Hundreds of firefighters respond to fires across Bay Area during extremely hot weekend

By Luz Pena

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    LIVERMORE, California (KGO) — Firefighters battled multiple fires during an extremely hot weekend for many areas in the Bay.

“The conditions are definitely a lot more intense for them to work in,” said CalFire firefighter Chelsea Burkett.

Deep in the hills between Livermore and Brentwood, firefighters worked for hours to contain the Diablo Fire.

According to CalFire, they began receiving calls around 9:30 a.m. and more than 100 firefighters were needed for this incident.

The fast-moving fire swept through grassland burning 128 acres in 98 degree heat.

“It’s just an indication of the fuel type that we have right now. The high heat, the low humidity it all makes the vegetation really susceptible to fire,” said Burkett.

In San Jose, another grass fire. Firefighters responded to the blaze near Rocksprings Park. A plume of smoke reminded everyone in the area that fires can ignite at any time.

Another concern this fire season are fires caused by illegal fireworks. We saw this in Antioch.

“It ruined my house, it ruined everything. Everything I own is in my front lawn. For what? I don’t even understand why they are doing it. It doesn’t make sense. We’re in a drought and they are blowing it up like it’s a game,” said Antioch resident, Robin Anderson.

Crews confirmed fireworks were going off Saturday night close to Robin Anderson’s home.

“A couple hours ago we responded to a fire in Pittsburg, and recently we were one street over at fireworks that caught some grass and vehicles on fire,” said Antioch firefighter, Scott Valencia.

Illegal fireworks have become a Bay Area-wide issue. In Concord, they are now relying on technology to stop this activity. They created the Concord Connect app, giving residents a digital space to report illegal fireworks.

“It places a pin on a map. As we start seeing clusters like let’s say on Concord Boulevard and Bailey Road, then we know that we can focus in that area and we can tell our patrol officers,” said Lt. Greg Rodriguez with Concord Police.

Between July 1 and July 7, Concord police received close to 800 reports of illegal fireworks. About 500 of those reports went directly to their app they are hoping this helps prevent fires caused by illegal fireworks this season.

The Diablo Fire and the San Jose fire near Rocksprings Park are under investigation.

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