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About Baja California

Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North Territory of Baja California. It has an area of 70,113 km2 (27,071 sq mi), or 3.57% of the land mass of Mexico and comprises the northern half of the Baja California peninsula, north of the 28th parallel. The state is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the east by Sonora, the U.S. State of Arizona, and the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez), and on the south by Baja California Sur. Its northern limit is the U.S. state of California.

The state has a population of 2,844,469 (2005 census), and estimated 3,165,776 (June 2009) much more than the sparsely populated Baja California Sur to the south, and similar to San Diego County, California on its north. Over 75% of the population lives in the capital city, Mexicali, in Ensenada, or in Tijuana. Other important cities include San Felipe, Rosarito and Tecate.

Baja California is where it all began, our visit to Tecate in 1999 started us on our path. We began working with the city of Tecate and the Bomberos from around the state. We have been working to bring agencies representing millions of citizens in the State together for more collaborative training and operations. Where borders were distinct and rarely crossed there is now more mutual assistance and development of resources. 

In 2009, we began working with the group Bomberos De San Diego, a group of San Diego Fire firefighters that work in the area doing similar work. We partnered to bring training to Tecate initially and eventually worked in Tijuana Bomberos and were able to organize regional training at both Tecate and Tijuana inviting bomberos from around the area. Today, being one of the largest Cities in Mexico,  we regularly rely on these Bomberos to assist us in our training.

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Mission Day 4 Part Deux

on . Posted in Baja California

No I didn´t forget Day three. We arrived in Tecate around 2000 and after quick intros, went to our hotels and to sleep after a strategy session. Our trip was uneventful unless you consider the flat, brown, dusty road between Sacramento and the LA  Basin. Traffic was so light it was like the lanes were parted just for us.

Day four begins with Carlo a young firefighter who speaks exceptional English picking us up at our hotel and off we went to Breakfast. From the outside it looks like it fits in the narrow street-alley that it appears on . Inside it opens into a fancy type restaurant fitting down town Seattle. Breakfast was to good and we headed to the station to off load the trailer and make plans for this afternoons training. 

We have always worked out of the main station and this trip we were pleasantly surprised to see that an off site location was gotten for classroom training. Since we needed other offsite training sites due to the nature of the training we figure this site came with the deal. We settled in and provided some great training to over 40 folks from Tijuana, Tecate, Rescue Condor, Civil Protection, and the Tecate Brewery fd.

Captain Richard Smith of Santee Fire led off with an overview of ICS and how that works in any system. When it came to the topic of firefighter safety it was like opening a faucet wide. The questions and interest were measurable. Rich indicated that he would be glad to come back and work on presenting training on that topic. This is Richards first training mission with Us as we have been working on him for three years to get to this point. More to follow.

Tags: Tecate Missions

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