Post on 29-Jun-2019
transcript
P A G E 2
California Fire Chiefs
Association
Fire Districts Association of
California FIRESCOPE
League of California Cities
California Metropolitan
Fire Chiefs Association
Who We Are
California Professional
Firefighters
California State
Firefighters Association
P A G E 3
“Things have changed in the last 50 years, and
before we depended on mutual aid to get us
mutual aid in first 12 to 24 hours. Now we need
them in first minutes to hours.”
- Fire Chief Jeff Carman, Metro Fire Chiefs Association(CBS Sacramento, 2/27/18)
P A G E 5
Increasing temperatures, more
frequent “record highs”
2013-14 driest year on record;
worst drought in last 1200 years2016-17 wettest year
on record since 1895
More extreme precipitation
(“atmospheric rivers”)
Smaller snowpack,
earlier spring snowmelt
More high-wind events later in
“second wildfire season”
(December)
Increase in Natural Disasters from
Extreme Weather PatternsTHE CHALLENGE
P A G E 6
Wildfire season in Western U.S. has
increased from 138 days in 1970s
to 222 days (+84 days)
Average burn time of large fires
(1,000+ acres) has increased during past
40 years from six days to 52 days
2010-2016:
100 million+ dead trees; 20x increase
in annual tree mortality
More than 2 million households
(15% of all CA households) at
high or extreme risk from wildfires
Since 2000
• 14 of 20 LARGEST wildfires in CA history
• 12 of 20 MOST DESTRUCTIVE wildfires in CA history
October 2017 – among the most destructive wildfires in CA history
• Tubbs = 5,636 structures lost (1st)
• Nuns = 1,355 structures lost (6th)
• Atlas = 783 structures lost (10th)
• Redwood Valley = 546 structures lost (16th)
Worsening Fire ConditionsTHE CHALLENGE
P A G E 7
I. First Responders (Local)
II. Mutual Aid/Automatic Aid (Regional)
III. Intra-State Requests (State)
IV. Inter-State Requests (Regional)
V. National/Military Assistance (Federal) Ca
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Federal Response
Regional / Mutual Response Systems
State Response
Increasing magnitude and severity
Local Response, Municipal and County
Minimal Low Medium High Catastrophic
Source: Cal OES
Tiered response based
on severity
HOW WE RESPOND TO DISASTERS
P A G E 8
Cal OES
LOCAL FEDERAL & MILITARY
WHO DOES WHAT
STATE
• Manages Mutual Aid System
▪ Processes request
▪ Deploys local mutual aid resources
▪ Reimburses local agencies
▪ Provides state-purchased
equipment and apparatus
• Fire protection in State Responsibility Area
(SRA), except for six “contract counties”
CAL FIRE
• Provides disaster response support and
funding
• Responds until they reach capacity of
local resources
• Participates in Mutual Aid System to
request and provide help to other
agencies
▪ 86% percent of available fire
engines are owned by local
government
California’s Mutual Aid SystemA NATIONAL MODEL
Includes
1,100 fire departments &
55,000+ firefighters
Nearly 6,000 apparatus
available statewide
Can mobilize
500 apparatus within 12 hrs &
another 500 within 24 hrs
200-250 Strike Team/Task
Forces
(~5 engines and staff)
Cal OES has 166 apparatus,
plus 195 assigned to local
governments
(engines, communications units, swift water
rescue, urban search and rescue)
USFS (Dept. of Agriculture)
• Responsible for the US Forest lands in
California
• Send/receive strike teams for California
incidents
P A G E 9
• Mutual Aid System is stressed
• Not enough resources, as local agencies are less able to export equipment and staff
▪ In 2003, the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Commission recommended OES purchase 150 engines (in addition
to existing 100 engines) – funding has only allowed for purchase of 44.
• Mutual Aid requests in 2017 totaled 36,000, 11,000 (31%) went unfilled
• Updates needed to Mutual Aid system (compacts, communications interoperability)
• No operational or funding mechanism for “pre-positioning” local resources through Mutual Aid system because
it is a “reactive” system
Year 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Engine/WT 134 214 403 958 3,029 6,134
Overhead 1,073 1,404 2,315 4,758 4,034 4,867
Total 1,207 1,618 2,718 5,716 7,063 11,018
California Fire & Rescue Mutual Aid System | Unable to Fill Resource
Summary
BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE RESPONSE TO INCREASED NATURAL DISASTERS
P A G E 10PRE-POSITIONING
Definition: Request and deploy Mutual Aid before a disaster incident, utilizing National Weather Service
“Red Flag Warnings” or extreme weather advisories of hot/dry/wet/high wind conditions
• Resources in place to provide immediate, effective response (attack),
mitigate loss of lives and property
• Effectively used by CAL FIRE prior to position resources in advance of
extreme weather, such as Santa Ana winds and hot/dry conditions
• Used in Ventura County before Thomas Fire and Montecito mudslide
▪ Additional 24 engines based on wind advisory before Thomas Fire
▪ OES prepositioned 29-member Regional Urban Search and Rescue
Task force before heavy rains that led to the Montecito mudslide
P A G E 11
“Prepositioned equipment could have made a huge
difference. Even if it did not stop it, we would have had
more equipment to help people evacuate and defend
communities that were just decimated.”
- Santa Rosa Fire Chief Anthony Gossner(Santa Rosa Press Democrat, 3/1/18)
P A G E 12NEEDED FUNDING
$87 million to reimburse local governments for
costs to pre-position resources in high-risk areas
prior to the onset of extreme weather conditions
(wind, heavy rain and “red flag” fire conditions)
The $100 million budget augmentation for FY 2018-2019:
$13 million for improved communications
technologies to allow more efficient and effective
resource deployment
▪ Convert local fire agencies to a GPS-linked
communications system – Automatic Vehicle
Location (AVL)
▪ Replacement of the Resource Ordering and Status
System for dispatching resources for large-scale
disasters
▪ Bring in additional personnel to regional dispatch
centers
▪ Improved technologies to alert communities of
approaching threats
P A G E 14
• http://news.mit.edu/2017/more-extreme-storms-ahead-california-0103
• https://oehha.ca.gov/media/downloads/climate-change/document-climate-change/climatechangecaliforniabibliography2016.pdf
• https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/wildfires-west-have-gotten-bigger-more-frequent-and-longer-1980s
• http://www.fire.ca.gov/treetaskforce/downloads/TMTFMaterials/Facts_and_Figures.pdf (Page 7)
• https://www.iii.org/issue-update/background-on-wildfires
• http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/Safety/Panel%201%20-%20Tyler.pdf
• https://www.firescope.org/meetings/bod/2018/bod_meeting1/documents/California%20Fire%20%20Rescue%20Mutual%20Aid%20System%20S
ummit%20Minutes%20-%20July%202017%20up....pdf
• https://www.firescope.org/blue-ribbon/BlueRibbonRept.pdf
• http://www.oesnews.com/swiftwater-teams-deployed-to-socal-for-mudslide-response-efforts/
• Zagaris 2017 CFED Fire Chiefs Summit Cal OES Zagaris PDF
• Cal OES, CA Fire & Rescue Mutual Aid PPT
ReferencesAPPENDIX A