Ready! Set! Go! What's Your Wildfire Action Plan, Stan?

Does anyone remember the wildfires which occurred throughout southern California in the fall of 2007? I thought so.  What brought this to mind was a recent drive through Fallbrook via Mission Road. The new, hillside vegetation jogged my memory of the frenetic evacuation and volunteer efforts for which many people were called to task. While delivering the internal mail at MFD Station 5 situated, smack dab, in the serenely beautiful, vast wildland of Kohl Canyon I frequently shoot landscape photos. The video footage for this article was obtained directly behind Station 5. In addition, the late, afternoon breeze in those parts of Murrieta create such strong headwind at times, it takes an extra hour for me to make it home from a bike ride.

As I began searching for the facts and figures of the cataclysmic disaster, I perused many a NASA satellite photo depicting the active, 2007, fire zones and plumes of white smoke making SoCal look like a smoldering, Baja cigar tip. Indeed, 550,000 acres were burned.  Perhaps a parallel is to envision 550,000, one-acre, intact home sites, as everything is safe and quiet today.  Still can’t picture the quantified devastation? Me neither and that’s okay because losing one life or one home to fire is too many.

According to Wikipedia, one-million people were evacuated from their homes in San Diego County. 12,000 people were sheltered at Qualcomm Stadium alone.  Let’s not forget the dear, family pets and wild animals housed at the various zoos that had to be relocated or ensured safety from the blaze. San Diego County Sheriff Bill Kolender stated that the number of people evacuated in 2007 exceeded the number of people evacuated during Hurricane Katrina. If you're so inclined, you can look up the facts and figures of the California Wildfires rampant from October 20 to November 9, 200 on Wikipedia.org.

From a satellite vantage point, California appears as a dry, brown mass of hills and valleys laying adjacent to the vast, Pacific Ocean. Finally, the white, ascending cloud to our east near Beaumont last Saturday is a tell-tale, smoke signal: fire season is upon us, technically, from June to October. 

I feel that calendaring such a season wrought with public safety campaigns has kind of a psychological quell in that wildfires are otherwise forbidden to ignite for the remainder of the year.  It just isn’t so, especially when the platoons of firefighters are gearing up and the brush fire apparatus is on standby, here, there and everywhere, 24/7/365. 

If the California fire service resources, equipment and manpower aren’t battling a wildland blaze somewhere, USA – like the High Park Fire near Fort Irwin, Colorado, which has scorched 59,000 acres and has destroyed 189 homes to date, the fire service is always ready to roll, via automatic and mutual aid agreements with California Office of Emergency Services (OES), CalFire, and neighboring fire agencies. Murrieta Fire Chief Matt Shobert briefly explained:

 “Say Engine 3 [Whitewood and Murrieta Hot Springs] is automatically dispatched for a serious car wreck south of Murrieta for rapid response to that location. The closest CalFire responders are automatically dispatched as well. The first unit on scene becomes incident command and the subsequent units provide manpower and resources as needed.  Automatic aid is an efficient process,” he said.

“When MFD provides mutual aid per our agreements with the state and federal government, we provide additional resources to help manage the incident regionally or within the state via formal request for our assistance. Our first priority is always protecting Murrieta; however, our cross-trained, professional firefighters exemplify preparedness in every aspect of fire and life safety. When we do respond to such incidents, our department is fully, monetarily reimbursed through the state or federal government,” said Shobert. 

                                            Wildland Urban Interface

Notwithstanding contributing factors to such an unpredictable force of destructive energy such as drought conditions, hot weather, arson, accidental ignition and the driving force of all wildfires – gusty, arid winds -- inaccessible water supplies, coupled with grounded air support hampered by wind, can you say, Malibu? Oakland Hills? Santa Ynez? San Bernardino? I knew you could.  

I also knew you could think of rain (seasonal or not) as a phenomenal surprise in southern California.  If you gaze at a topographical map, you’ll see that California is a huge desert, with the exception of the fruitful and green, Central Valley, as well, the northernmost aspects of our golden, brown state.  Why is all of this important to folks in Murrieta? Well, fire safety awareness may not be on your top-ten list of concerns especially if you reside within the confines of the bedroom community sprawl where fire hydrants abound.

