'Firenado' Truck From Carr Fire Bought By Menlo Park District

MENLO PARK, CA -- As part of the San Mateo County strike team at the Camp Fire in Butte County, the fire district bought a truck that was caught in the fire tornado that went viral from this summer's devastating Carr Fire in Redding to use as a reminder of emergency preparedness.

The once-red 1941 Ford truck will travel from the district's board meeting Tuesday night to the fire agency's warehouse in East Palo Alto. Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said from there the $5,000 purchase may make its way to the training center at the Dumbarton Bridge or some other place for public display.

"That truck was at ground zero for that (Carr) fire," the chief told Patch. It was owned by Jose Briones on Baker Road in the hills above Redding near the Sacramento River. Briones agreed to sell it to the district that came out to support those firefighting efforts on the condition he could buy it back when he's up to it. Schapelhouman obliged. The Briones family lost their home, garage and everything on the property except the truck nicknamed the "Firenado."

The truck was tossed around, stripped of its paint as well as distorted by the wind, pressure, heat and power of the EF-3 vortex of the tornado.

The goal is to use it to teach fire safety and promote preparedness until Briones and his family "can get back on their feet and rebuild their lives and home," the chief added.

"So many people are calling us about preparedness now," he said.

The firestorm in Butte County that part of his crew is responding to has turned into the most destructive and deadliest fires in California history with staggering numbers -- 42 fatals, 6,782 structures destroyed, thousands displaced, hundreds missing, three firefighter injuries, 125,000 acres scorched and miles of roads closed.

All this after almost a full week, and the stubborn, wind-whipped, fuel-rich blaze is only 30 percent contained. Schapelhouman is only too familiar with the terrain. His father lived in Paradise, and he always wondered as a first responder how the town would do in a disaster.

The fires in this catastrophic year have taken a toll on the well-being of those directly affected, loved ones, neighbors or even the best in humanity. But it appears as California Gov. Jerry Brown said during a press conference: "This isn't the new normal. This is the new abnormal."

"I think we need serious thought on what we use to build with," Schapelhouman said.

Like so many others, he was shaken by the beaten-down year it has been for fires. One could say a bit of closure lies in taking parts of the experience and learning from it.

"When you respond to these events, you leave a little piece of yourself," he said.

The fire district has part of a supporting column from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the Bay Area, a building column from the Oklahoma City bombing, a granite floor slab from the plaza of the World Trade Center and a flood control barrier from New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina.

--Images courtesy of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District