Grass fire in Clovis had potential to spread quickly – and then passers-by stepped in

Residents and passers-by on Tollhouse Road just off Highway 168 in Clovis — and Kenny Hammon from Jorgensen Co. Fire Detection Systems, who happened to be in the right place at the right time — got a thumbs-up from Cal Fire on Wednesday after extinguishing a grass fire that had the potential to spread quickly on a blustery afternoon.

Cal Fire sent six engines, a water tender, a fire crew and a battalion chief to the scene, but by the time they arrived, the flames were out.

“In that area, it’s all just countryside out there, so when I heard the traffic I looked to see where it was, and was like, ‘That’s not a good spot for a couple of fires,’” said Dan Urias, a Cal Fire battalion chief/public information officer. “There’s a lot of potential for fires to get big. But, luckily, the locals put it out and saved the day.”

The fire started, Urias said, when a boat trailer towed behind a truck got a flat tire, the sparks igniting grass along the road. With high winds, the drought and fresh memories of the Creek Fire in their minds, passers-by stopped to call 911.

Cynthia Wallace, who was taking her son, Eliot, to the airport, was one. “Most of us, we all got evacuated for the Creek Fire, so you see open flames and you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, there it goes …” she said.

“We came around the turn and saw the fires and there was one car pulled off, so we stopped to call 911. I promptly realized my car, I had just cleaned it, it had nothing in it. No fire extinguisher, nothing we could use to put out a fire. I got off 911 and literally looked up and this guy was pulling over, and it’s Jorgensen Fire Extinguishing Systems or something, and I was like, ‘Hey, do you have fire extinguishers?’”

Together they worked to put out the fire, which ignited west of Shaver Lake, not far from where the Creek Fire, the largest single wildfire in California history, charred nearly 380,000 acres and destroyed more than 850 buildings.

“Another woman who stopped said she had got the high-wind alerts,” Wallace said. “It was very clear that what was a small fire could become pretty big pretty quickly.

“We got it out before Cal Fire got there. It was pretty amazing. I didn’t even know that such things exist as people who drive around with a van full of fire extinguishers.”

Hammon was on his way back from a service call at Huntington Lake, passing by at just the right time.

“I looked at the Geotab and the satellite of where he was and what the risk was and it could have been really, really scary, especially with the winds that we’ve had the past few days” said John Huffman, division regional manager.

“Kenny grabbed a couple of fire extinguishers and turned back around and the woman, I believe it was Cynthia, he looked and was, ‘Where is she?’ She had gone through or under the barbed wire and was already in the field trying to head off the way the wind was pushing it. These people had no fear. But after this devastating fire season and in particular the Creek Fire, it makes sense. The folks who live up there are hyper-alert to even the smallest scenario that can blow up.”

The fire season in California is expected to start earlier and end later this year, with warmer spring and summer temperatures, a reduced snowpack and an earlier snow melt in the Sierras. The length of the fire season is being estimated to increase by 75 days, according to Cal Fire.

This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 6:37 PM.