Novatowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 “They’re bringing in an incident management team, and once they get a handle on all the different fires out there they’ll start deploying us,” Veliquette said Sunday afternoon.

The Marin contingent numbered about 45 people, Veliquette said. The strike team, commanded by Veliquette, was composed of personnel from Novato, Mill Valley, Southern Marin, Tiburon and Larkspur.

Find out what's happening in Novatowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

According to a story in the Bakersfield Californian, more than 16,000 acres had burned in areas around Bear Valley Springs, Stallion Springs, Golden Hills, Maricopa and Caliente.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.