Horse Thief Fire

July 2006

After Action Report

 

Craig Williams, Campo CA

 

This After Action Report is a summary of a Community meeting held on August 11. 2006, at the Campo Community Center. Present at this meeting were, citizens, representatives from San Diego County Office of Emergency Services (OES), California Division of Forestry (CDF), San Diego County Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), and Campo Fire and Rescue. Representatives from the Mountain Empire Bioterrorism and Disaster Defense Team, Campo Lake Morena Disaster Preparedness Committee, the Potrero Disaster Preparedness Committee and local CERT Teams. Father Joes Flying A Ranch, Lake Morena Community Church, and the LDS Church.

 

Index

Area reports                                                                          Page Number

 

Stacy Magoffin, Dulzura/Barrett Junction.                          2

Brenda Wise, Potrero.                                                         3

Craig Williams, Campo / Lake Morena.                             5

Roger Challberg, RACES.                                                   7

 

Meeting comments.                                                                          8

 

Meeting summary, areas for improvement.                                   9

 

 

 

Note: Area reports are presented as received. Meeting comments and the meeting summary are taken from notes and edited by this reports author.

 

 

Horse Thief Fire Debriefing - July 2006

Stacy Magoffin, Dulzura/Barrett Junction

 

Things that went well:

 

  1. Communication to the Potrero/Tecate Disaster Chair to activate their phone trees and neighbor to neighbor program and other disaster chairs (Boulevard, Jacumba, Campo/Lake Morena, Descanso, Pine Valley, Guatay, Alpine, Jamul, Dulzura).
  2. Communication with Office of Emergency Services-updates from briefings, County web site, rumor control.  OES helped facilitate so we could get e-mails directly from the CDF’s Public Information Officer (PIO).
  3. Communications with American Red Cross to set up a shelter in Alpine and an overflow shelter at the LDS Church along with rumor control.  Phone numbers were given to me of new people in charge when Andy was gone so the communications could continue.
  4. When e-mail is working it is a great way to help with rumor control so the phone lines remained freed up to do other tasks.
  5. Reverse 911 worked.
  6. People taking turns monitoring so others could get some rest and letting people know.
  7. Communications from Alpine to see what they could do help with anyone’s needs.
  8. Hospitality of communities to firefighters and agencies.
  9. San Diego County’s web site was a good source for info, accurate and updated quickly.
  10. Red Cross’s web site had good info on the shelters, locations and when they would be open and closed along with contact info.
  11. Gained more contact info with other hams and more folks from Descanso.

 

 

Lessons Learned:

  1. Media—the media gets their info from the Sheriff’s Department. or the PIO from CDF or the fire agency involved.  The Sheriff’s Department. and CDF have different levels of evacuation which caused confusion.  Sheriff’s Department. has 3 levels (advisory, voluntary, and mandatory), but CDF only has 2 levels (voluntary and mandatory).
  2. CDF, Cleveland National Forest, and Sheriff’s don’t have the same language when talking about evacuations.  CNF put up notices in Potrero after the advisories had been lifted.
  3. Stacy goofed and did not give an explanation to the Disaster Chairs when she started sending out e-mails for updates to forward them on to their community disaster folks and key community people.
  4. When Stacy did send the e-mail updates to Campo chair (Craig Williams) he didn’t have time to deal with checking his e-mail and forwarding them on.  Next time another key person on the Campo disaster team will also receive those e-mails and be tasked with that.
  5. Reverse 911 does not work on blocked numbers and didn’t reach some residents in Potrero.
  6. Animal Services and Humane Society will not let you personally transport your animals to one of their sites unless you are in the mandatory evacuation area and have called their hotline.
  7. The person answering CDF’s Horse Fire hotline could not answer questions for awhile and Brenda Wise (Potrero/Tecate Chair) knew more than him and he referred people to her.
  8. Community disaster people were not aware of what Red Cross could provide to firefighters, etc.  (i.e.  Hot meals versus cold meals), so Red Cross was not aware of the local needs.  CDF continually told Red Cross that they didn’t need anything.
  9. CDF’s web site was not updated even though the web site said it was.
  10. Animal Rescue folks listed on the phone tree did not let the chair person know that they weren’t available or were doing other tasks with the fire.  So, the chair person ended up doing most of the animal rescue stuff.
  11. People were not aware that Craig has had the sdcountyemergency.com link on the campofire.org site for a long time.
  12. Need to establish ham communications with the Red Cross.  Andy McKellar, ARC General Response Mgr., says that is not a problem for the next time.
  13. Need to educate the public on the limitations of the reverse 911 system.
  14. Mountain Empire High School needs to have direct communications with our committee or put on our e-mail list for updates.

