If the beginning of the 2008 fire season -which so far has seen thousands of fires stretching from Santa Barbara to the furthest northern reaches of the state-is any indication, California still has a lot to learn about living with the threat of wildfires. In order to discuss the process of learning to better prevent and fight fires, TPR was pleased to speak with UCSD Professor Steve Erie, who issued some dire warnings about California-and Southern California-fire readiness.
Steve Erie
You've been quoted frequently in the press on the preparedness of San Diego and San Diego County with respect to fire protection. We conduct this interview at a time when almost 1,500 fires are burning in Northern California, and the governor has just asked the National Guard to join in fighting the fires. What's the capacity of the state of California, and jurisdictions throughout California, to handle the threat that arises from a wet winter and a dry spring?
Let's put it this way: we are far beyond capacity and capability. There are now 1,500 fires, many burning in remote areas reachable only by helicopter or plane. We simply don't have the firefighting assets-local, state, and federal-to adequately respond to widespread conflagrations on this scale. And this potentially catastrophic fire season has only just begun. Sadly, we have not been able to significantly improve our statewide firefighting capability in the last five or six years, notwithstanding the disastrous 2003 and 2007 fires in Southern California. This should be a wake-up call and warning about California's future.
There are two bills in the California legislature that would restrict development in so-called "responsibility areas": AB 2447 by Dave Jones from Sacramento, which is slightly more restrictive than SB 1617, by San Diego Senator Christine Kehoe. What legislative actions at the state level might better prepare jurisdictions to deal with these challenges?
You've got to address the fire threat legislatively on a variety of fronts. First, we need more restrictions, such as these bills offer, on development in fire-prone areas. You shouldn't be able to build in the middle of a fuel tank. Second, when you do build, you need fuel-management and building codes that make homes more fire resistant, such as "shelter in place" protection. Third, we need to spend much more on firefighting resources-beefing up CAL FIRE, for example, and local fire departments' surge capacity with additional fire engines manned by off-duty firefighters.
What specific actions should the legislature be taking, whether funding or prescriptive? What would you recommend to Sacramento?
Sacramento needs to become a much more active player in setting fire policy. Water policy provides a useful guide: state law now links new development to an adequate water supply. This proactive approach needs to extend to fire prevention and fire fighting. These are statewide issues, not just local and regional issues. Sacramento has an incredibly important role to play in terms of setting the template for future development so that we have adequate fire protection as well as an assured water supply. Less water and more fires are California's likely future.
The statistics at the moment show that California has seen almost 1,500 fires throughout the state since June 20. The number of acres burned is around 416,000. The number of personnel committed is around 20,000. What should the public expect in the way of new resources given fires currently burning and projected this fire season?
We're normally staffed for regular fires. But what do you do in terms of what we call "peak load" or "peak season," in terms of the kind of staffing and equipment needed to fight multiple wildfires? We're not very good at providing surge or peak capacity, especially with a large state budget deficit and growing local government fiscal stress. In the summer and early autumn, when the hot Santa Ana winds blow in Southern California, densely inhabited areas will be threatened beyond our current ability to protect them, particularly with the specter of multiple wind-driven fires. This is when you need peak reserves and surge capacity. The question is whether Californians are willing to pay for this kind of protection.
San Diego experienced some extraordinary fires in 2007. There is much talk about the need to create a properly funded regional fire authority in San Diego. What are the politics of the challenges facing San Diego County jurisdictions when they raise the specter of adding to their fire capacity and consolidating fire departments?
A chief problem is that there hasn't been a county fire department in over 30 years. Instead, we have a mishmash of 65 fire agencies, mostly small, understaffed, under-equipped, and heavily reliant upon volunteers in the fire-prone East County area. Even the largest agencies are inadequate. The city of San Diego's Fire/Rescue Department, one of the nation's smallest on a per capita basis with, only 46 stations serving a population of 1.3 million residents, is 22 fire stations short of meeting minimal national accreditation standards.
