Fern Fire, North of Boulder Creek May 2022

These difficult to access small fires always create the challenge for me of deciding how much to commit in vehicle wear/tear/damage to get low fire activity shots vs. staying at vantage and access points to get the supplemental work being done…

So I chose to try and find high and low points to get the aircraft orbits and in this case an actual dozer dismount and deployment off Highway 9…

One unique capture I rarely get is fire aircraft and commercial aircraft in the same area…clearly far apart but the tanker’s orbit pattern made for a couple chances yesterday…

Once again during the initial phases of the fire – several local social media pages that are poorly moderated had a plethora of incorrect information, disinformation and outright fiction from a variety of speculative people…relevant information and notifications were done in a timely manner by various responder groups on multiple platforms and fire suppression/containment happened with great effort in short order…The level of anxiety and panic these “411” and private emergency incident information facebook and nextdoor groups create feels so unacceptable to me…

The Hames Rd Crash May 2022

The absolute volume of hard work that went into this extrication proved how vital training is in preparing for the difficulty firefighters may encounter on any given day…

There were upwards of two to three extrication tools operating simultaneously all whilst the sheared off hydrant was inundating the responders…

A few civilian bystanders did their best to try and divert the water during the extrication..

The majority of the pics are in the CALFIRE gallery on the site but there are also unique sharings in the Central and Watsonville fire galleries and CHP also…

All three patients were flown to various trauma centers…

Moving SLV Steve Pic Disbursement

With the large volume of pictures that I now take for all of the responder agencies in Santa Cruz County I am going to do the weekly updates and any important daily incidents at the blog site I have had for years and am now restarting…and off of Facebook…took this picture recently as CALSTAR was transporting a vehicle crash patient out of Zayante…I liked the reference of flying away…

Facebook has some great opportunities for the responder agencies to get information out to the masses and I see that as the best way for my pictures to help with that. Me being the photog anomaly of not shooting for media and not ever being a stringer (the ones that dramatize incidents that try to sell their pics to media or to get followers/likes and have little to no ethics) coupled with my pics getting shared across Facebook groups that have significant moderation issues and anxiety generators – it is clear that I need to keep my pics under better control in the social media world.

For those that truly wish to see the events all of the pictures will still be added to my website daily. Navigation can be challenging at first I know – but I am more than willing to help anyone find what they are looking for if something cannot be found. There are also thousands of hidden pictures that only the respective agencies can see which is left up to them what is shared to the public – but the remaining 114,000+ pics are archived there for all to peruse..https://slv-steve.smugmug.com/Archives-2022.

I will still intermittently put pics on Instagram, and I have helped many inquiring souls with how to use AND understand the radio traffic, apps and sites to properly interpret the emergency response information out there, and I implore anyone that uses particular scanner posting Facebook groups to seek out legitimate help in researching current event information…I will post separately soon the assistance I have given to help others alleviate misinformation anxiety during incidents that these groups create.

The old SLV Steve Facebook page is still archived as no one can access it to turn it off – and I will keep the SLV Steve Vol. 2 Facebook page up for a little while so people can see the switch…thank you again for all of the support Tundra and I get from the communities out there…