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
Someone earlier said no one wanted to pay more taxes to pay for firefighting. In our town and several cities in Humboldt we have voted in a parcel tax that is paid to local fire departments for their services which pays for equipment, etc. I understand in November in California we are being asked to vote to put a parcel tax for CalFire (or whatever the groups are called that fight the wildfires). Rural properties will be evaluated and if in a rural fire district, your property will have the tax added.
These fires are early this year and all over and firefighting resources and personnel are spread very thin. Possibility of more lightning was on this AM’s weather report for the north counties. Does not bode well if that happens as it may not even bring a drop of rain to help the existing fires.
Hope you and your neighbors houses stay safe!
After giving it some thought, I have to agree that we can no longer depend on our government, except to under perform. It’s probably not GWB’s fault. Heck I’d be surprised if he even knew about the fires. I’m not suggesting that he isn’t the worst president our nation has ever had, because he is, but our government’s inability to provide fire relief has little our nothing to do with him. In fact, the California wildfires probably won’t even make the huge list of poor calls he’s made, so let’s move the focus elsewhere. This is another one of those situations where soft Americans are waiting for the government to come rescue them from nature. There are signs along the highway in a lot of these rural communities telling residents to develop a defensible space around their homes and structure for exactly this kind of event. If you were too lazy to cut some brush, you might lose your home. Fire is a hugely powerful force and I don’t recommend anyone try to stand up to it if it comes for your home, but take responsibility for your situation and make the necessary improvements. The author of this article seems to have taken the precautionary steps necessary to avoid losing their home, and now they’ll have to wait it out. When you move out to a rural area, often, it’s to be on your own, so when CDF says, you are on your own, it’s because there are more pressing issues than your house out in the sticks. Hopefully these fires are put down quickly with minimal losses, and hopefully you don’t lose everything, but know that life goes on as long as you are still breathing and the rest is just stuff.
My own personal rant to Bruce Ross: The Record Searchlight is an awful paper, and I doubt it could even be considered news. More like a tabloid. Over and over I read the same propaganda that is rubber stamped for approval by the feds, then trickled down through corporate channels (the RS is a corporate news outlet) to the information trough that is your paper. Is it that your writers are without inspiration? Or are the editors all too worried about right and left to make a point? Why aren’t you asking the hard questions, getting real news stories, and keeping the people informed? I don’t know how someone becomes a reporter if they have no sense of what it is to get a real story.
Hi Jennifer… I have been reading these posts and am amazed at how everyone is so quick to bash the Government when it comes to large scale disasters. I am a wildland firefighter in Colorado and have spent the last two months supporting operations in West Texas. I am on my required time off or I would be out in CA helping as well.
First I want to add that people need to understand that it takes some time to ramp things up and fill and prioritize all of the requests. It is not like McDonalds drive through, CA is not the only State burning at this moment. Plus there are firefighter safety issues that need to be identified, understood, and mitigated. My life is not worth your home! I have a family I would like to come home to at the end of the day. Have a look at this link: http://www.denverpost.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=1908070 The man in this photo with his wife and kids did not come home at the end of his shift. He and two other firefighters lost their lives this spring in Colorado. Ok enough of my rant…
The good news and the reason why I responded to this is it looks like the Incident Management Team (IMT) is getting the resources they requested for the fires in your area. I looked at the resource requests and see that all of the outstanding orders as of yesterday for the Iron Complex and North Mountain fires were filled. You will be seeing a lot of Colorado and South Dakota (as well as other States) firefighters.
I wish you all the best that I can and it sounds like you all have done what you can to mitigate the wildfire threat around your homes with defensible space. If people are looking for ways to help, there are nonprofit agencies I am sure that could use some of your time. Also you could help the fallen or injured firefighters if you have the care to. You can go to the Wildland Firefighters Foundation and see what they may need for support - http://www.wffoundation.org/about/index.html
As a fellow resident of Trinity County, I can attest to the severity of the situation.
Aren’t people concerned that the National Forest is burning down? - not to mention that residents and nature are being relocated.
We have been in thick smoke for days now. Not healthy. Is the end in sight?
As mentioned above, there is question as to which roads are open and available to leave the county if necessary.
The lack of publicly available information is scary to say the least.
If you read the CDF website, they had a press release stating their great level of ‘readiness’ for the 2008 fire season. This was posted only days before the thunderstorms started the fires.
Where are all the local resources? Where are the national resources?
Filling the politicians pockets?
- concerned citizen
You are ridiculously misinformed. If you must build in these areas then you must build a defensible space around your home. (to do otherwise is totally irresponsible like building in a floodplain or barrier island and not buying enough insurance to cover your stupidity) More and more people have moved to the wildland/urban interface in the fire-prone, drought cycling, dry-lightning filled west and then wonder why the forest burns. Answer: because it always has and always will. Smokey was full of shit you cannot prevent forest fires no one can so the best thing that can be done is nothing. Yes you read that right nothing. Fire is a natural ecological process in nearly all western forests and actually rejuvinates the soil and benefits many species.
The main reason that fires have gotten so bad in recent years has nothing to do with GWB, but rather the aggressive fire-fighting tactics you are crying for. Anyways even the most aggressive attacks on these fires will do little more than waste money it is the equivalent of throwing a bucket of water on a barn fire. Wildland firefighters do little more than throw money at fires. Its a boondoggle. If you want to reduce the intensity and severity of these fires you must try to restore the ecological balance of the forests. We need to vastly increase the amount of prescribed/controlled burns to remove excess fuel and yes even thin (selectively log out the small stems) the areas nearest communities.
