Above, the first property cleared from the Eaton Fire. At left, an aerial view as crews huddle onsite within the Palisades Fire zone. Images courtesy ECC.


been with ECC for 20 years and part of the company’s disaster response program since 2017. He credits project leadership at the highest level with driving the suc- cess of this mission. “It started from the top,” he said.


AGC of California member contractor, to serve as the primary contractor for the debris removal mission. ECC had already been preselected for the on-call emergency contract under the USACE Advanced Contracting Initiative, which is designed to get contracting teams on site quickly following natural disasters. Matthew Long, program manager for


ECC, said the company’s recent experi- ence leading cleanup efforts for the 2023 Maui wildfire, 2018 Paradise Fire, and 2017 Tubbs Fire in Northern California, among others, made them well-equipped to lead this project. “We have a really good core group of


people here at ECC that support this type of work, which requires you to mobilize within 48 hours,” said Long, who has


“FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, Cal OES, and Cal Recycle — they were all committed to working together, and I think that flowed down throughout the whole team.” To expedite the Eaton and Palisade


fires emergency cleanup and move homeowners along the path to rebuild- ing as quickly as possible, these leaders knew they needed to remove roadblocks and some of the regulatory red tape that can slow down construction projects in California. Among the many steps taken to streamline the process, the team set up temporary debris sites in the work zone, which improved efficiency and reduced the number of trucks on the road. They also expanded throughput capacity at one of the nearby landfills by adding an additional scale.


Mobilizing a Massive Workforce From the moment that ECC was brought on the project they began working to quickly engage the many contractors and subcontractors that would be needed to perform the vast work scope in as expe- dited a fashion as possible. At peak construction, thousands of


crews were onsite working seven days a week, 12 hours a day clearing con- taminated materials and hauling infill from sites that formerly housed schools, apartment buildings, water towers and other infrastructure, and thousands of private homes. Mobilizing and managing the move-


ment of trucks and massive amounts of equipment was a monumental logistical challenge that was aided by fleet tracking technology and other strategies, accord- ing to Long. “Technology played a critical role,” he


said. “We used multiple different data- bases to track everything. Every truck was scanned at its origins and at its ultimate disposal, so we knew exactly how many


CALIFORNIA CONSTRUCTOR JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2026


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