David Walters may have been a shining star as an Olympic swimmer for Team USA, but he’s now battling on the frontlines of Southern California’s deadly wildfires as a member of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Walters, who won a gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing as part of the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay team, joined the LACFD nearly a decade ago, according to the official Olympics website.
Now, he’s among the thousands of brave firefighters working to gain control of multiple wildfires that have continued to spread across the greater Los Angeles area.
Walters spoke to NewsNation about the challenge of fighting the ongoing fires, which have ravaged tens of thousands of acres.
“We’re pretty much trying to keep what is left here standing,” said Walters. “So we’re not laying down. We’re staying in our position — that’s correct, I did sleep on top of the hose bed last night, just staying ready to do what we can still do.”
The first of the blazes began as a brushfire on the morning of Jan. 7 Tuesday in Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood east of Malibu.
By the following evening, that fire alone had spread to over 19,978 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.
Additional fires, powered by dry conditions and strong winds, have continued to erupt throughout the area, including in multiple residential Los Angeles neighborhoods.
At least 10 people have died in the fires. More than 180,000 residents have been evacuated with hundreds of homes destroyed.
When it came to the scope of the devastation, Walters didn’t mince words.
“I’m very sorry for the residents that live here. We did try our best, but we got our butts kicked,” he told NewsNation.
But Walters his fellow firefighters vowed to keep on fighting.