‘Crew 12’ strike team brings extra layer of wildfire prevention to East Bay

MARTINEZ (KPIX) — A new fire crew has added an extra layer of protection to Contra Costa County. A group of budding firefighters dubbed Crew 12 are proving to be an important buffer to prevent and stop fires in the East Bay 

Armed with chainsaws, the group – aged 18 to 30 – lead fire prevention efforts, something the dry territory has long required. 

Captain David Woods has been a leading voice among a team pushing to establish this unique handcrew that can more quickly deploy to fires in the area, and they’re already showing success. 

“We’ve become much busier,” says Woods. “We respond as a wildland vegetation unit everywhere in the county.” 

The unit has been operating for two years, but only just received full funding through the implementation of Measure X, which raised the tax in Contra Costa County by half a cent. 

Before Crew 12 was established, Woods says Contra Costa would rely on Cal Fire units. But the closest units were more than 80 miles away. 

“We’ve identified areas where we needed to provide services for that we didn’t have the funding and couldn’t provide services until this year,” Woods said. 

Today’s mission is preventative as the crew trimmed a 150-year-old olive grove in Martinez. The goal is to cut away low limbs and brush so potential fires couldn’t ignite higher up in the trees and spread more rapidly towards homes. 

“We’ve proven that this unit is very impactful county wide and we’re being called upon on a daily basis to more and more incidents.”

In the East Bay they are among the first crews on a fire scene in part because of their swift deployability and central location. 

“We’re a force multiplier,” says Woods. “We can show up with sixteen people in an incident which is equivalent to five or six engines showing up, so we’re a force multiplier.”

This new team is the start of what Woods hopes to be decades of improving fire prevention. 

“Having a hand crew available that focuses on vegetation and preparedness really has an impact on us picking up projects like this to make more fire safety zones.”