Smoke signals

The first sign is the tower of dreaded black smoke punching the sky toward the scorching sun. A sudden hot gust of wind howls, followed by an even stronger blast, sending dead leaves and live firebrands well ahead of the fire. The wail of sirens prompts a chorus of barking. The air smells of acrid smoke, and it won’t take long for that single black column to become a roaring monster of a brushfire. It is the burning season once again in Southern California.

Once upon a time, there was a defined fire season that ran from mid-June to the end of November. That is no longer the policy. Ventura County Fire Capt. Ron Oatman said the lingering drought has changed that calendar. “In Southern California, we call it a year-round fire season because we have seen fires in December and January; we’ve seen them in March. We are certainly in fire season right now, especially when the Santa Ana winds are blowing.”

When it is time to go
Real life-and-death decisions are demanded from residents living in the path of a roaring blaze. Despite the efforts of local fire agencies, most civilians are uneducated in the realities of a fire.

Fire authorities order evacuations, and law enforcement agencies carry them out. Whether the call is for voluntary or mandatory evacuations, all experts say, when you are told to leave, just leave. Evacuation orders are not given lightly.
Residents may believe that the fire is not yet threatening their houses. There may be many reasons why the evacuation was called. The roads in and out of the area ahead of the fire may need to be cleared for firefighting equipment to be quickly deployed. Or the winds may suddenly pick up or shift direction. Or there may be a large source of fuel, the presence of which is unknown to the residents, poised to explode with one errant burning ember.

Oatman said police aren’t going to force residents to leave. “They don’t physically go in and take anybody out of their home,” he said. “If there are children involved, if they feel that a child is in danger, the police feel they could go in and justify removing the children from a home even though the parents may want to stay. They do have the authority to take the child.”

Because some communities are closer to the high-risk fire areas in the mountains, residents get weary of repeated evacuation orders and tend to downplay the dangers. They have seen several large fires, and they have never lost their homes.

Mary Victoria lives in Moorpark near Moorpark Community College. The area is especially fire-prone, and the Victoria family home has had several close encounters with brushfires. Victoria has chosen to remain in the house despite evacuation orders, although she does not participate in actually fighting the fire on her property.

“In my gut, I have so much confidence in these firefighters,” Victoria said, “because it has burned all the way up to my back wall and all the way to the front of the house from across the street. During the last fire, they were in our backyard with hoses.”

During the recent Guiberson fire, Victoria and others on her block felt they could accurately assess the danger. “All of us were hanging around on the street with our neighbors until about a quarter till 12 at night,” Victoria said. “As the flames were getting bigger and bigger, we all decided we were just going to go back to bed. About two hours later, the police were at the door telling us to get ready to go. We got some clothes together but then we went back to bed. We were ready to go in case they came around again. I guess I should worry more, but it has happened so many times.”

It is a fact that parts of Ventura County have seen many more fires in recent years, compared to decades past. There is an element of false security and what may seem like unnecessary inconveniences due to multiple evacuations. But would it be better if you evacuated and your house actually did burn down?

Jim asked that his real name not be used because his personal opinions do not dovetail with official fire department policy. He is a retired Los Angeles City Fire Department captain and still has tremendous respect for the need of fire departments to speak with one voice.

Jim said evacuation orders must be obeyed for the firefighters to do their best work. “When I was on the job and we asked people to get out of the way, and the family hung around and then the fire came through and then they got scared, then there was a big problem trying to get them to safety,” Jim said. “The problem is, when people stay and don’t do any good, then they are better off leaving.”

But Jim said if his family were ordered to evacuate, he would remain at his house and fight the fire himself. He said civilians can learn the basics fairly easily. “As for training, it’s not rocket science.”

The Los Angeles County Fire Department has a Web site explaining its program of fire preparation called Ready, Set, Go. It lists the best steps to take to prepare your house for a fire. It is a matter of removing native flammable plants, clearing a defensible area of at least 100 feet — 200 feet is better — around your house, having a fire-resistant roof such as tile or cement, a stucco exterior, boxed-in eves and very fine screens on your attic openings.

Additionally, you should keep your windows closed, close the garage door, turn on your lights so that firefighters can see your house in the diminished smoky light, take down the curtains and move flammable furniture to the center of the room. For more details, including what to do if you are caught in your house and have no way to evacuate, go to www.fire.lacounty.gov.

Jim added that firefighters will be more likely to defend a house that has been properly prepared. “If you have made your house indefensible, firefighters may pull up and tell you that they just have to move on to the next house if the fire comes through. It is all about getting prepared. It’s not brain surgery.”