There are four water districts serving Murrieta:  Eastern Municipal; Elsinore Valley; Rancho and Western Municipal Water districts. The City of Murrieta Planning Division has outlined parameters for fire hydrant location, water pressure, gallons-per-minute delivery and water flow duration.

For example, in a residential zone, fire hydrants must be placed no more than 330-feet apart. The hydrants will provide 1000 gallons-per-minute at 20 pounds-per-square inch (think of an open hydrant flowing water) for a duration of two hours.  Hydrant specs depend on the zoning of the land parcel and accessibility to infrastructure.

I’m trying to keep this very, very simple because the municipal water supply guidelines are descript and codified.  I want to convey that in the Oakland Hills Fire, hydrants were available and operable, but the sheer magnitude of the winds and fire rendered them as scorched, yellow landmarks.

While I was driving around Murrieta taking photos for this article, I spotted tall and dry vegetation most everywhere in the quiet, rural neighborhood stretching along brush-entombed hillsides and gullies bearing tall eucalyptus and sturdy oak trees.  Of course, that’s exactly what I was looking for.

In the accompanying video featuring MFD's Battalion Chief Steve Kean and Firefighter / Paramedic Joe Bourque, we purposely taped the footage with each of them standing in the middle of shoulder-high brush (fuel), which looks deceptively short and manicured from a distance. You’ll also notice the gusty wind (air).  There’s only one thing missing from the fire triangle (or tetrahedron) and that’s a source of heat – the onus of fire prevention, worldwide.

 It’s not so much the dormant, wildland environs that’s generally worrisome, nosireebop;  it’s the coquetry of the inhabited communities embedded in the fire zones, for example:  The 17-mile arc encompassing  221 acres of Tenaja, La Cresta, the Santa Rosa Plateau and De Luz: www.17mile.com 

I refer you to the key points proffered by Dan Wilson, MFD’s emergency preparedness coordinator, in the booklet entitled: Ready! Set! Go! Your Personal Wildfire Action Plan which can be downloaded from the MFD website: www.murrieta.org (services/fire) OR the literature is the PDF attached as part of this article so that you can easily download the information. 

While I was cruising on the Internet for wildfire information, I found a 2007, Fire Department News Network piece featuring the illustrious MFD firefighters and the OES brush trucks. If you’ve ever seen a caravan of fire apparatus on the roadways, the article and footage explains quite a bit. 

As a footnote, remember fireworks are illegal most anywhere in California. On July 4, invite your friends and family to a barbecue and go swimming, instead. As well, many public events offer fireworks displays for your enjoyment and safety.

Following is a portion of an article written by Bill Lorin and a complementary video demonstrating MFD’s preparedness for wildland urban interface appearing on the Fire Department News Network TV. The link is here for you to view as well.    

Murrieta Fire Department OES Brush Trucks Video and Story.

In spring of 2007, the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) placed an order for 15 Wildland Type 3 Pumpers with Rosenbauer America of Lyons, South Dakota. By the summer of 2008, these units were delivered to 15 fire departments throughout the State of California. On loan from the State Government, these rigs were given to municipalities that were in areas deemed to have a high wildfire risk. The purpose of this purchase was to give local governments the ability to handle initial attacks on wildfires, until other resources could be deployed. The City of Murrieta, received one of the new OES Type 3 pumpers in June of 2008. [The state reimburses the Murrieta for any overtime].

The rigs are assigned to the station with the understanding that if a fire in another part of the state occurs, the truck and its crew will be deployed to that fire, unless the unit is already assigned to a local fire. Shortly after its delivery, the Murrieta OES Unit 8634 was dispatched to Northern California to fight the East Basin Complex Fire, and was recently deployed to the Marek Fire in Los Angeles. These trucks carry a 5-man crew, and according to Murrieta Fire Department PIO Matt Corelli, these trucks also provide Advanced Life Support (ALS). Because of this, crew members must be certified paramedics.