The locker room where Oregon and Ohio State changed during the College Football Playoff quarterfinals is now a command center and briefing room. Outside, firefighters and National Guardsmen roamed the wide concourse, where more than 90,000 football fans had gathered less than three weeks earlier.
And the vast prairie, which until recently hosted dozens of tailgate parties, now stands hundreds of small pup tents.
First responders walk past tents set up in the Rose Bowl parking lot.
(Allen J. Scherben/Los Angeles Times)
For more than a century, the Rose Bowl has hosted some of the world’s most important sporting events, from five Super Bowls and two World Cup Finals to the College Football Playoffs and two Olympic Games.
The historic stadium is now making a different kind of history.
Hours after the Eaton Fire first blazed, the area around the stadium was transformed into a preparation area, and about 4,000 first responders now call it home.
“This is probably not the most iconic event we’ve ever hosted, but it may be the most important,” Rose Bowl CEO Jens Weiden said. .
Overnight, the stadium and surrounding parking lots were transformed into a small city. There is a huge trailer with its own sleeping quarters, portable shower facilities, laundry, medical facilities, physical therapy trailer, and two kitchens that serve thousands of meals a day. There’s an area for refueling and repairing fire trucks, a peer counseling center, a McDonald’s, a coffee kiosk, and even a place to send and receive mail.
And everything is free.
“We always say we’re in the event business, but this is an event. Our team just leaned into this,” Weiden said.
Tim Sell, Pasadena’s deputy fire chief, said the Eaton Fire exploded so quickly that the department outgrew its initial command post at Charles S. Farnsworth Park in Altadena in a matter of hours. But the 200 acres of open space surrounding the Rose Bowl, already equipped with electricity, water, light towers and bathrooms, and within 10 minutes of the fire, was perfect.
So he called his friend Wayden and asked if there was room for hundreds of fire trucks and thousands of firefighters.
California National Guard soldiers take a break from guarding the Eaton Fire in a shower truck in the Rose Bowl.
(Allen J. Scherben/Los Angeles Times)
“The command post started on the hood of the car. [Chevy] Tahoe,” Weyden said. “They were out with maps and doing their thing, and we were opening up the toilets and making sure they had water and everything they needed.
“We’ve gotten to the point where we’re a self-sufficient city in a way.”
And if that city had a mayor, it would be Sell.
“Did I mention that’s my nickname?” the deputy fire chief said with a laugh. “I know all the guys at the Rose Bowl, and we plan all the events here, so I know what the capabilities are here. So if they’re like, ‘Hey, this is a problem. I know who to talk to when I say, “I have something.”
Still, even Sell, who didn’t sleep for the first two days after the fire broke out, is amazed at what he and the people at Rose Bowl were able to accomplish under difficult circumstances.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “I don’t know of any other place like the Rose Bowl that has multiple sites on such flat land and where you can put everything in. It was truly a blessing.”
On Friday afternoon, tents lined up in the shadow of the stadium were surrounded by a colorful collection of red, green and yellow fire trucks and water trucks from more than a dozen states and Canada. Twice a day, dozens of trucks line up in front of sand-colored Humvees and police cars as another line of vehicles returns and snakes out of the parking lot, ending one 12-hour shift. , the next shift begins.
“It gets stuck in your throat,” said Brian Brantley, vice president of development for the Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation, who lives in a house overlooking the stadium. “All of the people who are here to work together to fight this problem.”
For those who have returned, it’s not like coming home. But they’re not actually trolling it.
“They’ve been very good at taking care of us, bringing in everything we need logistically, from sleeping cars to kitchens,” said Oregon State Firefighter Steve Wallace, who has been on the front lines since Monday. “I can do it.” “They’re checking all the boxes to see if we can handle it here.”
“We definitely don’t want anything while we’re here,” added Rob Baldosie, interagency resources representative for the British Columbia Wildfire Authority, which has 22 firefighters in Pasadena. “Small fires don’t need something this complicated. But obviously, given what happened and the number of different agencies that responded to it, we need to scale it up.”
As a result, as Wyden wandered over his tent and trailer on Friday, he didn’t recognize the parking lot he drove to work every day for the past 12 years. To be honest, he shouldn’t have been here. He must be in Sandpoint, Idaho, because he can see the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game in his rearview mirror.
“I’m always on vacation,” he said. “But it’s okay. I’ll find another time.”
Hours after the fire broke out, Weiden’s family was warned that they might have to evacuate their nearby home, and his wife packed a suitcase. It’s been over a week now and I still don’t know what’s in it because I haven’t had time to look at it.
“It’s like a time capsule,” he said.
California National Guard members take a break after patrolling the Eaton Fire.
(Allen J. Scherben/Los Angeles Times)
But he wasn’t the only one to put the Rose Bowl’s new city’s needs ahead of his own. Weiden said about 60 people are still reporting to work each day, despite the fire casualties. For them, work became personal.
Dominic Corley, the stadium’s director of community relations, helped set up a command center at the Rose Bowl the night the fire broke out, destroying his daughter’s home and the homes of thousands of others just a mile away.
“This affected my community. I was born and raised in this town.”
When security guard Bobby Childs rushed to the stadium to open the gates, his home in Altadena burned to the ground, leaving only the uniform he was wearing.
“Wake me up. Pinch me. It’s a nightmare,” said Mr. Childs, who buried his wife in September. “Can you believe it?”
Still, he remained at his post. He said he feels comfort at the Rose Bowl, surrounded by people who have fought so hard to save the homes of others.
“That’s why I came back,” he said Friday. “I shouldn’t work today.”
No one should. But Sparks and Wind had other ideas.
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