Forest Service and L.A. County fire officials downsized the fight before the blaze intensified. Fewer water-dropping helicopters and ground crews were requested after progress was made the first day.
By Paul Pringle
8:00 PM PDT, September 26, 2009
U.S. Forest Service officials underestimated the threat posed by the deadly Station fire and scaled back their attack on the blaze the night before it began to rage out of control, records and interviews show.
In response to Times inquiries, officials for the Forest Service and Los Angeles County Fire Department said they probably will change their procedures so that the two agencies immediately stage a joint assault on any fire in the lower Angeles National Forest.
Angeles Forest Fire Chief David Conklin said his staff was confident that the Station fire had been "fairly well contained" on the first day, so it decided that evening to order just three water-dropping helicopters to hit the blaze shortly after dawn on its second day -- down from five on Day One -- and prepared to go into mop-up mode with fewer firefighters on the ground.
The Forest Service realized overnight that three helicopters would not be enough, and brought in two more later in the morning, Conklin said. More engine companies and ground crews were also summoned, but it would prove too late.
"We felt we had sufficient resources," Conklin said. "There's always that lesson. We'll always have that in the back of our minds."
On the second day of the blaze, which started Aug. 26, the county Fire Department lent the Forest Service a heli-tanker, but denied its request for another smaller chopper. Chief Deputy John Tripp, the No. 2 official in the department, said he made that decision because he did not believe the fire was endangering neighborhoods near its suspected ignition point above La Cañada-Flintridge, and because the county must hold on to some helicopters for other emergencies. Helicopters are often key to corralling wildfires early on.
"If there was a threat that morning to the community of La Cañada . . . we would have dispatched more helicopters," Tripp said.
In the future, he said, setting up a joint command with the Forest Service as soon as a fire breaks out -- including possibly at high elevations -- should make it easier for the agencies to muster each other's helicopters, engines and ground crews. Currently, joint commands are established only if a blaze presents an imminent threat to foothill communities.
"We have to be that much more robust in our response," Tripp said. "That's what, on a personal note, I have learned from this."
On the first day, the Forest Service determined that the Station firecould be controlled by the following afternoon, with no buildings lost and with minimal harm to the natural treasures of the San Gabriel Mountains, according to documents and officials.
By nightfall on Day Two, the fire was burning nearly unchecked into the forest, despite low winds. The conflagration would become the largest in the county's recorded history, blackening more than 160,000 acres of chaparral and centuries-old trees, destroying dozens of dwellings and killing two county firefighters, who died when their truck fell off a mountain road.
The county department bolstered the Forest Service's first-day response in the belief that the fire imperiled county territory. The county sent five helicopters -- one a command ship that directs the drops -- five engines and four hand crews, officials said. Once it became clear that the fire was within the Forest Service's jurisdiction, the officials said, the county was required to await requests from the federal agency for help on subsequent days.
A veteran county fire official who took part in the first day's battle said he was disheartened that his department was not brought back at similar strength the next morning.
"There was a real window of opportunity that wasn't recognized or acted on," said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. "Every brush fire starts out small. Either you extinguish the damn thing or it goes a few days and you have a major disaster."
Conklin said that, after the county rejected the request for the second chopper on Day Two, the Forest Service began diverting helicopters from a fire near Morris Dam in the San Gabriels. It also ordered a heli-tanker from the Los Angeles Fire Department, officials said.
City Fire Capt. Steve Ruda said his department had more helicopters available on the second day. "I can't tell you why they weren't needed . . . why they didn't ask for the city birds," he said.
The state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection also had helicopters on hand, but was asked only for a tactical observation plane on the first two days of the Station fire, according to officials.
"They didn't really hit us up for heavy resources until the morning of the third day," said Janet Upton, spokeswoman for the state agency.
As the morning of Day Two unfolded, the fire spread up and down a steep canyon, and ground crews had trouble safely confronting it, officials said. "You just couldn't put people down-slope to fight that fire," Conklin said.
The Forest Service called in several more helicopters as well as heavy air tankers, but the fire already was multiplying in size, he said.
Some residents of the fire zone said they were baffled by the diminished air assault after sunup the second day.
"There were some decisions made that I would love to know," said Adi Ell-Ad, who lost his Big Tujunga Canyon home to the fire. "We really haven't gotten answers. We want to know what happened."
The suspected arson fire broke out at 3:20 p.m. on a Wednesday along Angeles Crest Highway. It took its name from the nearby Angeles Crest Ranger Station.
According to a Forest Service summary of the first day, the fire had been kept to 15 acres and was expected to be controlled by 1 p.m. the next day.