 

 

 

Horse Fire After Action Report

July 23-30,2006

Brenda Wise, Potrero

 

  1. I began monitoring my scanner at 8:30am July 23rd and heard about the fire in Horse Thief Canyon.
  2. While I was outside looking to see exactly where the fire was, Jacquie tried to reach me, and reached my answering machine.
  3. In accordance with our plan, she is to contact Stacy if she can’t reach me. This is exactly what she did, and she received the fire info from Stacy until she was in contact with me.
  4. Thereafter, I was in contact with Stacy, monitored scanners, and passed on info to our team.
  5. We activated our initial neighbor-to-neighbor plan and called our Core team and neighborhood reps. giving them a heads up about the fire. As things progressed the entire N/N list was activated and all calls were made to the residents.
  6. Hours before Potrero was put on an advisory status, I received a frantic call (from a neighbor) saying the Sheriff was telling people to evacuate. I called the Sheriff’s office since nothing was said over the scanner. I was informed by Mary at the Sheriff’s office that they knew nothing of a current threat to Potrero and had sent no one out to notify residents. At that time Mary added me to her official list to be notified if any news concerning Potrero was put through the Sheriff’s office. (This proved to be a GREAT contact source.)
  7. Later our local deputy called me and said he was the one that was talking to residents, but he was only making them aware of the fire and it’s potential. He also said the fire was already in Hauser Canyon and moving rapidly. (It seems the locals consider everything from the North ridge by Jamul to Potrero to be Hauser Canyon.) Our team spent several hours calming the panic and assuring residents that the Fire authorities advised the fire WAS NOT in Hauser Canyon at that time.
  8. Our team made update calls to approximately 120 families.  From July 23rd -July 29th, Regular updates were given each morning, afternoon, and evening, with special updates called out when needed.
  9. When the Advisory was announced for Potrero, I was notified by the Sheriff’s Dept. they would be initiating the Reverse 911 system. The Advisory was only to be for Horizon View, Round Potrero, and Long Potrero areas. Since the reverse 911 system is not set up for just notifying certain areas, they activated the system for all of Potrero.
  10. Some residents did not receive the 911 call due to their numbers being blocked, or they had no answering machine and were away from their phone. Deputies were called in from surrounding areas to go door to door (as the automated system said they would) but being unfamiliar with Potrero they missed MANY residents and went to many of the same places several times. Some of these Deputies advised residents they only had 1 hour to get out.
  11. News media consistently broadcast incorrect information.
  12. Again, many hours were spent on calls to calm the panic.

 

 

 

Good things from this experience:    

1.      Excellent test of our neighbor-to-neighbor system

2.      Discovered some things that need to be changed such as notifying the person who calls you, anytime you leave the area and whether you want your updates on your cell.

3.      Several of our neighborhood reps. notified us when they had to be away from home, asked that they be updated on their cell and they took their call list with them and still made their calls.

4.      Made valuable contacts with Sheriff’s Dept., OES, and Post Office. Jonathan Hardy from Sen. Duchenys office provided Stacy and I a contact with Forest Service for official updates.

5.      Found that with teamwork we could have people monitoring the radios 24/7. (I slept with my radio on and awoke to every transmission).

6.      By having 2 phone lines set up at home, I had one line just for Stacy, the Sheriff’s Dept. and Jacquie to reach me on. (Our own version of the Presidents Red phone). The regular phone was the number everyone else called on and when I was on the Red phone, my husband answered the calls on the other phone and passed on any new info to the callers.

7.      We found that FRS/GMRS radios worked great where cell phones didn’t, such as when Lee would go to the top of rocks to watch the fire progression, or had to drive to neighbors who had no phone, we used the radios to keep each other updated.

