Sacramento fire officials were preparing to send a third strike team to Southern California on Saturday night to help firefighters battling a devastating wind-fueled blaze near Sylmar.
Greg Mugartegui, assistant chief with the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, said officials were expecting the third team to be requested shortly and that the 22-member contingent was expected to be on the road later Saturday night. It would join two other teams from the Sacramento area already in Southern California, and there could be more.
Mugartegui said a fourth area team might be requested if fire conditions worsen. The unit expected to roll out Saturday was composed of firefighters from the Sacramento Fire Department, Metro Fire, the Folsom Fire Department and the Cosumnes Fire District.
He added that even if more teams are requested officials in the Sacramento area will have adequate fire coverage to handle any local emergencies.
"We are totally covered up here," he said.
Word of the third team heading south came after another Sacramento-based unit that had expected to be recalled from duty on the fire lines in Santa Barbara County instead was diverted to Sylmar, north of Los Angeles.
That contingent of five engines and 22 firefighters was told it probably would be deployed to protect structures from any encroaching wildfire, Mugartegui said.
Also lending a hand in Southern California was a strike team of Office of Emergency Services fire rigs composed of area firefighters and engines from Metro Fire, the Sacramento Fire Department, the Cosumnes Fire District and the Folsom Fire Department. Those firefighters are on a 24-hour shift doing mop-up work on the Montecito fire in Santa Barbara County, where winds have abated.
Mugartegui said that the Office of Emergency Services regional coordinator has inquired about the availability of more fire engines and firefighters from the Sacramento area.
The same weather conditions that spawned Santa Ana winds in Southern California failed to cause high winds in the Sacramento region. But it did bring higher than normal temperatures.
The normal high in Sacramento for this time of year is 64 degrees. Saturday's high was 75 degrees at Sacramento Executive Airport.
Today's high should reach into the 70s, and no rain is forecast.
"We are unseasonably warm," said National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Mathews. "We have a very strong upper-level ridge over the area giving Sacramento unseasonably warm and dry conditions. Temperatures will be cooling off, returning to near-normal in the mid-60s by Wednesday as the ridge breaks down."
In addition to the lack of wildfire-producing high winds, Northern California was helped out by rainfall at the end of October that helped to dampen grasslands and oak woodlands in the Valley and Sierra foothills.
Call The Bee's Bill Lindelof, (916) 321-1079.
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