On Sunday afternoon, with things calm within the Scherpa Fire perimeter and little to report, I stopped by the Command Center at Dos Pueblos High School to speak with Rocky Oplinger, the newly appointed Incident Commander (IC) for the Scherpa Fire. Oplinger is the leader of National Incident Team 4, one of sixteen teams called in to manage major incidents of national significance. He was also one of several ICs for the Zaca Fire in 2007 and has extensive fire experience throughout Southern California.
With the potential for the fire to continue its eastward movement and head into areas with significant values at risk, the switch to the “Type 1” team occurred yesterday afternoon, fortunately on a day when the predicted sundowner winds did not impact operations on the critical northeastern part of the fire perimeter.
“A Type 1 team brings with it a strength of overall experience and a diversity that provides a much more robust team,” Oplinger explained. “There are 56 people on the team with members representing every firefighting agency, with multiple divisions, each as large as the Type 2 team here before us.”