8.      Our community agrees the most reliable information came through our Disaster Team.

9.      Community members baked goodies for the fire crews as a thank you for their hard work.

 

 

 

Problems we need to work on:

  1. Ensuring all information passed on is clearly understood
  2. Communication system if phones are down (we are working on a FRS/GMRS to Ham radio relay)
  3. Need a contact with Animal Control so they don’t drive aimlessly around roads looking for people with animals.
  4. Getting correct info to people who are not on our lists. (We are going to put an Emergency bulletin board at the Potrero General Store, to post updates)
  5. Ensuring everyone knows that if they are aware of a situation and have not received a call then they should not wait, they should initiate a call to their rep. or the next higher person on the call list.
  6. Iron out problems with the reverse 911 system and local officials.

 

 

 

Horse Fire

July 23 though July 26, 2006

Major Events Log

 

Craig Williams
Campo Fire PAO, RACES, Campo / Lake Morena Disaster Chair

 

July 23. 06:30. Became aware of the fire. Advised Stacy and Roger. Monitored fire and Ham radios from home as the fire was too far from the Campo / Lake Morena area to be of concern to us. Advised RACES of conditions via Red 1, RACES Ham Radio Frequency.

 

July 24. 08:00 Strike teams formed from local fire departments.

09:00 re-programmed Campo Fire VHF radios in the field due to change in air to ground frequencies by USFS.

10:30 Activated Campo Fire EOC. Established radio communications with RACES on Red 1, Roger at Lake Morena County Park EOC and San Diego County RACES at the County EOC.

12:08 Guaty and Pine Valley put on advisory evacuation.

1:18 Phone message from Patty. Animal Rescue Reserve (ARR) is looking for guides to rescue animals from Crota Madera area.

1:20 Contacted Pete from ARR on Red 1. They cannot evacuate animals from any area East of Campo. Are staging at Cameron Corners. Currently have no orders or information to evacuate animals.

 

Spent the rest of the afternoon supporting Campo Fire. Roger is monitoring RACES traffic. Received many calls all day from the communities of Potrero, Campo and Lake Morena on the status of the fire and evacuation orders. A number of community members dropped by for information on the fire and to get their scanners programmed.

6:36 Secured the Campo Fire EOC. Station information phone now manned by Firefighters.

 

July 25. 08:30 Activated Campo Fire EOC.

09:00 ARR called on Red 1 looking for a staging area. Advised them to stage across from the Community Center where they did during last years drill. Also advised the Community Center would be open for cool zone and restrooms.

09:00 though 11:00. Many phone calls back and forth between Stacy, Roger and myself on status of evacuation orders.

6:30 Secured Campo Fire EOC

 

July 26. Monitored radio traffic from home till 10:00. As our area was pretty much out of danger, picked up Larry (K7URR) and toured Lake Morena County Park, Flying A Ranch and ARR Staging area near the Community Center. Wrap-up and lunch with the Auxiliary, Campos strike team at the Flying A Ranch.

13:00. Secured operations

 

What went Right

 

Radio Communications. The Emergency Operations Centers (EOC’s) at the Campo Fire Station and Lake Morena County Parks worked as designed. Operators were able to communicate with each other, RACES / County OES, Animal Rescue, and Hams in the Area and throughout the fire area. Public Service radios at Campo Fire and Lake Morena County Park were able to communicate with their attached agencies, fire and parks. Further, Craig, Roger and Larry were able to keep up with events from their home stations when not physically at the EOC’s.

 

Phone Trees. The phone trees from the Disaster Committees were used and effective.

 

Logistics. Were superb! Between the Campo Fire Auxiliary and the Flying A Ranch staff and volunteers every request for logistics, including water, medical supplies and feeding of volunteers and Firefighters was met promptly.

 

Community Notification. In spite of the comments by some in the community, those who have been paying attention the past six years knew who to call for fire information and assistance.