The summary is detailed in a document called an Incident Command System 209. The forms are snapshots of an emergency response and thus can convey inaccurate tallies of equipment and personnel over a longer period of time, especially when more than one agency is involved. The first 209 for the Station fire, for instance, does not include the five county helicopters that officials say were sent on Day One.
The 209 for the morning of the second day says the fire had grown to 40 acres, and threatened two ranger stations, an outdoor school, homes in the Arroyo Seco area and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It also lists as "critical resource needs" more helicopters, engines and ground crews.
But the morning summary still estimated that the blaze would be contained within three days, by Aug. 30, and it noted that the total number of personnel on the line -- from the Forest Service, county and other agencies -- had been reduced to 191 from 231 the day before.
An evening 209 for the second day is more dire. It says that the fire had swelled to 500 acres, that 510 firefighters were at the scene, and that the critical needs included heavy air tankers, in addition to more helicopters, engines and ground crews.
Even so, the document pushed back the expected containment time by just two days -- to Sept. 1.
Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 10:17 am Post subject: Fire
This story is a perfect example of why America needs daily, local newspapers. Neither CNN nor the weekly news magazines have the resources or the contacts to dig into an event like this one. _________________ "It is our task in our time and in our generation, to hand down undiminished to those who come after us, as was handed down to us by those who went before, the natural wealth and beauty which is ours."
Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 10:40 am Post subject: Re: Station fire's strength was miscalculated
Quote:
A veteran county fire official who took part in the first day's battle said he was disheartened that his department was not brought back at similar strength the next morning.
"There was a real window of opportunity that wasn't recognized or acted on," said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. "Every brush fire starts out small. Either you extinguish the damn thing or it goes a few days and you have a major disaster."
Conklin said that, after the county rejected the request for the second chopper on Day Two, the Forest Service began diverting helicopters from a fire near Morris Dam in the San Gabriels. It also ordered a heli-tanker from the Los Angeles Fire Department, officials said.
I'm having a hard time reconciling these comments. The veteran county official was disheartened his department wasn't called back. But Conklin says the county rejected the request for a second helo. What am I missing that would make this make sense?
Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:14 pm Post subject: Re: Station fire's strength was miscalculated
The second day effort was obviously downsized, and the County was not called in at the levels of the first day. I don't see any contradiction between that and a request at some point in the day for a helicopter. We are obviously missing some important details, though.
HikeUp wrote:
Quote:
A veteran county fire official who took part in the first day's battle said he was disheartened that his department was not brought back at similar strength the next morning.
"There was a real window of opportunity that wasn't recognized or acted on," said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. "Every brush fire starts out small. Either you extinguish the damn thing or it goes a few days and you have a major disaster."
Conklin said that, after the county rejected the request for the second chopper on Day Two, the Forest Service began diverting helicopters from a fire near Morris Dam in the San Gabriels. It also ordered a heli-tanker from the Los Angeles Fire Department, officials said.
I'm having a hard time reconciling these comments. The veteran county official was disheartened his department wasn't called back. But Conklin says the county rejected the request for a second helo. What am I missing that would make this make sense?
Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 4:59 pm Post subject: Re: Station fire's strength was miscalculated
HikeUp wrote:
I'm having a hard time reconciling these comments. The veteran county official was disheartened his department wasn't called back. But Conklin says the county rejected the request for a second helo. What am I missing that would make this make sense?
I agree - if I'm reading this article correctly, it seems there are some contradictory statements or miscommunications at minimum between the various agencies that SHOULD be working together, something they clearly are not doing.
And if it's really true that on the second day/morning of the fire, it was only at 40 acres - something REALLY seems wrong.
Ok, and even though they surely had some different circumstances - how in the world was the Morris Dam fire put out with such relative ease and speed, yet the Station fire went wild? Weren't these fires in and around the same day, two at the most?
I'm really starting to think they realized 'city' homes weren't seriously threatened - and they just said 'fvck it' from there - who cares if those mountains burn, they're just mountains afterall. Trees, brush, ahhhhh, they will grow back '
Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 6:19 pm Post subject: Re: Station fire's strength was miscalculated
outwhere wrote:
I'm really starting to think they realized 'city' homes weren't seriously threatened - and they just said 'fvck it' from there - who cares if those mountains burn, they're just mountains afterall. Trees, brush, ahhhhh, they will grow back
I think that anyone who has worked with wildfires knows that any sizable fire in an area as dry as ours, with temperatures as high as those that prevailed at the end of August, and as close to foothill cities as this one was from the get-go, is a serious threat to large numbers of homes and businesses. Mistakes were obviously made, but I don't think that they just let it burn.
Station fire victims call for U.S. probe into Forest Service's response
Residents are critical of the agency's decision to scale back an attack on the blaze on the night before it began to burn out of control. Two firefighters were killed in the wildfire.
