State looks for fire lessons

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer
Lack of aircraft, Reverse 911 system's performance criticized | Wednesday, December 12, 2007 11:08 PM PST ∞

SAN DIEGO -- While some things were done right in battling October's Santa Ana wind-driven wildfires, panelists told a state legislative panel in a fact-finding hearing Wednesday that many things could have been done better.

Aircraft could have joined the firefight sooner, telephone calls urging people to evacuate could have reached a wider audience, aging thick brush in the backcountry could have been thinned ahead of time, and a bigger army of firefighters might have saved defenseless homes in nearly deserted Rancho Bernardo, public officials and fire victims said.

As well, the state's No. 2 fire official said that 30,000 conifer seedlings would be made available for efforts to replant the ravaged forest around the rim of Palomar Mountain.

Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego and vice chairwoman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Services, said that the hearing was a first step toward addressing problems in Sacramento next year.

"I think there will be a lot of legislation on the fires," Kehoe said, after the five-hour hearing in a University of San Diego auditorium.

In a sharp exchange near the start of the hearing, an Orange County lawmaker blasted California's primary firefighting agency, saying a California National Guard report proves that a state policy, as opposed to the weather, grounded four guard helicopters during the crucial early hours of the firefight.

"We were told it was the wind," said Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, in stressing that the report stated the helicopters were ready to fly Monday morning during the weeklong firestorms that swept across Southern California. "We now know it wasn't the wind."

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials have said that policy required state fire spotters to escort military aircraft pilots through fire zones, instructing them precisely where to drop water and fire retardant, and that spotters did not become available until a few hours later.

Once available, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the agency known as CalFire, fierce Santa Ana winds and blinding smoky conditions prevented the aircraft from engaging the runaway flames.

"Pilots were going up and they were coming back down," Grijalva said.

Maj. Gen. William Wade, adjutant general of the state National Guard, said the helicopters were asked to confront the region's largest blaze, the Witch Creek fire of North County that would scorch nearly 200,000 acres. Wade said that all four joined the fight the next day, or on Tuesday of that disastrous week of firestorms.

Spitzer said that it was a waste for the helicopters to sit idly by on Monday because the wind over Orange County was tolerable for flying and the aircraft might have helped firefighters corral the Santiago fire that raged near Irvine.

The hearing also addressed criticism that the California National Guard had promised four years ago to outfit a pair of C-130 cargo planes with tanks but never delivered, and so the aircraft weren't available earlier this fall. Wade said the two will be equipped by June.

State Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta, said California should consider whether to outfit the guard's other six C-130s for firefighting purposes, something that would cost about $24 million. Corona fire Chief Mike Warren, chairman of the governor's blue-ribbon task force on wildfires formed after the 2003 blazes, said the task force planned to address that and other key questions at a meeting in San Diego next week.

Near the end of the hearing, fire victim Wayne Coulon, an insurance agent who lost his Rancho Bernardo home, said what was needed more than helicopters were firefighters and fire engines -- none of which were seen for hours after the Witch Creek blaze hit the community.

"We can talk about aircraft, spotters and all that stuff all we want, but they are not going to make that much difference," Coulon said.

Rudy Reyes, 26, who suffered burns over two-thirds of his body after helping his family evacuate their Wildcat Canyon home during the 2003 Cedar fire, said one thing that would have made a difference would have been aggressive thinning and burning of overgrown brush in the backcountry. But Reyes said the county several years ago closed its honor camps, at which inmates carved fire breaks in the brush.

While the county received praise for its Reverse 911 program that warned hundreds of thousands of residents to flee approaching flames, the message didn't reach most in the devastated La Jolla Indian Reservation, said Joseph Ruise, a captain with the 10-member La Jolla Volunteer Fire Department. Ruise said that, of 120 reservation families he polled, just five were contacted through the county's telephone warning system.

Ron Lane, county emergency services director, said the problems that prevented more from being alerted to evacuate are being fixed.

As for the 30,000 pine and fir seedlings to be offered for replanting Palomar Mountain above the reservation early next year, those will be available through the San Diego unit of CalFire, said Crawford Tuttle, the agency's chief deputy director. For more information about the program, call (619) 590-3100.

-- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.