700 California Wildfires: Why Don’t We Have Enough Firefighing Resources?
Almost three years ago, Americans watched in horror as this country failed to provide adequate disaster relief resources during Hurricane Katrina. Currently, the scenario is being repeated in California, where an estimated 600 to 900 lightning sparked wildfires are burning. Many of these fires began last Friday afternoon (6/20/08); many of these fires remain unmanned. As someone personally surrounded by over 80 fires in a 10 mile radius of my home, I am pissed, frightened, anxious, and depressed.
On Saturday, I called 911 twice to report seven fires, six of which only appeared on a map yesterday! I called CalFire, the United States Forest Service (two ranger districts), the Humboldt County Sheriff Department, the Trinity County Sheriff Department, and our local volunteer fire department. I wanted to know what road I could take out of our valley if I needed to escape the firestorm. The response, “Ma’am, there are fires everywhere. We don’t know where they are or what roads are open.” I felt trapped, and we began putting dozer lines around our meadow, hooking up more sprinklers, and connecting fire hoses to the pump in our pond.
Friends of ours in Mendocino were told by CDF, “We have so many fires, you are on your own.” YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN! Five days later, there has still not been any agency to help with their fire; however, the BLM showed up to tell them to stop using private bulldozers to put fire lines in around the blaze on public land. They didn’t listen and protected their homes on their own.
We’ve been through fire before, but never of this magnitude. There is no doubt that local agencies are doing the best they can with limited resources. The Firefighter Blog explains:
The State of California is in the midst of the worst wildfire crisis in modern state history. More than 900 wildland fires are burning, many unstaffed. Incident commanders are making do with skeleton crews in most cases.
Of course, the priority for resources has been homes and life, and I commend the job the firefighters are doing, but why did it take our governor three days to declare a state of emergency from the fires? Does he not work on the weekends during a natural disaster? Why do we have skeleton crews? The most apparent lack of support is air support. We are lucky if one plane or helicopter shows up for an hour to fight one fire out of 80 in our smoldering community.
The Bush administration has left this country’s infrastructure to deal with natural disasters in shambles. National Guard troops and resources are in Iraq, and local agencies are underfunded. Increased wildfires have been predicted as a result of global warming; this should not have hit us out of the blue. If we can’t handle natural disasters on our own, we need to ask other countries for help. We often send assistance to other countries during times of need. It’s time to swallow our patriotic pride and admit we can’t fight the magnitude of these fires on our own. We let immigrants earn citizenship by fighting in our wars; why not let them earn citizenship for fighting wildfires?
Locals are trying to make noise to get anyone’s attention: We are in DESPERATE need of help! We have been contacting our county board of supervisors, who have been trying their best to get us resources. We have called the governor, Boxer, Feinstein, Berg, etc. We receive compassionate responses to our pleas for help, but the answer is always the same: We don’t have any resources to send your way. Here is what one impassioned citizen wrote:
We appreciate your efforts in the past week to try and obtain the needed resources to fight the fires in Trinity County. However after five days, there are still few if any resources on any of the eighteen or so fires threatening our home and business, and the homes of our eight to ten other neighbors. All told there are about ten houses, one commercial building, our winery, numerous barns and outbuildings( probably about 25 ) and historic ranches that are being threatened. After we called 911 on Friday afternoon, a spotter plane flew over Friday night, but since then no planes or helicopters have worked on any of the eighteen fires near us…So far the weather has been ok so the fires have not spread too badly, but we need resources at some point to fight these fires, or they will eventually reach our homes and businesses, our lives that we have built over the past twenty years and longer. We are trying our best to be patient, but it is difficult. While we were watching the fires burn last night from our deck, we realized there is at least one that is not on the map and does not have a name…We are doing what we can to remain safe, keep our place green, build defensible barriers, and would like to remain here as long as we can to keep our place safe, especially since so far very little help appears to be on the way. Help is getting closer, which is a good start, but I wish it could get even closer. The fire camps are quite large, I hope they can spare some bodies out our way, and any air support would really help both the fires and our spirits. More resources are needed or the situation in Northern California could turn into another Hurricane Katrina type situation when the government took too long to take care of its citizens.
Local citizens have stepped up to the plate to keep each other informed and squelch wild rumors. What few firefighters have arrived have needed locals to help them find roads and locate fires on the map. Email has been utilized to keep the community informed; however, power was turned off to our town two days ago because of fire near the poles. Maps finally showed up yesterday at the store, and tomorrow there will be a community meeting. The information aspect of the fires is improving, as our local volunteer fire chief explained, “I don’t feel like a mushroom anymore, kept in the dark and fed s**t.” Despite local information efforts, websites reporting incident news are unreliable. This occurs every fire season, when the server for InciWeb can’t handle the demand. Firefighters and families rely on InciWeb for updated information, why can’t the government upgrade the server?