By Paul Pringle
September 29, 2009
Big Tujunga Canyon residents and others reeling from the Station fire called Monday for a federal investigation into what they termed a poor initial response to the deadly blaze by the U.S. Forest Service .
"It was beyond irresponsibility, beyond neglect," said Cindy Marie Pain, who lost her Big Tujunga Canyon home to the fire, which broke out in the Angeles National Forest on Aug. 26.
Pain and other residents said they were outraged by a Times article Sunday that reported the Forest Service had underestimated the danger posed by the fire and scaled back an attack on the flames the night before the blaze began to rage out of control.
"When it's small, that's when you jump on it," said Bronwen Aker, a Vogel Flats resident who set up a website, www.angelesrising.org, for fire victims.
Her home was spared, but those of many of her neighbors were destroyed.
"A lot of residents are incredibly embittered about the way it was handled," Aker said.
Bob Kerstein, who lost a cabin and a house on gold-mining property that his family owns in the forest, said Congress should investigate the Forest Service's tactics.
"It's crazy what happened here," he said. "There are a lot of heroes in this -- the firefighters who were on the line. But the people who should be held accountable are the people who made the decision not to put the fire out in the 48 hours after it started."
Leo Grillo, an actor who runs an animal sanctuary that was threatened by the blaze, said any investigation should also examine the lack of a more aggressive air assault later in the fire, especially when it appeared to have flagged on Day Five.
"They had the golden opportunity to put it out and they didn't," he said.
The Times reported that the Forest Service had been confident that the fire was nearly contained on the first day, and the agency decided that evening to order just three water-dropping helicopters to hit the blaze shortly after dawn on its second day -- down from five on Day One, documents and interviews show.
The Forest Service also prepared to go into mop-up mode with fewer firefighters on the ground, according to records and officials.
Early in the morning on the second day, the Forest Service realized that three helicopters would not be enough and summoned two more later in the morning, Angeles Forest Fire Chief David Conklin said. More engine companies and ground crews were also deployed, but it would prove too late.
On Day Two, the Los Angeles County Fire Department lent the Forest Service a heli-tanker but denied a request for another smaller chopper -- an action that residents say should be reviewed. Chief Deputy John Tripp, the No. 2 official in the county department, said he withheld the second aircraft because he did not believe the fire was endangering neighborhoods near its suspected ignition point above La Cañada Flintridge, and because the county must hold on to some helicopters for other emergencies.
The Station fire would become the largest in the county's recorded history, blackening more than 160,000 acres of the forest, destroying dozens of dwellings and killing two county firefighters who died when their truck fell off a mountain road.
Conklin and Tripp told The Times they probably will change their procedures so that the two agencies immediately stage a joint assault on any fire in the lower Angeles.
Several foothill residents have expressed suspicions that the Forest Service let the fire burn early on as a way to clear dry brush, and that the decision not to bring in more aircraft and firefighters for the second morning was based on cost concerns.
Forest Service officials have said both notions are false.
On Monday night, residents packed a Tujunga meeting hall to ask fire officials if more could have been done to save homes. The gathering became contentious at times.
Tripp said the county did the best it could without putting firefighters' lives in jeopardy.
"If anybody thinks we take this lightly, we don't," he said in an emotional voice.
But Rob Driscoll, whose Vogel Flats home burned, was not satisfied.
"We're angry and we need better answers than we've gotten tonight," Driscoll said.
I was there thinking they were going to talk about the area and roads
Heres what I got from it:
Once the fire(a spotfire) went up above the Angeles Crest, there was basically no firefight until MtGleason...as in nada,zilch,zero.
The low point(as the fire approaced the SG wilderness) was when they had to seriously consider the entire forest was going to burn and plan to defend along Hwy15.
I had written a lengthy post but got caught by this forums timeout period It was a tough,somewhat emotional meeting. The article mentions a lack of answers, well, there are no answers that they want to give other than blame something or someone else or state false info.
In case anyone else was there, I asked them who from the forest service was in on the team to fight the fire, and the answer was the district ranger for the LA river ranger district, given as William Spyrison...well a couple of bulldozers east of MtLukens summit was all that separated the fire from MtGleason and the Big Tujunga area.
Last edited by AW on Tue Sep 29, 2009 1:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:34 am Post subject: Computer trick
AW wrote:
I had written a lengthy post but got caught by this forums timeout period
Type your post into Word or Notepad. Then, just copy and paste into the message. No running into the timeout.
_________________ "It is our task in our time and in our generation, to hand down undiminished to those who come after us, as was handed down to us by those who went before, the natural wealth and beauty which is ours."
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It was a tough,somewhat emotional meeting. The article mentions a lack of answers, well, there are no answers that they want to give other than blame something or someone else or state false info.