Never Forgotten: Captain Ted Hall and FFS Arnie Quinones
SCWR crews recently hiked out to the Station Fire memorial.
The Station Fire started on August 26, 2009, in the Angeles National Forest. By the time it was fully contained 52 days later, it had burned 161,189 acres and destroyed 89 homes and 26 commercial properties.
On August 30, the fire overran Camp 16 near Mount Gleason. LA County Fire Captain Ted Hall and Fire Fighter Specialist Arnie Quinones were working to protect the camp and the people there when their vehicle went off the road and dropped about 800 feet into a canyon. Neither of them made it home.
You can read about it a hundred times, but standing on that ground and seeing the terrain for yourself is something else. It puts you right there.
This job has a long memory. Fires like this one leave behind lessons, scars, and names, and the people who do this work carry them for a long time.
It was a heavy stop for all of us, and we're grateful we got to make it.
Captain Ted Hall and FFS Arnie Quinones. Never forgotten.