A pair of Eastside Fire & Rescue (EF&R) strike team leaders — including battalion chief Jason Ward of Mercer Island’s Station 91 — and their crew is currently engaged in a massive effort to aid in fighting the devastating Palisades wildfire in southern California.

They are part of a 43-member King County caravan, which features 10 engines and a few SUV command vehicles, that traveled south on the morning of Jan. 9 and arrived near the Los Angeles-area fires on the evening of Jan. 10. One of the type-one engines displays a Mercer Island insignia; the caravan’s other firefighters and vehicles hail from Bothell, Kirkland, Shoreline and Fall City.

EF&R’s members will remain in the southland for a two-week deployment to help battle the blazes.

Strike team leader and battalion chief Seth Merritt, who is based out of Fall City and has worked on the Island multiple times, said they arrived on the Palisades fire line between 8-9 p.m. on Jan. 10.

“We proceeded to work that whole night and then until somewhere between 2:30 (p.m.) and 3 (p.m.) the following day,” Merritt said on the afternoon of Jan. 15. “We are working 24-hour shifts, so we do 24 on and then 24 off.”

They finished up their shift at 7 a.m. that morning and were getting some rest at a hotel near the LAX Airport. Next day at 5 a.m., they were set to report to camp at Zuma Beach to receive their day’s assignment.

“It’s always hard when you see loss. Our day job is to prevent the loss of life and property. So this is on a large scale,” Merritt said of the disastrous situation for all involved.

“It is challenging. It can be emotionally challenging when you’re dealing with people who’ve just lost everything, but they want to come give you a bottle of water for being there helping,” he continued. “It really can pry at the emotional side of the firefighters because we want to try and prevent them from losing things. And here they are wanting to give you the shirt off their back because they’re appreciative for us being here.”

Over the course of their job at the Palisades fire, they initially worked off Sunset Boulevard and Westridge Road by helping safeguard the neighborhood while spraying water to protect homes, cutting trees and brush and moving yard furniture.

For the following two shifts, they worked on the outside of the fire perimeter on the northeast side of the Encino Hills.

“We’ve been doing structure triage, which is where we’re going around and looking at how we’re going to do structure protection in the event that the fire comes to us,” said Merritt, adding about another one of their myriad duties: “Our interaction has mostly been with homeowners who are there that have held out through the evacuation and just letting them know that we’re there, that we are present and we’re engaged.”

During their shifts, EF&R members have worked with the King County and Snohomish County strike teams and Merritt said they’d see who they’d pair up with and what their duties would entail the following day.