• The Publisher’s Notebook
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Malibu Wildfire Alerts: Gearing Up
The new fire station with powerful
communications equipment on Malibu’s western flank is
almost completed and ready to begin operation. It will provide
a much-needed emergency resource along the vulnerable
local coast during what could easily become another year
of record firestorms accompanied by the kind of personal loss
that increasingly impacts the residents of the wildland
environment in which we dwell. Even though much of the
firefighting process is dependent on
nature—especially temperature, humidity and the
almighty wind—success in battling out-of-control
flames is largely defined by equipment. From state-of-the-art
night-flying helicopters to the humble-but-critical picks and
shovels of the hand crews, firefighting equipment must be a top
governmental priority in an era of year-round wildfire seasons
predicated on climate change.
In a positive step forward, the governor
and state and local emergency agency personnel are
following through on recommendations of the Blue Ribbon
Commission Task Force to add 150 new engines to
California’s firefighting equipment cache. This week
marked the arrival of the first five new engines in Southern
California. The governor said, “The [engines] will boost
our ability to respond to emergencies
and help put out fires while they are still small. They can
also be deployed quickly to the front lines of an emergency
because they are being kept in our most vulnerable communities
and in the hands of local personnel.” The trucks are
equipped with a shorter wheel base for use in
wildland-urban interface fires, such as
Malibu’s, as well as other kinds of emergencies. Another
five engines are due in Los Angeles County this month. Five
more will be added this summer in Northern California, keeping
in mind that this equipment responds to firefights wherever
they occur in the state. Most of these new engines are special
wildland trucks.
Accomplishing the goal of adding another
130 or so trucks quickly won’t be easy at $250,000-plus
per truck. Whether the governor’s Emergency
Response Initiative is the best route
to funding this cost is subject to debate, but the
equipment is a necessity, as are the other Blue Ribbon
recommendations: Funding full peakseason staffing of 336
engines with 1100 seasonal firefighters in 2008-09; purchasing
enough fire engines to maintain a total of 131 additional state
Office of Emergency Services rigs for loan to local
agencies, increasing the total to 250 over five years;
funding aerial assets, including purchasing 11 new
all-weather, 24-hour-capable helicopters; and providing the
National Guard with two full-time helicopter crews; two
firefighting systems for the C-130 cargo aircraft,
and three helicopter firefighting systems. How the money is
obtained to acquire this equipment is less important than
obtaining the equipment and having it ready the next time
wildfire strikes.