 

What we missed

 

From my side, I should have asked for a second operator at the Campo Fire EOC. I was able to handle the major events but missed some radio calls and did not make a good events/radio log.  As a result I was not in control of my EOC as I should have been let alone in charge of the overall community effort. Roger and Larry performed duplicate monitoring efforts at the Lake Morena County Park and at home so I don’t think we missed anything critical but, we could have been better coordinated.

 

Coordination of Resources. We sort of didn’t. There were people doing things well but the overall coordination between areas was hit and miss. We need an overall Incident Logistics Commander who does nothing but keep track of the many community based “incidents”. People were setting up feeding stations, receiving donations, opening cool zones and other GREAT projects without coordinating their efforts with a central person / position.

 

Communications. We lost touch with some of the community Disaster Team members due to poor cell coverage. Need to assign more Ham operators and get our Red Dot / FRS radio systems in place for non-Hams.

 

CERT. We forgot to call out our CERT Teams. Most of them were there and involved in the efforts above but, I didn’t see any green vests or hear about any CERT organized efforts. Next time we need to find a CERT member who is not involved in communications, EOC, animal rescue or logistics, to gather up the remaining CERT members and incorporate them in the overall effort.

 

 

 

From: ROGER CHALLBERG

Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 5:36 PM

To: Karen Parker, OES

Cc: Gerry Sandford, RACES; Craig A. Williams RACES

Subject: Horse Fire

 

Karen,

    In response to your request to Gerry Sandford I will try and give you brief overview of  areas of improvement. First of all I would like to express my appreciation to OES for their help during the fire. From Sunday on I was able to check rumors and keep on top of the situation with help from John & Tom from OES.

 

Communications:

    On Sunday deputies in the field were being told to evacuate lake Morena Village. A quick phone call to OES, John, got the SDSO watch commander to clear that up to the field. I believe that if we would have had either Echo III or RACES One in the field (Lake Morena) we could have had a place for the SO officers to get direct information without tying up 800 frequencies. Several deputies came to my location needing information.

    Reverse 911 worked well except initial message sent out to some of the residents indicated that the evacuation was mandatory ( again this was quickly corrected by a phone call to OES ) . We did have some residents who got the first phone call and immediately evacuated. I have talked to several who did that and they have no bad feelings and said they would have left anyway because of the smoke and flames. Some SO personnel drove through the streets of the village announcing on their loud speakers " voluntary evacuation" unfortunately due quality of speakers and built in fear factor - a number of people heard only the word "evacuation" and packed up and left. Here again a visible communication center like Echo III might have been a help. Much praise for the reverse 911 by all I have talked to.

 

Logistics:

     Food- with the main camp miles away - many of the firefighters were fed by locals (Campo fire auxiliary & Father Joe's people) This was I feel the area where the IC should have planned for field kitchens ( contract, Red Cross, Salvation army) to set up out here. Potable toilets would have helped as well. Again a breakdown of communications as to who should have been requesting the logistical help.

 

I would repeat that as a veteran of many back country fires over the last 15 + years we did quite well as combined agencies. I was especially proud of my "Hams" who as  team worked with myself at the Lake Morena  County Park EOC using RACES equipment and Craig Williams who manned the Campo Fire Station EOC (equipped by donations by local hams)- We need to get some kind of identification for all of the people that we used ( the only person with proper ID was myself )- I would hope that Wireless will consider getting some clerical help to open up the log jam of RACES applications -some who have had their applications in for several years. Hope this is of help,

 

Roger W, Challberg KB6JKP -S45M  RACES eastern assistant area manager

 

 

 

 

Meeting Comments

 

Comments from attendees who did not submit written reports. ( Not all the comments but ones I felt were important to list. Author.)

 

Office of Emergency Services. Is working to insure OES and the various public service agencies clarify the definitions of “evacuation”. Advised people to be aware of the telephone “2-1-1” system where non emergency information is available, from live operators, 24/7. Their website is  http://www.211sandiego.org/211/. Will work on getting the OES emergency website updated faster during emergencies. It’s web address is http://www.sdcountyemergency.com/ . ( OES has a draft After Action Report. We will try and get the final report when it is complete.)