In San Diego there is a long history of valuing local control. Consolidation-notwithstanding its greater efficiency and effectiveness-threatens this decentralized status quo. We've been talking consolidation in San Diego for 15 years or more. Finally, there is a plan for 12 small, largely volunteer, fire departments to consolidate. While needed, this is only a baby step toward adequate regional fire protection. One huge challenge is the region's toxic anti-tax political culture, which makes it difficult for San Diego politicians to ask voters for things like a fire-safety parcel tax such as Los Angeles has. Ominously, a San Diego County grand jury just issued a report claiming that San Diego remains dangerously unprepared for the next big fire.
Give our readers some historical context-post-Prop. 13-of why it's so difficult to raise the revenues to take action to respond to immediate threats.
A series of voter-approved state initiatives, particularly Props. 13 and 218, have made it much more difficult to raise revenues for things like fire protection. Now, a two-thirds vote is required for new local taxes and fees, and tax hikes. This is particularly difficult to achieve in anti-tax San Diego. After the disastrous 2003 Cedar Fire, city voters twice failed to approve hotel tax increases-basically on out-of-town visitors-targeted at increased fire protection. The powerful local hotel industry lavishly contributed funds to defeat these measures, and recently got the city council to approve a hotel tax increase devoted to tourist marketing, not fire protection.
Compare San Diego with Los Angeles County. Are there any lessons to be learned?
Yes, there are lessons to be learned. Los Angeles County demonstrates that even in the fiscally challenging post-Prop. 13 environment, leadership and extensive public education can make a critical difference. In the late 1990s, L.A. County voters approved an earmarked tax for increased fire protection.
Los Angeles has a long history of leadership and of voters willing to pay for needed services, whether its emergency services and trauma centers or fire protection. It's all about public officials stepping to the plate and educating the public. Such a parcel tax can be sold as an inexpensive fire insurance policy. In San Diego, the culture is so relentlessly anti-tax that no elected official even wants to use the "t" word. Taxes are third rail of San Diego politics-touch it and you're dead politically. San Diego also expects others to come help fight local wildfires-CAL FIRE, the U.S. Forest Service, and mutual aid pacts with other California local fire departments. These agencies are expected to provide the firefighting capability that we are unwilling to pay for. The problem is these assets frequently arrive too late to stop a wildfire before it turns into a conflagration. There is a lot of grumbling among fire agencies throughout California that mutual aid with San Diego largely works one way.
San Diego is a large county with 18 jurisdictions within its borders. Is funding fire protection simply a problem of where the assets should be allocated? Is that why there's resistance to a strong county fire authority?
It's only partly a question of asset allocation. There's a widespread belief in San Diego that there's a lot of waste in government, and that we can consolidate fire departments without putting any new revenues or resources into the mix. The irony is that San Diego is the perfect laboratory for a regional approach to fire protection-a single county, bounded by the ocean, Mexico, and mountains to the north and the east, and with only 18 cities. Yet there are 65 understaffed and under-equipped local fire agencies in the region. Even if they were all consolidated into a super regional agency, far more resources would be needed to bring San Diego up to the fire-fighting standard of Los Angeles and Orange counties. L.A. spends 40 percent more per capita on fire safety than tax-resistant San Diego does. In the meantime, San Diego is an accident waiting to happen in terms of the next big one.
CAL FIRE manages San Diego's fire protection. How is CAL FIRE governed? What are its policies? Why can't it be relied upon in San Diego?
CAL FIRE reports to Sacramento, not to City Hall in San Diego or to the County Administration Building. Part of the problem with having CAL FIRE as the lead organization is that it doesn't always consult and coordinate with other fire agencies. And, because it's a state agency, it's also responsible for fighting fires throughout the state. Its deployment depends upon the statewide, not local, situation. Today, CAL FIRE is in Northern California fighting fires. What San Diego needs to do is create at least a fire authority so that overall planning, command, control and deployment remains local, responding to local needs.
Lastly, why is it that fire prevention lags behind fire destruction in California and in San Diego?
Fire prevention is like water conservation. We give it lip service, but we need to do more, for example, with things like fuel management, which includes vegetation, building design, and yard debris. Yet fuel management is no substitute for devoting far more resources to firefighting. What we are seeing in Northern California today is a preview of coming attractions. The climate is changing, rainfall patterns are changing, and we're likely to have more episodes of multiple wildfires occurring over a much longer fire season. California, and San Diego in particular, needs to get serious about planning for worst-case scenarios.
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