Pee Dee firefighters gain experience in California

FLORENCE — Not many firefighters from South Carolina can say they’ve done what Pee Dee firefighters John DeLung, Bill Heathman and Shannon Smith have. The three recently returned from a trip to California, where they spent seven days helping to control the state’s massive wildfires.

And it was all for the greater good of the Palmetto State, said DeLung, chief of the Windy Hill Fire Department.

DeLung, Heathman and Smith are members of the Pee Region Incident Management Team, or IMT, which is part of the S.C. Hazard Incident Management Team.

The Pee Dee IMT is 23-member group made up of local fire, medical, emergency management, communications and law enforcement personnel who are specifically trained to manage large, complex disasters, according to a press release from Florence County Emergency Management.

Pee Dee IMT members received 260 hours of classroom training for six months, said Smith, chief of the Howe Springs Fire Department.

But they only had a few days notice before they were sent July 24 to Monterey, Ca., to put into practice what they had been taught in the classroom.

“It was 5 p.m. on (July 22) before we got the paperwork in our hand that said we’re going,” Smith said.

The team was flown to the area to learn how to manage large-scale disasters by shadowing those coordinating the effort to contain the Basin Complex fire in Los Padres National Forest.

Smith and DeLung both said they were taken aback by the California landscape and the size of the fire.

“We’re used to 40- and 50-acre fires— if that,” DeLung said. “We’re talking about 200,019 acres.”

That’s more than 250 square miles, Smith said.

“It’s over a quarter of Florence County,” he said.

When the Pee Dee crew arrived, more than 90 percent of the blazed was contained, but each member of the team still had an administrative role to master, DeLung said.

Heathman, chief of the Hartsville Fire Department and Pee Dee IMT operation chief, was assigned to shadow the corresponding California official.

Smith, IMT planning section chief, and DeLung, the group’s incident commander, also were assigned to an official.

“Basically for five days we tagged along with them,” DeLung said. “I was totally amazed on how they do it.”