LAKE ISABELLA, Calif. (KERO) — It was the largest wildfire in Kern County last year, The French Fire. A time where many residents had to evacuate and were faced with the unknown of whether their homes would still be standing when they returned.
The fire burned 26,535 acres through the communities of Alta Sierra and the Kern River Valley, and while structures and homes were lost, it was the work of the firefighters that helped save the area from more damage.
Steve Novobilski, a Kernville resident, says the firefighters are the heroes that continue to save their community.
“That makes me very emotional, those guys are the A-team, [and] those guys put their lives on the line, it's almost like combat, what they go into,” said Novobilski.
When the fire was burning for 62 days, it caused dozens of people like Novobilski to evacuate.
“The police came and said you better get out of here right now, or you're going to die,” said Andrew Alvarez, who lost his home in the blaze.
Sean Collins with the Kern County Fire Department saying at the time, residents needed to leave because the fire was an imminent danger.
A local resident Jon Ziegler also telling 23ABC at the time, “I’ve had that place for 9 years, so this isn’t new, but it's definitely the craziest one.”
Firefighters were attacking the flames from the air and on the ground.
Novobilski says he was out of town when the fire was burning, but a year later, his home is still standing. But the unknown concerned him, and he can’t imagine what it was like for others, especially those who were not so lucky.
“It breaks my heart to see everything, like I built that house from scratch, I had to clear the land, I had to blow up boulders just enough to get enough room to build the house, so I put a lot of work into it, and just to see it, poof, gone, but life goes on,” said Novobilski.
But it was the work done before the fire, that helped prevent more devastation, like fuel reduction.
Kern County Fire Department, Wild land Division Chief, Andrew Kennison, says it was a combination of residents preparing their home with defensible space, and their prior work that made a difference.
“We saw lots of extreme fire behavior during the French Fire, and without that fuel brake when you came into the homes, that extreme fire behavior would’ve gone straight to the houses, and we probably would’ve lost many, many homes.”
That’s why the KCFD is working to prepare for the next potential natural disaster.
“We’ve had our hand crews in the area continuing to do fuels reduction work, and like I mentioned we’re really going to be ramping that up hopefully this fall, beginning to harvest some of the dead trees, to get this area back to fully ready for the next fire,” said Kennison.
The community thanks the firefighters because they are the real heroes, day in and day out.
“Its sad, but I’m grateful, again my hats off to the people trying to put these fires out,” said Novobilski.
Novobilski says while his home was saved in the French Fire, he knows another fire can start at any time, that’s why he is continuing to make sure his home is prepared.
