Crew History

Core Values

DUTY - RESPECT - INTEGRITY - FAMILY

Mission Statement

Vision Statement 

The Monterey Fire Crew will be a cohesive, highly trained and self motivated fire suppression resource. We will accomplish our mission and assignments in a safe and professional manner through teamwork and respect.

History

The Monterey Handcrew was originally established in 1975. They were first founded as the Monterey Helishots and were made up of 2-20 person hotshot crews, one based at Arroyo Seco and the other based out of Indians. Juan Lopez was the superintendent of the crew based at Arroyo Seco, and Don Lopez was the superintendent of the crew based at Indians. Both Juan and Don came from a large family background of fire and instilled pride and tradition into all there crewmembers. They also instilled the belief that they were just as good as anyone else, but never better than anyone. The crews were issued 2 vans and 1 chase truck that they would use to respond to fires. There was a Bell 212 attached to the crews that was based out of Arroyo Seco and it was staffed by 10 crew members each day to respond to fires, so both crews together took on the name of Monterey Helishots. At the time that the crews were operational, the Monterey Helishots were the largest operational helishot program in the nation and fought fire on some memorable historical fires, including but not limited to, the Indians fire of 1976, and the Marble Cone fire of 1977. Most crewmembers were recruited from the San Jose area which had a large amount of students that were attending their fire classes and had the drive and commitment to be in the fire program. When people came to the crew looking for a job, they had to serve a year on the district first to gain some fire experience, after which they could try out for the crew. In 1978 the whole program was disbanded due to lack of funding and the need for the crews was gone since the fires from 1977 had burned much of the National Forest land.

 In 2002 the Monterey Handcrew was re-established back on the Los Padres National Forest as a result of increased congressional funding for wildland fire agencies in response to the firefighting needs identified after the 2000 fire season. The 20 person handcrew was organized and funded with the goal of being an Interagency Hotshot Crew which is still the goal to date. In 2002 Robert Doug Aversano became the superintendent of the 20 person handcrew which took the name of Monterey at the time and were stationed out of the Tusi Heliport area on Fort Hunter Liggett, which is now known as the Tusi Work Center .

 Supervision History

Superintendents   
                                                              
           1975 - 1978: Juan Lopez & Don Lopez                   
             2002 - 2007: Robert "Doug" Aversano                     
    2007: Dan O'Keefe (Detailed)
2008 - Present: Kevin Poyner