Certainly, credit must go to the remarkable ability and endurance of local firefighting agencies and the strategic planning by fire officials. Yet it is possible in the world of unintended consequences that these successes have made some residents complacent about evacuation orders and the real dangers that the fires can bring.

It can get really, really bad
Looking at statistics for historical wildfires, both in California and in the entire country, the number of civilian deaths is hard to pinpoint. Most states do not keep track of the circumstances of civilian deaths, so it is not possible to say whether the refusal to evacuate has led to civilian deaths. Likewise, it is not possible to link any firefighter deaths to a rescue of a civilian who changed his or her mind and decided to evacuate too late.

This year, more than 200 civilians died in Australia during the firestorms in February. This disaster happened just as California fire officials were considering that country’s Get Out Early or Stay and Defend policy. Simply put, it is the responsibility of the residents to be aware of when a fire begins, where it is headed, and to get out before the danger is nearby. If residents are unable to evacuate or refuse to leave, they are expected to know how to fight the fire in their own area. Australians often live quite a distance from each other, and this policy had been successful up until this year. They are well-trained in fire prediction and firefighting from their homes. It was not simply a matter of being inconvenienced by having to evacuate. It is life and death, and this year showed how deadly and ferocious a wildfire can become.

Taking a look at wildfires in U.S. history, the Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin was the deadliest forest fire in the country, killing between 1,200 and 2,500 civilians. Coincidentally, or perhaps by circumstance, that massive fire began the exact same day as the Great Chicago Fire, on Oct. 8, 1871. Additionally, two other deadly wildfires began that same day in Michigan. Although there have been a number of theories floated, including the well-documented arrival of a meteorite that day, a serious summer drought in the area, a weather system that caused gale-force winds in the region, and other circumstances, it was an unparalleled catastrophe.

Firefighting techniques have improved by quantum leaps over the past century, and the past 100 years have seen far fewer deaths associated with wildfires. Yet, in 1991, the Tunnel fire in the Oakland Hills claimed 25 lives and destroyed 2,900 structures, even though it scorched a mere 1,600 acres. Closer to home, the 2003 firestorm that swept through San Diego County left 23 civilians dead, claimed 2,820 structures, and burned 273,246 acres. That same year, six people died and more than 1,000 houses were destroyed in the Old fire in San Bernardino County. And Ventura County lost 300 homes during the same period but, fortunately, no one died.

Breaking the fire cycle
It seems that every year the same questions are asked. Why is it that people who live in fire-prone areas are not required to take extra steps to make their homes more fire resistant? Why are people who have lost homes in high fire areas permitted to rebuild on the exact same spot, sometimes more than once? Why is it that developers have been permitted to build dense communities within known fire-prone areas without adequate roads that can handle a sudden evacuation of thousands of residents?

Some firefighting techniques have also been questioned, especially in light of the recent Station fire. When firefighting equipment was pulled out of that blaze very early on, many wanted to know if that ultimately disastrous decision was based primarily on economic considerations. Many want to know why the Super Scoopers are not owned outright by local fire agencies and why those leased planes sat unused at the Van Nuys Airport while the Station fire blew up to become the worst fire in Los Angeles County history.

Instructions to residents are not always clear. What explains using the term “voluntary” evacuation when anyone in a fire area can just leave the house without an official order? Residents who have faced repeated voluntary evacuations no longer believe that they are actually in danger. They often wait for a second, “mandatory” evacuation order that will never come. The confusion is understandable.

Firefighters can only do what is possible, and many have died in the fight to protect residents, including the two firefighters who died in the Station fire. A wildfire can overrun the most experienced and well-informed professionals, as was seen recently when five U.S. Forest Service firefighters died as the flames exploded around them.

Residents in high fire areas are not legally required to prepare their property for maximum fire protection. Although local ordinances require a maximum of 100 feet of brush clearance, fire experts say no less than 200 feet of clearance is necessary to make the house optimally defensible. Homeowner associations focus on the color of the house paint while not requiring fire resistant plantings.

As this fire season stretches out into early winter, people living near the fire-scorched areas must now prepare for the possibility of mudslides and debris flows. An El Niño weather pattern is being predicted, although whether it will rain enough to trigger those sudden and cataclysmic events is never a certainty. But if the rains do arrive and they are heavy, it is likely that residents living on and below fire-scarred hillsides will not be getting much sleep.    
 
joanbien@sbcglobal.net