SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. — Historic drought and massive wildfires are straining California firefighting agencies, which have relied more and more on outside help.

A watchful eye is something Ray Hutchinson has depended on his whole life. Devastation can start with a single spark, and that’s exactly what he’s trying to spot as an Orange County Fire Watch volunteer.

The group is deployed across 36 locations for every red flag warning day.

"We’re seeing red flags in late January, February, even early March," said Hutchinson. "We just never did see that before."

Sometimes, you get sick of something if you do it too much, but that’s not the case for Hutchinson. For nearly three decades, he was a firefighter, just like his father before him. After getting hurt during a training exercise and retiring, Hutchinson only took a few years to recover and decided he had to return to the vocation in some capacity.

As OC Fire Watch's program manager, Tony Pointer, is in charge of about 300 volunteers. He hopes to add 200 more because the list of spots to watch keeps growing due to requests from fire departments. At the same time, the demand on the volunteers continues to climb.

"We had one time where the wind event was 10 full days," said Pointer. "The volunteers get a little tired when they’re consistently going out there."

Hutchinson doesn’t shy away from the hard work — he never has. He remembers trying to save lives and homes, and once having a roof collapse on him. The kind of work he’s doing now is much easier on the body. It also brings back memories.

“You develop this slideshow in your mind of probably every incident you’ve ever been to of significance, and suddenly, that slideshow starts replaying when you find a familiar area,” he said.

Stopping fires has been Hutchinson's life’s work — and something that time won't change.

For more information about OC Fire Watch, visit here.