I hope you all had a nice July 4 weekend.
Among other Independence Day festivities, last Sunday my family attended the final day of the San Diego County Fair. While entering what longtime locals still call the “Del Mar Fair,” I noted the U.S. and California flags at half staff. I wondered what I had missed. Yes, Jesse Helms had passed away, but somehow I just couldn’t imagine the State of California’s 22nd District Agricultural Association (operator of the fairgrounds) recognizing the North Carolina senator.
At home that evening, I shot off a quick email to Fair PIO Kina Paegert asking her to shed some light. An immediate response was elicited from her Blackberry: “A fireman passed away in northern Cal."
I responded to her saying thanks, that I had seen no other state or local flags anywhere at half staff (it was the weekend, with few government workers, so that was understandable), and added “It’s good you noticed and took the appropriate action.”
Her final response: “Thanks. We try to honor them when we can.”
Perhaps because I was busy with the weekend’s events, I also hadn’t noted any media coverage of a firefighter’s death while battling the Northern California blazes. An on-line scan of the news proved me wrong. The Union-Trib had a sentence or so that morning as part of a general story about the fires, referencing a man’s collapse on the fire lines and his subsequent death.
The LA Times ran a larger story, Heart attack suspected in firefighter’s death. Robert Roland had retired from San Diego only two months prior, moving to Mendocino County with his wife and joining the volunteer Anderson Valley Fire Department. He had breathing problems while battling the fires and later died at an area hospital.
"When a member of a department dies,” Fire Chief Colin Wilson said in the Times, “whether it’s a big paid department or a small volunteer department, it always hits hard. Everybody knows everybody. We know each others’ families. We socialize together. Part of the draw of a volunteer department is the bond that we have with each other and with our community."
The national firefighter resource website www.firehouse.com, which dedicates a page to those who give their lives “In the line of duty,” also had a story about Roland’s death.
However, a scan of the Cal Fire website came up with nothing about Roland. Zero.
To be clear, Cal Fire is the shortened name of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Last weekend the agency was – and continues to be this weekend – a little busy resourcing and coordinating the response to the fires. We might, of course, forgive Cal Fire for not having the time during a continued crisis to note one tragedy on its website.
Yet, part of Cal Fire’s mission is to daily inform the public of fire impacts and resources utilized. It’s all there, right on the home page: Number of fires and total acreage, personnel committed, numbers of fire engines and other equipment, highway closures, evacuations, and number of structures impacted, both threatened and destroyed. The numbers are staggering, tragic in and of itself.
The latest Statewide Fire Overview was posted last night at 9 p.m., all of those glaring statistics updated. Yet, nothing is included about any deaths.
I don’t know about others, but if I’m interested enough to know the terrible news that 99 residences, 1 commercial building, and 127 outbuildings have been destroyed by the fires, I might also want to know if anyone has died while trying to protect lives and property.
Finally, I searched the Cal Fire website by Roland’s name – because at this point I had that information – and came up with one brief mention from the Mendocino-specific fact sheet from more than a week ago:
Anderson Valley Volunteer Firefighter, Bob Roland, was transported to Ukiah Valley Medical Center on July 2, 2008, after suffering respiratory distress while working on the Oso fire. He passed away during the early morning hours of July 3, 2008.
Just the facts, ma’am.
Apparently, nothing has been posted on the Cal Fire website since then, certainly not in a main incident report, fire overview or anywhere that the average person could actually find.
What to make of the lack of information? How about a simple tribute? The ongoing crisis, maybe. Let’s hope it’s not because Roland was only a volunteer firefighter. Is it because he technically died at the hospital of a heart attack, so any acknowledgement of a fire-related death could result in potential liability? Who knows.
What I do know is that a relatively unknown Agricultural Association at fairgrounds hundreds of miles to the south paid a simple tribute to an unknown firefighter. Yet, Cal Fire is nearly silent on the subject.
As Kina Paegert said, “We try to honor them when we can.”