During the 97th Oscars, firefighter Jake Heflin stood onstage alongside 11 other firefighters who battled the Eaton and Palisades wildfires in Los Angeles as Host Conan O’Brien thanked them. “On behalf of everyone in greater Los Angeles,” said O’Brien, “thank you for all you do.” The firefighters received a standing ovation.
Heflin is an Osage who has been fighting fires for 25 years. Currently, he serves as the Long Beach Fire Department’s battalion chief and during the fires, he was captain of the fire department.
He was assigned to the Palisades Fire, and his role was getting accurate, timely information out as a public information officer and deputy director for the LBFD’s media branch. From Jan. 7 through month’s end, that period of battling fire was defined by “witnessing the significant and profound loss,” said Heflin. “Whether it’s a single-family home or a huge neighborhood block, as you saw in the Palisades, it gets very emotional as people return back and start to kind of sort through their life and the loss.”
“My home fortunately did not burn,” he said. “But people that I knew, their homes did burn and they lost everything. I think that’s where you really are able to almost just be there and listen and be empathetic and support people as they are grieving.”
At the Critics Choice Awards, said Heflin, as well as at the Oscars, he had humbling conversations with those who had experience loss as a result of the fires. When Heflin talked to a family whose home was the only one left standing in their neighborhood, he encouraged them to open up their home to the community, he said. “So they know that [the community] can return and that their home is a testimony to the strength and resiliency of that neighborhood,” Heflin explained.
He was able to share that message with fire victims because he has been through disaster psychology trainings and he has also served on the peer support team at the fire department for years. For his own part, Heflin went through a range of emotions while fighting the fires.
Courtesy photos/Jake Heflin
Courtesy photos/Jake Heflin
Courtesy photos/Jake Heflin
Courtesy photos/Jake Heflin
Courtesy photos/Jake Heflin
On the public information aspect of the fire, Heflin wanted to make sure that they were giving people the most timely and accurate information so they would be able to determine the best decisions and actions for their safety during the fires. “That’s the overarching responsibility that I have to maintain public trust. To maintain and open a line of communication to let people know what exactly are the things that are potentially dangerous for them.”
He was concerned about promoting safety and getting out information during the fires, but also in the aftermath, where grave health concerns abound. As the fires wound down and people returned to survey the damage, Heflin feared for their exposure due to harmful byproducts of the fire due to lithium and petroleum-derived synthetics.
“Those were things we didn’t see 25 years ago, but we’re seeing them now, where sifting through that rubble … could put people at risk,” Heflin said, explaining that lithium combustion presents serious safety concerns.
According to a safety bulletin from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), chemical reactions resulting from the combustion of lithium batteries can produce “hydrofluoric acid, which is particularly hazardous … [as people] may not feel its effects until hours after skin exposure,” the bulletin read. Heflin said that lithium battery walls in Teslas, for example, “are very, very dangerous” after combustion.
“Then, you have a lot of hazardous household waste and materials, because we’ve gone through this huge transformation with the way things are built, with synthetics, synthetic materials … when they burn, you have the byproducts associated with that synthetic material. Not to mention, you have the asbestos,” he said. Synthetic products in homes which used to be organic, containing natural materials such as cotton, are now commonly filled with petroleum-derived substances which do not react safely to fire, according to the Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI).
The FSRI conducted a project on the Thermal Decomposition of Materials which found that these “synthetics, derived from petroleum, have weaker bonds and lower combustion energy and as a result, they are more flammable … [and] produce toxic byproducts that are potentially hazardous for human health and the environment.”
The high risks from sorting through the rubble can result in cancer, and these concerns kept Heflin motivated to serve the public with excellence and passion. As he tried to get the word out to people that in sorting for family heirlooms, they may put themselves into immense risks, he thought of the different realities for Native people during fires.
Natives may have regalia, feathers and the like which are not only family heirlooms but culturally used items. As the founder of the Tribal Emergency Management Association (iTEMA), Heflin also advocates for better resources for Native people and Indian Country.
The Tongva have a robust fire prevention burn program, said Heflin, but non-Native government leaders are still in the process of accepting and respecting the necessity of controlled burns to lessen and prevent wildfires.
Heflin was promoted after the wildfires ended, and in his new role as battalion chief he will continue to advocate for the highest levels of safety and care in emergency response. According to Osage Nation Emergency Management Director Bobby Tallchief, Heflin advocated for the creation of emergency services within the tribe.