 

LDS Church and Ham Radio Operators. In conjunction with the American Red Cross (ARC) the LDS Church in Alpine opened an evacuation shelter. Local LDS Ham radio operators in Alpine and Descanso were activated. The ARC does not allow small animals in their shelters but at the LDS Church a fenced area was setup for small animals.

 

Lake Morena Community Church. This local church was open to community members and firefighters. The church is equipped with restrooms, showers, and a small kitchen. Father Joes “lunch wagon”, operated by the Flying A Ranch staff, provided meals to anyone. Cell phone coverage is poor in this area.

 

Flying A Ranch. This facility is the Campo / Lake Morena area animal evacuation center. As there were no animal evacuations of note the ranch was used to feed local citizens and fire strike teams in the area. The ranch is fully equipped with a kitchen, 2 large ranch houses, beds, showers, restrooms, and animal pens for large and small animals. They used their fire scanners to track the progress of the fire.

 

Freedom Ranch. This rehab facility has been a part of the Campo Lake Morena Disaster Committee since its inception. Although not directly involved in the fire, they activated their disaster plan and made provisions for evacuations if necessary.

 

Authors Summary from meeting notes.

Areas for Improvement

 

Communications:

With citizens. Needs a lot of work. The most effective first step would be for all communities to setup a Neighbor to Neighbor system like the one in Potrero. Stacy and community members present agreed to begin work on this in their communities.

 

Some citizens present expressed their frustration at not being able to get accurate information during the disaster or not knowing who to contact for information even though there has been a three year effort to organize disaster preparedness in every community in the Mountain Empire area.

 

With Fire Agencies. Need to expand the system Stacy has to communicate with fire agencies during a disaster. Pete Scully from CDF will be provided with a list of disaster chairs and key disaster committee members in the Mountain Empire communities.

 

Animal Rescue. Although RACES Ham operators are able to communicate with members of Animal Rescue Reserve (ARR) via Ham radio and the ARR VHF system there is no formal integration or memo of understanding between animal rescue and the local disaster groups. Further, members of the Mountain Empire community have tried, for several years, to setup communications and resource cooperation with the Department of Animal Control, the responsible agency for the Humane Society and ARR, without effect. We have advised San Diego OES of this glaring hole in our disaster response capabilities.

 

The Internet and Email. Email. Some believe we should establish a procedure to distribute information via email during a disaster. I say, that’s fine but, this should be a low level priority for people within an immediate disaster area. I don’t believe people are sitting at their computers, waiting for an email, when their world is falling apart around them! The Internet. The maps and information on fire agency and OES sites are great but, until we can count on this information being updated in a timely manner, 30 minutes instead of several hours during the Horse Fire, it has little use except for After Action Reports.

 

Organization:

There was general agreement on the need to tighten up the organization of our disaster committees. In addition to Neighbor to Neighbor this includes:

  1. We forgot to call for help from members and organizations from outside the immediate fire area, especially the American Red Cross and additional Ham operators. Some people were over worked, trying to do it all themselves.
  2. Each community needs the resources to stand alone if necessary. This includes communications and logistics resources and plans. Example, agency contact information in Stacy’s possession needs to be distributed to other communities. (Part of the some people were over worked problem.)
  3. A Public Information position needs to be added to our organization. This branch of the Incident Command System would be the central contact point in the community for information during a disaster. (This is in addition to the existing Community Education group, used to educate the community between disasters.)
  4. Additional resources. Need to do a better job incorporating local Churches and businesses into our disaster plans and resources.
  5. CERT Callout. Stacy and the CERT Council are working on the specific procedures to call out the CERT teams during a local emergency.

 

In conclusion

 

The recent Horse Fire showed the advantages of having community based disaster committees. Communities that had committees with active members, organization, and training were more prepared and aware. Had the fire reached these communities it is felt there would have been considerably less panic, damage or loss of life than in a similar community without these trained citizens.

 

These communities are to be commended for their volunteer efforts. One week after this After Action meeting community disaster committee members are working to correct the areas identified for improvement. I can only hope the word gets out to communities who have not yet begun their disaster preparedness efforts. All you need do is remember the pictures of hurricane Katrina “victims”, sitting on top of their houses and freeway’s, waiting days for help to arrive, to be reminded:

 

Disaster preparedness begins with you!