We are lucky the thunderstorms occurred early in fire season, when much of the foliage is still green. These fires are moving slowly, for the most part, which has been a blessing, as agencies scramble for very limited resources. The weather has mostly cooperated with cooler temperatures and light winds, but more thunderstorms are predicted for this weekend.
Image: Redding.com
sorry to echo but i have to agree, why are you living as far from emergency services as possible then requesting emergency services when something bad happens.
What if i lived in Alaska and had massive snow fall. wouldn’t i look the fool for screaming for help at the last minute? what the hell would i be doing way out there in the first place?
You moved there to be self sufficient, well,….
BTW i live on an active volcano and i do realize the consequences. insurance has its purpose.
I didn’t build in a flood plain but if I did I wouldn’t want sympathy from you.
I don’t really care if your house burns down, you chose to live in an area that has had imported water for fifty years and now you wonder why it burns.
If your point was to show that the “States Right” conservative movement has done horrible things for the people of the United States, don’t forget Clinton and the Democrats had as much to do with it as did the Bushes.
It is true they stopped funding state programs, stopped giving block grants for everything from road maintenance to education and without lowering income taxes for the middle class have made the states rely on property and income taxes to make up the shortfall.
So if you want me to feel bad about your view, your property values or you pets then you should move. If you want me to feel bad about the failures of our so called democracy, I already do.
I’m sorry that people are saying such mean things about this.
Here in Mountain View, the sky has been hazy for days with all the fires.
If it’s a global warming problem, and I don’t doubt it, the underlying problem is overpopulation. This can only be solved by encouraging birth control.
And the problem is lack of real democracy. Decisions are made with special interests in mind. This can only be solved by restructuring our government to be online.
Good luck. I plan to visit the mountains near Mendocino in August. I hope they are enough in tact that we can go.
I love it when your backyard is burning up how everyone turns into a professional firefighter, and now you’re going to solve the immigration problem too, where the heck have you been for the last 50 years?
I’m sorry about your situation, but I’m sure you weren’t helping the relief efforts with the hundreds of other communities that have burned up in the last 5 years all over California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, etc. It’s different when it hits close to home.
Fire is a natural part of the forest ecosystem lady, your house isn’t. I wonder what your opinion is on proactive fuel reduction aka “logging” is.
It can’t be too bad if you still have power and an internet connection to write this column.
I guess some of these posters don’t have much experience with forest fires. They kept us on the move in southern California in October. You can make your home fire safe which is wise and all but when a fire line (or many in this case) is moving your way you run away, not stand there with a water hose. Its like bringing a tooth pick to a sword fight. Fortunately the weather is cooperating a little for you guys at this point.
Good luck to you all up there. I’m sure we’ll be seeing some stuff our way soon, temperatures are on the rise.
Rob, the water is being taken from where I live to support those areas you speak of…75% of the water is diverted from our main river to the central valley to grow the food you eat. I live in an area of exported water. Not sure where you would have me move that at some point I would not need assistance from a public agency, whether it is a fire, police, ambulance, etc.
sorry
Dident mean to sound like an ass. you have to admit its the middle of nowhere. having said that,…
i really do hope that above all no one gets hurt. do you have a good escape plan? its good your community has banded together and i wish you all the very best of luck out there.
I respect you guys alot for staying on top of the situation and informing others and most importantly working collectively to minimize any potential damage.
if nothing else i never would have known it was so bad out there. thanks for posting.
Where’s the help? Well, the California National Guard, which is usually on the front lines at times like this, is serving George Bush in Iraq. The personnel, their considerable expertise, their tractors, and their helicopters are there. We’re paying for his war in yet another way.
You can always tell the idiots who don’t live in rural forest areas. There is little you can do to stop a real forest fire, but have trained fire fighters on hand. It’s not whining about having no one answer your calls or know where the fire is or send anyone. We all pay lots of taxes for fire and police….they should show…but far Northern Ca. has always been the step child of Southern Ca….so the resources all go south, like the water.
Jesse B. I live off-the-grid, so my power has not been turned off intermittently like the rest of my community. 4 years ago, my land burned in a fire started by PGE. Fire is not new to me, and yes, I chose to live here despite the risk. I am not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. But I think what so many people are not getting is the enormity of the current crisis. This is not a normal fire season. The people on the ground, whether CDF or the Forest Service, fighting this are doing the best job they can, often working 72 hours straight. They need help. I am for fuel reduction which doesn’t equate with logging. The fuels that burn first are the brushes, and we have cleared a 500ft clearance of brush around our meadow and driveway as a precaution years ago. Brush reduction is what needs to be done, so that fires burn slowly and don’t crown in trees. Those are the kind of fires that used to occur naturally.