From earthquakes to insect infestations to fires and floods, the California Conservation Corps is prepared to respond to disasters statewide at a moment’s notice.
The cadre of young men and women are trained to assist with natural disasters throughout the Golden State and dispatched with a single telephone call to one of the agency’s many field offices, as was evidenced in December when the Thomas Fire ignited in nearby Ventura County, quickly spreading into Santa Barbara County.
Men and women, ages 18 to 25, can sign up for a year of service with the California Conservation Corps and are paid $1,900 a month for their work.
During that year, the men and women learn life and job skills, while working on environmental projects and responding to natural and man-made disasters. The agency’s motto is, “Hard work, low pay, miserable conditions and more!”
Crews from the agency’s Camarillo and Butte offices — two from Camarillo and one from Butte for a total of 41 individuals — were immediately sent to the Thomas Fire, where they worked on fire line construction, CCC public information officer Dana Howard said.
“They were digging and scraping … to stop the the fire from advancing,” he said.
The Thomas Fire sparked on Dec. 4, 2017, north of Santa Paula near Thomas Aquinas College, and grew to become the largest wildfire in California’s recorded history, scorching 281,893 acres and damaging more than 1,000 homes.
The Camarillo office sent additional members to establish and staff a delivery camp, where they served the hundreds and then thousands of first responders battling the wildfire, Howard said.
Corps members were responsible for organizing equipment, handing out food and distributing supplies. The crews also constructed roads and conducted traffic control inside the camp, as well as developed signage, according to agency officials.
“We are kind of the bread and butter of the thing,” CCC Los Padres District director Mike Anderson said about the corps’ typical role at a fire camp. “We don’t run the thing, but we get everything done.”
The Los Padres District includes the cities of Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo, Anderson said. That office has just 15 members, but still responded to the two natural disasters on the South Coast, he said.
At the height of the Thomas Fire, the Conservation Corps had 348 members from throughout the state stationed at the incident. Crews slept in tents at the fire camp, from Dec. 5 through Jan. 8, Howard said.
“It was such a major incident and base support kept expanding,” he noted.
The Conservation Corps is called to incidents via the governor through the state Office of Emergency Services, and district directors don’t get to say “no” when the phone rings for assistance.
“We are a state agency … and we are available,” Anderson explained.
“We have to stop whatever we are doing and go. Wherever we go, there is an emergency. Wherever we go, we are needed.”
Conservation Corps crews were released from the Thomas Fire incident Jan. 8 — a day before the deadly and devastating flash flooding and debris flows in Montecito.
Members from the Camarillo office, as well as Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo, were sent back to the South Coast on Jan. 10 to help hand out drinking water in the mud-ravaged community.
“There wasn’t a break,” Howard said about corps members being sent to Santa Barbara County for emergency response after the initial debris flows on Jan. 9. “It kept getting worse.”
Several of the CCC members who responded to Montecito, who also grew up in the area, relayed to Howard the raw humanity of what they witnessed — a judge’s gavel, a baby’s toy, a car, food — as they cleared dirt, mud and debris from a section of Highway 101, Howard said.
“They were startled,” he said. “(The mud) was higher than they ever could have imagined. The evidence was right there in front of them. It hit them.”
Crews also assisted CalFire and Caltrans in February and March with debris removal and flood prevention in Montecito, Howard added.
The California Conservation Corps was established on July 7, 1976.
— Noozhawk contributing writer April Charlton can be reached at news@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkSociety, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Become a fan of Noozhawk on Facebook.
