Santa Barbara County Fire increases staffing during rainstorm

SANTA MARIA, Calif.- Extra emergency response crews are on standby throughout Santa Barbara County, ready for storm-related emergencies.

The California Office of Emergency Services helped fund the prepositioning within Santa Barbara County of specialized resources in case of emergencies.

"We have a water rescue team to a task force of heavy equipment. And then we also have a task force of kind of lighter type six fire engines or more like pickup style trucks. And then we also have type three more four wheel drive fire engines and that allows for a really good effective surge capacity in the event that things kind of start getting crazy from the storm," said Captain Scott Safechuck, Santa Barbara County Fire Information Officer.

Santa Barbara County Fire can better serve the entire county with staff on standby in cities from Santa Maria to Carpinteria.

“This is abnormal for us as much as we need the water We're all hoping for this rain to dissipate, though. All our reservoirs are full luckily, our mountains are saturated. And as this rain continues, it can cause more damage. We are lucky that with the storm front that came through that we just didn't have the wind with it. That would cause more damage. That soil saturation makes it hard for trees to withstand that wind and cause them to fall over caused isolated power outages," said Scott Safechuck.

They are working closely with the state's office of emergency services.

Water rescue teams and special task force teams are also ready to respond.

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