East Bay strike team comes home after grueling two weeks fighting Bootleg Fire

A strike team composed of firefighters from Alameda County and the cities of Oakland, Fremont and Hayward returned Saturday after two weeks battling the massive Bootleg Fire in Oregon.

The team worked 12-hour shifts for two weeks and experienced erratic fire behavior in the Fremont-Winema National Forest, including a pyrocumulonimbus cloud that created its own weather and extreme conditions, the Alameda County Fire Department said Sunday on social media.

Crews said the fire sounded like a freight train and could be heard from miles away.

More than 2,200 personnel are currently battling the Bootleg Fire, burning northeast of Klamath Falls, Oregon, state officials said.

The fire is the largest blaze in the U.S., has scorched 409,000 acres and is 46 percent contained, according to an update Sunday from fire officials.

The East Bay team of firefighters helped fill an Emergency Management Assistance Compact interstate agreement, officials said.

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