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Cal Fire's "Division Unicorn" Helped Saved a Small Town From the Camp Fire

2,678 views · Published 29 November 2018 · 2:17 · Indexed 28 September 2026

Channel: KQED News · 2018 · News & Politics

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Many of the tiny towns in the mountains of Butte County were devastated by the Camp Fire -- but not Stirling City, a former logging town that’s home to 300 people.

The chief of the town’s all-volunteer fire department, Pete Cuming, credits Cal Fire’s Division U with saving the town.

“I told everybody I wasn't going to leave until it was singein’ my mustache,” Cuming said. “I said goodbye to my place about five times.”

While residents evacuated, Cuming and his volunteers stayed behind at the picture-perfect red firehouse with white trim.

He said Chief Diana Totten’s leadership of Cal Fire’s Division Uniform made all the difference.

Totten led the 400 firefighters, water tenders, bulldozer operators, and water-dropping aircraft that built 25 miles of containment lines through rugged terrain thick with Ponderosa pine.

“The motto of that group when they showed up was we’re not going to lose another town. And they didn’t,” Cuming said.

Read more: https://www.kqed.org/news/11708718/how-cal-fires-division-unicorn-saved-a-tiny-butte-county-town-from-the-camp-fire

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