Threats to life, property prioritized for resources in 3 Southern California wildfires

As three large, destructive wildfires simultaneously burned at their most fierce levels in Southern California this month, those responsible for distributing the finite amounts of fire personnel and firefighting equipment made their choices based on what they considered the most immediate threats to lives and property.

Other considerations for deciding whether to send a critical resource to the Airport fire in Orange and Riverside counties, the Bridge fire in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties and the Line fire in San Bernardino County included the proximity to each blaze and whether that equipment — particularly aircraft — was a good fit for a specific fire.

Officials said California’s robust mutual aid system provided what they considered sufficient fire engines, airplanes, helicopters, firefighters and supervisors, yet the sheer number required meant that some arrived from hundreds of miles away hours after they were ordered.

“I’ve never heard of a fire that has gone without; it might just take time to arrive,” said Cal Fire Capt. John Clingingsmith Jr., a spokesman on the Line fire.

It’s a system that evolved from agreements among friendly fire chiefs in the 1970s to one where today complex decisions are made out of sprawling operations centers. And one where those relationships are still important.

Even so, more than 260 structures have been destroyed or damaged and flames have consumed more than 117,000 acres.

Almost 9,000 firefighters, along with some 800 fire engines and dozens of aircraft have fought the blazes

“In a perfect world, you can have a million firefighters here, but sometimes Mother Nature is too powerful,” said Kenichi Haskett, a Los Angeles County Fire Department section chief and spokesman on the Bridge fire.

There, high winds changed direction and pushed the flames burning above Claremont away from Mount Baldy and toward Wrightwood. Embers that can fly for miles ahead of the main fire landed in dry, heavy brush and into the attics of homes.

“You get a couple of embers in the attic space and your house is ignited, unfortunately,” Haskett said.

PRIORITIZING LIFE, PROPERTY

The Line fire ignited on Sept. 5 in Highland, followed by the Bridge fire on Sept. 8 in San Gabriel Canyon and the Airport fire on Sept. 9 in Trabuco Canyon. No deaths have been reported thanks to evacuations and aggressive firefighting.

The fires share some of the same characteristics, such as lives and property in imminent peril in areas with steep terrain.

Cal Fire and five federal agencies including the U.S. Forest Service staff the Southern Region Operations Center at March Air Reserve Base. That’s where incident commanders submitted their requests for resources and officials there filled the needs as best they could.

Fire officials did not make anyone at Southern Ops available to discuss specific decisions that were made, but they did speak generally about the process.

“It depends on how the commanders articulate their situation, how many homes are threatened, how many communities are evacuated,” said Amy Masi, a Forest Service spokeswoman. “It’s all based on what is the value at risk. That can be really difficult when there are three fires burning in the same spot.”

Said another Forest Service spokeswoman, Adrienne Freeman: “Prioritization is first closest, and then you backfill. The second thing you’re doing, we have very detailed intelligence about values at risk, No. 1 life. No. 2 property. We’re going to be in a constant state of sorting through and prioritizing. And that’s how resources are allocated.”

WHERE ARE THE AIRCRAFT?

Having resources is one thing, but actually deploying them can be another.

On Sept. 9, LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone and two dozen other fire officials stood on the tarmac at Van Nuys Airport in front of a pair of L-415 Bombardiers, the so-called Super Scoopers capable of holding 1,600 gallons of water. The airplanes, on loan from the Canadian province of Quebec, can scoop up water from lakes in 12 seconds and fly as low as 100 feet above fires.

“We proudly welcome back the Super Scoopers to join our county of Los Angeles fleet,” Marrone said.

But they have not flown on the Bridge fire.

Some who lost homes in the three fires have said they waited in vain for aircraft to drop water or lay down fire retardant.

“People say ‘I don’t see aircraft. Where are the aircraft?’ ” Freeman said. “Getting aviation in the air is not as simple as finding a runway.”

Forest Service spokesman Nathan Judy said with no lake nearby, and visibility poor because of smoke, the Super Scoopers were not a good choice for the Bridge fire’s steep terrain. The same was true in some cases for the Very Large Air Tankers that carry 8,000 gallons of fire retardant and their cousins, the DC-10 VLAT that carry 9,400 gallons, that are not as nimble as smaller aircraft.

VLATs are better suited for flat areas or rolling hills, Judy said.

“If the skies are dark and black with smoke, those are conditions where they will not allow the aircraft to take off,” Freeman said. “It would be the same as getting in your car and trying to drive in the fog.”

‘DIG DEEP’

The mutual aid system, where fire departments send resources almost without question, developed in the 1970s, said Santa Barbara County Fire Department Chief Mark Hartwig, who was San Bernardino County’s fire chief from 2011 to 2019.

“It started with friends calling friends. That was the only way to get help,” Hartwig said. “Your network. It was who do you know and do they have resources available? There was no system like that there is today.”

Hartwig is a board member of Firescope, whose chairman is Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy.

Firescope was formed in 1972 and became part of the state Office of Emergency Services. It deals with mutual aid, cooperative agreements and fire and rescue regional policy issues.

Hartwig acknowledged the difficulty of staffing three adjacent fires simultaneously.

“You have the Line fire, which has a huge need, so you dig deep. LA and Orange counties dug deep to help out San Bernardino County. … Now all of a sudden the Airport breaks out and you need some of the resources (back). But you can’t get it all back and you start reaching out of South Ops (for more resources.)”

Hartwig remembers being asked to send a third strike team of five engines to the Woolsey fire that burned 96,000 acres in LA and Ventura counties in 2018.

“I knew we didn’t have anything, but I sent them more. That’s when relationships help,” Hartwig said.

But sometimes safety considerations are more important.

Hartwig said current San Bernardino County Fire Chief Dan Munsey called him up in Santa Barbara, asking for a hand crew in addition to the fire engines Hartwig already sent to the Line fire.

“I always say when people are dying and structures are burning, you’re likely to give a little bit more than you might otherwise,” Hartwig said.

But in this case, Santa Barbara County was under a red flag warning, indicating an elevated danger of a severe fire.

“Can you wait until that expires?” Hartwig said he asked Munsey. “He said ‘Mark, I totally understand.’ “

Ultimately, when the warning expired, the hand crew was on its way.