Mechelle Buchignani was a two sport athlete at USF: softball and cross country. She currently works for the Sonoma Police Department as a Sergeant.
Although the Nuns fire in Sonoma Valley broke out on Sunday, Oct. 8, it took until Friday to reach the City of Sonoma. “There was absolutely a threat, but it came later,” says Sgt. Mechelle Buchignani, who is assigned to the Sonoma Police Department by the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, which has a contract to provide the city’s law enforcement services. Buchignani, who lives in Santa Rosa, learned about the fires early Monday, when she received phone calls and texts. She made sure her family was safe and then headed into work, traveling through Petaluma instead of her usual route along Highway 12, thus avoiding the fire.
Her work usually is primarily a supervisory role, but the firestorm brought new demands, which mostly involved actively assisting with evacuations. Because they had a little lead-time, Buchignani and her fellow officers could anticipate some of the challenges and did a mid-week advisory evacuation, directing drivers to take specific routes. As the fire got closer, a mandatory evacuation order went into effect. “The fire never hit the eastern side of the city, but did cause damage just outside city lines, and to the east,” says Buchignani. “The firefighters had a plan to use the Plaza as a fighting line, but that plan never came to be, as the fire moved away from the city and to the east,” she says.
“We were doing evacuations in that time frame,” says Buchignani. Rest homes and hospitals needed special equipment, such as buses that could handle wheelchairs, and she found them and got them to Sonoma. At the same time, she made a call to the Sonoma/Valley Emergency Operation Center (EOC) for supplies and was out in the field working with deputies and officers to help maintain order, while they kept looters away from unoccupied homes. She also took shifts supervising the EOC, alternating with Chief of Police Brett Sackett and Sgt. Jason Craver. Among her tasks, she gave officers their assignments and made sure they were in the correct place with everything they needed. It was difficult task since she was sending them into perilous situations and worried about them. ”You’re sending your guys out, and you’re not with them,” she says. But, she adds, “This is just what we do. … You’re working with a bunch of people who have a warrior’s spirit, but a servant’s heart (NorthBayBiz)."
