Who Spotted The Irving Fire First? A Civic Center Volunteer

MARIN COUNTY, CA – After a full day of enjoying stunning views of the San Geronimo Valley and West Marin hills, Steve O’Keefe was just about to contact Marin County Fire Department dispatchers to say he was clocking out of his volunteer shift as a wildfire lookout on Mount Barnabe. He had been stationed inside the Dickson Lookout since 11 a.m. on the morning of Monday, Sept. 10, and the clock was striking 7 p.m.

“I had my finger on the button to transmit (over the radio) that I was going out of service, and I saw white smoke over a ridge to my south,” O’Keefe said. “It stopped me dead in my tracks. It was white smoke drifting slowly. I said, ‘This is it, I need to make a report on this.’”

O’Keefe reported to dispatch that the smoke was 1 to 2 miles away and that there was a chance it could be a campfire because a campground was in that direction.

“Just then, a big cloud of smoke went up, and I thought, ‘That is no campfire,’” he said.

O’Keefe, a 72-year-old Novato resident, is a former employee union representative who retired in 2009. He is a member of the Civic Center Volunteers, a group that dates to 1979 and lines up hundreds of willing souls each year to assist County departments that provide services to customers. Volunteers play all sorts of roles to supplement the work of full-time County of Marin employees, part-timers, seasonal workers and paid interns.

“We are really lucky to have residents like Steve who share their knowledge, energy, passion and dedication to helping others,” said Anne Starr, coordinator of volunteers for the Department of Human Resources. “Their efforts help the County provide more service to the community than would otherwise be possible.”

It was quite a service for O’Keefe be the first person to call in a wildfire on the eastern edge of Samuel P. Taylor State Park that evening. The blaze turned into the Irving Fire, which burned 152 acres until it was 100 percent contained three days later. No structures burned and nobody was injured, but that scenario could’ve been much different had it not been spotted quickly.

“The fact that Steve called it in and we got a response together fast gave us a good jump on it,” said Marin County Fire Engineer Henry Bustamante, the coordinator of the volunteer wildfire lookout program this year. “Some time passed before the next call came in from a resident. That span of time makes a pretty big difference on how early we get our resources there and find the fire.”

With strong directions from O’Keefe, who stayed at his post an extra hour, the fire department sent crews into the remote area to search for the ignition spot before darkness really set in. Without views of the flames from street level, one team came up to the Dickson Lookout to get O’Keefe’s perspective of the smoke’s origin. After some discussion, the firefighters took off to hunt down the blaze. O’Keefe locked up the station and started his 20-minute drive down to Marin County Fire headquarters in Woodacre to turn in his lookout station keys.

“It wasn’t until after I left Woodacre and I got back out to Drake Boulevard when I saw the flames for the first time,” O’Keefe said. “It looked like the Kilauea volcano with the orange sky and the flames dancing. I knew we were off to the races.”

This is O’Keefe’s third year serving as a wildfire lookout. He told of two other instances that got his heart pounding while stationed on Mount Barnabe. One time he saw smoke way out to the east only to realize it was coming from an oil refinery in Richmond. Another time he saw smoke from the Olema Valley, but then figured out it was brown dust instead of fire smoke. “There’s a horse ranch out there and a bunch of them must’ve been galloping around,” O’Keefe said.

O’Keefe said his career and life experience made him a good candidate to serve as a wildfire lookout.

“I had been an air traffic controller, so going up in towers is second nature to me,” he said. “I’m a hiker and former pilot, so I like being high up. I also volunteer for Marin County Parks as an open space trail monitor, and I like being out in nature.”

What about being alone? He’s getting close to 300 hours flying solo in the hot seat. And he’s not alone in being alone: Some 35 volunteer lookouts served shifts at the two towers in fiscal year 2017-2018, contributing a total of 1,650 hours.

“I’m very comfortable with myself for company,” he said with a small chuckle. “People ask how I pass the time. I take my ukulele up there. In between scanning the hills, I’m singing my lungs out and it doesn’t bother anybody. I also do some writing. You can’t read a book while up there, but I can write a sentence, look up to take a look around, then write another sentence.”

The Dickson Lookout on Mount Barnabe is more remote than the one on Mount Tamalpais. The only things seen from Dickson are trees, valleys, ridges and wildlife near the state parks. On Tam, there is occasional foot traffic from visitors and views of the greater Bay Area and all its human-made splendor.

Up on Barnabe, O’Keefe likes to test himself while looking out of his military-grade binoculars, spreading out maps or using a compass device called an Osborne Firefinder. He reviews local landmarks and takes notes where power lines are located. Birds, especially large birds of prey, have been known to hit a powerline and cause a spark or a short that can lead to a wildfire. It’s critical, he said, for wildfire lookouts to be as geographically accurate as possible when reporting smoke.

“We have fire detection cameras and other technological tools, but you can see that sometimes we have human eyes catch it before our technology can,” Bustamante said. “That’s when the value of these volunteers becomes more obvious.”

O’Keefe said spotting a wildfire is not quite the same as, say, saving a life with CPR. He said it’s more like being a bugler on a battlefield. He said it’s gratifying to have made the first call on the Irving Fire, potentially leading to the preservation of property or even lives.

“I feel so fortunate that the smoke appeared before I had left,” he said. “I was told that only a quarter of an acre had burned by the time crews were able to get to it. Had another half hour gone by, that could’ve been …”

And his voice trailed off. Yes, it goes without saying.

Interested in becoming a wildfire lookout? Contact Bustamante at hbustamante@marincounty.org. Track down Anne Starr at astarr@marincounty.org if you feel a calling to assist the County of Marin in other ways. Volunteering opportunities are posted online. Some Marin residents have volunteered for decades and contributed thousands of hours of assistance. The Civic Center Volunteers office can be reached at 415-473-7167.

Also see:

• Downed Power Line Sparked Irving Fire In Marin County: Officials
• Fire Burns 152 Acres, Forces Evacuations In Marin County

SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION BY: Marin County Civic Center Volunteers

Photo via Steve O’Keefe