Lessons from past disasters help manage California blaze
By Rob Woollard
LOS ANGELES: Lessons learned from previous disasters helped save lives in California’s wildfire crisis but better pre-emptive strategies could have helped douse the flames earlier, analysts say.
As California smoulders one week after the outbreak of wildfires that scorched several hundred thousand acres, destroyed 1,800 homes and left seven people dead, experts say the scale of destruction could have been reduced.
Richard Carson, a professor of fire policy at the University of California San Diego, said that despite several notable successes, including overall co-ordination and the smooth evacuation of more than half a million people, certain aspects of the crisis represented a “colossal failure.”
California authorities had been aware there was a high risk of a firestorm three days beforehand, Carson said, citing weather forecasts for high temperatures, low humidity and powerful desert winds following a year of record-low rainfall.
Yet it was not until the blazes had erupted on Sunday that firefighting reinforcements were requested by officials in San Diego.
“The call went out on Sunday from authorities in San Diego for extra resources. Those resources were not here on Monday morning,” Carson said.
As a result, the flames were able to race towards residential areas unchecked, with catastrophic consequences.
“If you have a fire of this magnitude and it races 30 miles towards the ocean, and it is not stopped by your firefighting forces, that has to represent a colossal failure,” Carson said.
Nevertheless, Californian and federal authorities had registered major successes by establishing a clear command structure and planning for a large-scale evacuation, Carson and other analysts said.
San Diego’s use of a new “Reverse 911” automated telephone system, which placed calls to more than 300,000 households ordering them to evacuate, had given people living in threatened areas a vital heads-up of several hours.
That contrasted starkly with wildfires in California four years ago which left 22 people dead, with many victims leaving it too late to evacuate.
Mark Healey, a professor of history at UC Berkeley outside San Francisco who specialises in comparative disasters, said the “scalding influence” of the 2003 tragedy had helped focus the minds of Californians and local government.
“People were criticised for not evacuating quickly enough last time but this time they did,” Healey told AFP. “The fire departments were chastised for not coordinating better last time — this time they did.”
President George Bush, criticised for the sluggish response to Katrina, also made federal support available immediately before touring the region on Thursday.—AFP
