Introducing a New CAL FIRE Battalion Chief

Shane Lamkin, new CAL FIRE Battalion Chief for the Mendocino Unit

Shane Lamkin joined CAL FIRE’s Mendocino Unit as the new Battalion Chief for the Public Information Officer and EMS Coordinator in late December. He’s in charge of CAL FIRE’s local social media and email list, alerting the public to any incidents as well as vegetation management projects. 

Chief Lamkin has been in the fire service for over 20 years and has held a variety of positions. He comes to Mendocino from the Shasta-Trinity Unit, where he served as a captain at a fire station, managed a hand crew and worked in the training bureau. He has worked as an engineer at a station in Burney, which is part of the Shasta-Trinity Unit, and as a firefighter in the Tehama-Glenn Unit. He’s also worked for the U.S. Forest Service, and for the Shasta-Lake Fire Protection District. “I got my feet into the program going through the Shasta College Fire Academy,” he recalled. “I’ve been doing this ever since 2002, and I’m excited to keep doing this for the next ten to fifteen years.” 

Chief Lamkin met with the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council to provide a brief summary of CAL FIRE’s activities in the county last year and to highlight priorities for the upcoming year. He reported that CAL FIRE conducted 31 fuels-reduction projects in 2024, completing over 5,000 acres. Almost half of that was accomplished through broadcast (prescribed) burns. The rest was done by crews using chainsaws and either chipping the brush or burning the piles of vegetation when conditions were not conducive to controlled burns.

A newly appointed prescribed fire Battalion Chief, Kevin Ryan, will coordinate the broadcast burns in the upcoming year. But Lamkin notes that these projects are complicated. “We have a lot of moving parts that are involved with this,” he explained. We’ve got to meet with landowners to get approval to burn on their land. Weather also gets involved - we have to make sure the conditions warrant a successful burn. We can’t get out there and burn while it’s raining, or while the humidity is high, because the fire just doesn’t want to carry. We have to find that perfect window where we have dry fuels, but not so dry that it’s going to cause a hazard, and then we have to have perfect wind.” 

In addition to perfect weather, the burn has to coincide with a moment that is just right for the landowner and the availability of CAL FIRE resources. “We’re trying to get these broadcast burns done at a time where it's right at the edge of fire season,” Lamkin concluded. “And sometimes fire season comes quicker than expected.”

The Mendocino County Fire Safe Council heard from a lot of locals who thought 2024 was a “light” fire season. It was actually a busy fire season in which CAL FIRE did a lot of work to keep the community safe. CAL FIRE’s aim is to keep all wildfires under ten acres, though some did exceed that last year. In July, the Mina Fire near Covelo grew to 98 acres and led to the year’s first human fatality in a wildfire. Later that month, the Grange Fire in Anderson Valley reached 90 acres. No one died in that blaze, though one family did lose their home. But Lamkin said a lot of fires were contained early. “Last year, the unit ran 127 fires,” he said. “We had huge success last year, keeping our fires relatively small, squashing them as soon as we could, and the crew is doing great work out there.”

He is also optimistic about 2025, saying, “We started off the year pretty strong. We’ve already hired back over 85 firefighters to staff ten fire engines and two crews. These firefighters are going to be used to start the season early,” which means that more people will be available for heavy-duty fire prevention work in a timely manner, especially with trying to meet deadlines in between weather windows. “This is crucial to our efforts in getting these projects done,” he declared. “We want to make this place better and protect it with all that we can. With the fire prevention efforts of fuels reduction, of the broadcast burn, we’re here to make sure that our communities are safe.”

Lamkin got a good look at what wildfires can do to a community just a few months ago, when he served on a strike team in LA as a heavy equipment boss, guiding private bulldozers as they cut firelines. Mendocino County sent over 50 people, a helicopter and multiple engines to the other end of the state. “This county showed a great presence down in Southern California to help the people that were in need,” he concluded. “And we expect that for the people of California. If there's a significant fire in this area, we’re going to do what we can to draw resources in to help. We don’t want to see a fire like that in this community, but if there’s potential for it, we’re going to make sure that we’re ready.”

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