June 23--Carrie Landon had just started her second week on the job when she got a call about a fire.
It was May, early in the season for a major blaze. But the Springs Fire had burned from Camarillo to the Pacific Ocean a couple of weeks earlier and brush was bone-dry. The veteran Los Padres National Forest firefighter knew it could get bad.
"Within an hour, we had a phone conversation with (incident command), and it became very apparent it was going to get bigger," said Landon, 51, of Ventura. "As long as the wind was blowing, we were going to have a problem."
The Grand Fire burned 4,300 acres over a week, mostly in the forest -- one of three forest fires that marked Landon's first month as Los Padres fire chief.
"We could be in for a long summer," Landon said last week.
Succeeding Anthony Escobar, who retired last fall, Landon has worked in Los Padres for 25 years. Her career started with a summer job as a wildland firefighter. She has moved through the ranks on engine, helicopter and elite hotshot crews, and spent the past four years as fire management officer for the forest's Ojai Ranger District.
She also is the first female fire chief in Los Padres.
"It's been really rewarding to see Carrie (as) such a great role model for young women who want to come to work for the forest service and see women in professional roles," said Sue Exline, district ranger in Ojai.
Exline encouraged Landon to apply for the post, she said.
"Her whole background in fire, her knowledge of the local area, her respect by her peers -- she has all of those things," she said.
Each year, an average of 25,000 acres burns in the forest, which stretches along the Central Coast.
From 2010 to 2012, however, fires burned just less than 5,000 acres -- definitely an aberration and one factor fueling concerns about this summer, spokesman Andrew Madsen said.
As chief, Landon oversees the fire management program in the five districts, the dispatch center, air tanker base, training center and 330 employees.
She will receive an annual salary of about $76,600.
The woman who sought a career outside finds herself spending more time indoors these days. Her responsibilities have shifted from cutting fire lines to coordinating and managing staff and resources forestwide.
Among her goals, she wants to work on communication inside and outside the agency, including with firefighting agencies in neighboring cities and counties.
She also wants to get out to every district soon to meet with staff.
"I want to go and spend some time talking about how I can help them," she said. "That's really what my job is all about -- making sure the people at the district level and the firefighters are getting the support that they need."
Landon started working in the Pozo Station east of San Luis Obispo in 1988. She was 26.
"I was going to Pierce College in Woodland Hills studying natural resources. I knew I just wanted to work outside," she said. "I was actually thinking about being a state park ranger. That's what I thought I wanted to be, and I managed to get a summer job out there at Pozo and fell in love with it."
The work wasn't easy and wasn't always exciting. She remembers days of running up and down a mountain deploying hose packs.
"Your feet hurt. It's hot," she said. "But at the end of the shift, you kind of sit back, and you're up on this mountainside, and it's kind of incredible. It's worth it."
Landon had found her career in the outdoors.
Over the years, she has spent a month leading a military team in Montana after it was activated to help fight a raging fire. Another time, she showed up for work in Ojai and ended up driving with her engine crew to help with fires in Colorado and Wyoming.
The one thing she never pictured was winding up as forest fire chief.
But others did. Co-workers describe her as humble, professional and a good leader.
Tony Ayala first met Landon when he was a firefighter on an engine crew and she was the engineer. He is now a battalion chief and the Ojai District's interim fire management officer -- Landon's former post. He said people were excited when she was named chief.
"She's got a lot of history, a lot of knowledge. She's come up through the ranks," Ayala said.
"It was one of those things where you thought years ago ... 'She's going to be able to go up that high, be able to succeed and get that job,' " he said.
Carrie Landon
Age: 51
Job: Fire chief for Los Padres National Forest
Home: Moving to Ventura
Hobbies: Walking the dogs, backpacking, camping and hiking
Favorite forest spot: Temescal Station, Lake Piru
Copyright 2013 - Ventura County Star, Calif.