Heflin said that he was indeed instrumental in the creation of the Osage Nation Wildland Fire and Emergency Management programs, particularly while running for Osage Nation Congress in 2010. Heflin is good friends with Tallchief and both of them agree that there is a need for greater emergency resources for Osages.
The politics of getting more services, however, are challenging, said Heflin. “‘Who’s going to pay for this? How are we going to support this?’” Heflin remembers hearing while running for Congress.
There is still a lot work to be done, said Heflin. Tallchief said that there have been conversations about offering emergency management services to constituents who are not living on the Osage Reservation, such as creating regional positions to manage emergencies. “We just haven’t gotten to that point,” said Tallchief.
In 15 fires that occurred across the Osage Reservation from March 14 to 15, the Nation’s response team was limited, said Tallchief, chiefly focused on one fire near Pawhuska due to limited resources. That fire was west of Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear’s house and along with high winds, caused the power to go out at ON offices.
According to Emergency Management Deputy Director H. Cameron Robinson, the west side of that fire was contained first by 7 p.m. on Friday, March 14 but someone had already lost a home. Policy restricted Robinson from specifying the victims.
Osages who may have been affected by the Eaton and Palisades fire are less visible, by comparison, and less reported. Neither Tallchief or Heflin had heard of any Osages directly affected by the fires, but they said that Constituent Services has a program in place to provide assistance to all Osages who have undergone disasters and who have unmet needs and they requested that more Osages report disasters and unmet needs in their area.
Heflin greatly hopes to see current emergency services grow, and he has built a network in the community through his advocacy. It was in running for Congress that Heflin largely went from an Osage connected to the United Osages of Southern California (UOSC) organization to an Osage connected in Osage County.
“I ran for tribal Congress back in 2010,” he said, “and that was … the journey that started a lot of that connectedness with a lot of people.” Prior to running for Congress, Heflin had already gone back to Osage County to get named and begin to dance in the Illonshka. Prior to that, he had attended UOSC meetings with his great-grandmother Lois Lombard, an original allottee who took him to the meetings in Newport Beach when he was a young boy.
Heflin’s passion for protection and community runs in the family, he said. His great-great grandfather Walter Lombard was an Indian police officer for the tribe. “I still have his badges here that say ‘U.S. Indian Police,’ I have those with me here at the house. That is in my family, that legacy … of service toward people. That’s something I hold very dear,” Heflin said.
Pushing for better service and protection in Indian Country means Heflin goes to tribes all over the country to speak about the critical nature of emergency services. “It’s sometimes a very challenging conversation because we’re so institutionalized in what we’ve done, that that’s all we continue to do. This is saying, ‘what are we doing, and how do we do it better?’ That’s where we put our responsibility on elected leaders to have them look at tribes across the country and see how they can learn more or do better,” he said.
As a former director of tribal affairs for the California State Firefighters’ Association as well as a previous FEMA emergency management instructor, Heflin is an experienced and connected advocate at the state and federal as well as the tribal and intertribal level. He said he will absolutely continue to work for increased emergency services.
When emergencies such as the May 2024 Barnsdall tornado and the uncontrolled wildfires happen on the Osage Nation land base, it’s hard for Heflin to be far away, he said. He hopes to see the Nation take a comprehensive look at the county and thoroughly evaluate community needs. “In other words, where are we lacking on EMS? Where are we lacking on fire protection? Where are we lacking on rescue?” he explained. “When you’re waiting on 45 minutes to an hour for an ambulance and you’re having a heart attack, that to me is unacceptable,” said Heflin.
At the same time, he has been very happy to see Wildland Fire “take hold and grow.” He attributed that growth to Bobby Tallchief and Wildland Fire Director Ross Walker. With existing resources for the Osage, there is still a measure of support available to constituents and Heflin just hopes it will grow.
According to Tallchief, Constituent Services and Emergency Management can send immediate help, financial help and assist with paperwork through the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) whenever that organization declares a disaster. In order to request these services, Osage citizens should call Constituent Services.
“Osages are worldwide,” said Tallchief. “We’ve got them in every corner of the world and if we don’t know about something going on in their area, they’re just kind of out there. … Give us a call,” he said.
Heflin said he could see himself running for Congress again, and if he decides to do so he will focus on taking care of the people. “At the cornerstone of our sovereignty is taking care of our people. Without the proper emergency services, how do we take care of our people?” Heflin said. “We could take care of our people and have these great resources in place but in an emergency [if] we’re not able to rally and meet the needs of the community, I think we fall short.”