These fires are likely to get worse, not just this year but in the long-term. The West is an extended drought which according to historical data may last one hundred years or possibly much more. Water adjudications and settlement of these areas were done in abnormally wet period, which is a serious problem confronting fire fighters. Also global warming has decreased snowpack, cured fine fuels (grasses, pine needles, etc) earlier in the season, raised temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, and increased bark beetle populations and tree mortality.
That being said. No the government will not help you not because they are harsh, cruel, mismanaged or unprepared but largely because they can’t. Large-scale high-intensity fires can only be slowed and moderately at that only Mother Nature can help you. George Bush is not to blame for 100 years of poor forest management and drought. (wow it makes me feel dirty defending Bush) Clear all brush and dead needles away from your house. Remove any trees within 20 feet of your home (farther might be better) water the area near your home (yes lawns suck but you must), buy fire insurance (if you can) and QUIT YOUR BITCHING! This is not OUR problem but YOUR problem. Get to work.
One more thing… I lived in Montana in 2000 when fires were burning over an area about 4x the size of the area now on fire in CA so I do understand what kind of situation you are in. Fires like this are neither unprecedented nor unpredictable. Please look in to responsible forest management, of which, fire must play a role. If we do that then those fires, in most areas, will tend to be lower intensity, lower severity burns than the devastating fires you are witnessing now.
Good luck
Forester, if you have read my post and follow up comments, you will see that we have created a very defensible space and taken responsibility for our home. Our home is in the middle of 5 acre meadow. Back 500 ft into the surrounding forest, we have removed brush and small trees around this meadow, as well as along our driveway (you’ll love to know this was a USDA grand funded project). We have a pond holding 30,000 gallons of water with pump and fire hose connected 300 ft. from our home. We have a metal roof on our home, and our yard is green. We have placed a dozer line around the meadow and house. We have fire insurance.
When a crisis hits your neighborhood, I hope that your fellow humans will be more compassionate. I think that we need to realize that our infrastructure to deal with disasters is weak right now, and GWB is partially to blame for appointing unqualified friends to head some of these agencies, like FEMA, and sending National Guard to Iraq. The Red Cross is out of money and taking loans to help both in the midwest and out here. I agree the forests have been mismanaged and that fire plays a natural role in the equation; however, when communities, the electrical grid, and highways are closed (even I-5 is down to one lane traffic), it is affecting everyone beyond the mt. dwellers.
again: This fire is not about defensible space around cabins in the woods.
27,000+ acres burned here in Mendocino County; only 2 homes burned so far.
The “very unhealthy” smoke levels (bad enough so that it’s breaking and clogging monitoring meters) are the worst in Ukiah, the most “urban” area of the county, and that’s true throughout the N. Ca fire zones right now, because the most populated areas are valleys, where the smoke settles.
Towns under evacuation warnings here include the old logging town of Leggett, right on Highway 101, and Rockport, right on the coast.
Most of the 60+ fires burning here without any firefighting efforts at all due to lack of resources are burning timberland, not threatening homes. And every day these fires grow larger — which they do every day — more timber gets burned, and the hit on the already-rocky local timber economy gets bigger.
yes, there is now an official evacuation order as of 5:30 last night for part of the rural residential Greenfield Ranch — but that subdivision, plenty of it rolling oak woodlands not woods, is likely the best prepared neighborhood in the state for fires — I’m not kidding, go ask CDF with whom the Greenfield Ranch fire-fighters have been working for decades.
I heard (not officially confirmed, but from somebody who should know) that more helicopters from out of state flew into the Brooktrails airport yesterday (CalFire’s airbase for the fires here), although it’s unclear how many. that’s good news for us, and thanks to those who sent them, and those who came to help.
the smoke is very bad up here northeast of Willits again today.
Thanks Jennifer…you are correct, the issue I was trying to raise was not individual home owners’ responsibilities for defensible space or forest management, although those do play into the current crisis. The issue is that our country’s infrastructure is maxed out, and this should concern everyone, no matter where you live! Every city is being affected by the smoke, even SF. It is unhealthy. Also, it is public land that is mostly burning, very little private land as of yet. These fires will affect our watersheds, which provide water to cities and agriculture. This should be a federal effort, because these are federal lands.
Well I’m glad that you have made a defensible space and have installed a metal roof - good move. Perhaps more scenes such as these will lead to better forest policies and more forest dwellers to take these proactive measures as well and maybe more accepting of the lesser degree of smokiness associated with controlled and prescribed burns. And you’re right that the grid and the roads should be placed as priority #1 for protection. However, I don’t think more resources are really going help your situation, unless those resources include more rain and higher relative humidities. When flame lengths reach into the hundreds of feet the radiant heat associated with the flames will burn firefighters from distances of a quarter mile or more and one shift of wind could lead to the deaths of numerous firefighters (many of whom are college students on summer break)and thankfully the USFS and CDF are no longer willing to take these risks. Fire needs to be fought in the off season. And to those of you choking on the smoke, I feel for you, I’ve been there and it sucks. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you’re probably going to be stuck with it for a while. All I can suggest is staying inside as much as possible and keep your fingers crossed who knows it could rain very soon.
For those of you who want to know more about fire in the west check out
“The Year of the Fires” by Steven Pyne
Any writings by Steven Arno one of the premier fire ecologists
And the firewise websites maintained by the USFS, BLM.
Also talk to your home insurer and your local rural firefighting dept - they may assist you in protecting your home.