Griffith Park Blog » Fire Department 101

The LAFD is fast, not furious.

Donna Barstow — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:08:49 +0000

The LAFD plays Speedy Gonzales. A car fire broke out Tuesday, October 20 at 5:27 on the east side of the LA River, opposite Griffith Park. According to Firefighter Richard Matheney, one engine responded and they knocked down the fire in 4 minutes.

As usual, I’m curious. Why a car fire? It wasn’t a hot day. And why right next to the LA River? (the trees at the bottom of the photo are actually in the LA River.)

There, see? I can say nice things about the LA Fire Department! This certainly did make a lot of smoke, but I saw 2 firefighters there almost immediately. For some reason, it took me 2 days to find out any info on this fire. According to Officer Brian Humphreys, the LAFD doesn’t have a database!! Okay, I do find that totally shocking. Come on, it’s 2009.

An unidentified and curious helicopter, not part of the LAFD, follows the smoke plume.

Or were you looking for one of these?

LAFD Fail in the Station Fire.

Donna Barstow — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:58:10 +0000

I started this blog because of fire, and I’m picking it up again for the same reason. This time it’s the Station Fire. What, you expect me to just stand by while once again terrible things happen in LA because the city can’t take care of the Fire Department? I live in LA proper, and at this moment I can see over 20 separate fire peaks blazing in 5 different areas in the San Gabriel Mountains, La Canada, and whatever mountains and hills are out that way. And this has been happening for 4 days now. Even worse, is that 2 firemen were killed as their truck rolled over near Acton.

“This accident is tragic,” Bryant said, choking up as he spoke Sunday evening. “This is a very difficult time for L.A. County Fire Department and the men and women that serve day in, day out.”

It certainly is.

Have you ever heard the expression, “fire season” in LA? [/sarcasm] How long does it last now, 5 or 9 months? It’s not new. It’s not occasional, like an earthquake. It’s EVERY F-ING YEAR. So you’d think LA city and county would get prepared, wouldn’t you? But no. Same old, same old, year after year. Can you remember a year when anyone reported, gee, the LAFD is getting better and better at putting out wildfires? No, because it isn’t.

It’s not the fault of the brave firefighters that we all admire so much. It’s the fault of the LAFD headquarters, and either they’re not asking for, or not getting, the equipment they need. It’s so sad. It’s only money, after all.

I’m not a firefighting expert, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that normal fire trucks just might have a tough time navigating steep hills or tricky small roads. When I investigated the Griffith Park Fire 2 years ago I quickly discovered through my research, interviews, and tips from firefighters that the Los Angeles Fire Department just doesn’t have the trucks to fight wildfires effectively. Please reread this. I don’t mean the firefighters can’t take care of city fires. They are great, really great, can’t ask for better at that. I mean wildfires, anything offroad and actually anything just yards from the beaten path.

From the Dept of the Interior: Fire Engine Ratings. It’s a simple orderly list from Type 1 to Type 7 with various size tanks and crew, and engines that get more rugged by the number. What they call Wildland Engines don’t start until Type 3, and go up to Type 7.

The LAFD has only OES type 1 trucks, nothing higher. This is according to Officer Brian Humphrey, the esteemed and vigilant fireman who runs the LAFD website, and according to half a dozen other firemen I talked with. Officer Humphries commented last year:

I look forward to your visit with the staff at Battalion 5 Headquarters, and if possible, hope to get you out in the hills of Griffith Park aboard one of those 15 (for indeed that is how many you paid for) LAFD Brush Patrols. :)

While no single vehicle is going to answer all of the many challenges that face a crew on a wildfire, I think you’d be surprised at how these nimble and highly affordable ‘quick attack’ vehicles are able to spryly respond across the diverse geography of the Santa Monica Mountains. We’d love to have more, bigger, better faster of everything the taxpayers so generously provide us to with, but it is not in our financial realm.

If I were in charge, we’d have 20 Helitankers year round… but I digress :)

I talked with several firemen last year that say the LAFD has only 4 Brush patrols:

I talked with Captain Comfort, in the hydrant unit… He said in a wildland situation (in any hilly area without roads) “we don’t chase fires, we just contain it.” And since they don’t have any large off-road fire trucks, their range is limited to the length of the hoses: only 300 to 500 feet! He added that the longer the hose, the more loss of water pressure, too. There are a limited number of small Brush Patrol trucks (4), used in Red Flag situations, that are off-road, and able to go deep, but obviously interior areas are mostly dependent on helicopters for big firefighting.

In any case, all the fire departments agree that Los Angeles has only Type 1 trucks!

The California OES bought 5 new engines for the state under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. (There’s no date for this event, but it looks like it’s 2007.) These trucks cost about $250,000, less than the price of one average home in LA. None of the trucks went to the LAFD, however.

The new engines, costing $250,000 each, feature modern radios, an automatic transmission and other features that meet National Fire Protection Association standards. The vehicles, which qualify as Type 3 Light Urban Search and Rescue apparatus (USRA), are equipped with a shorter wheel base, allowing them to be used in wildland-urban interface fires as well as earthquakes and other emergencies.

Type 6 truck from Colorado on Wiki.

I reported the discrepancy between what transportation the LAFD actually had in LA, and what they SHOULD have to fight forest fires in our urban forests and right outside the city, before, of course, over 2 years ago, and again last year.

I wrote more about the Griffith Park 2007 fire than any other media in print or online, including the LA Times. I called the LAFD, investigated truck types, called other fire agencies, called our only wildlife worker in LA (shameful to have just one), called and queried the rangers, city officials, biologists, consultants, state and county departments, etc. Then Dave Gardetta wrote an article about the fire in November 2007 for Los Angeles Magazine (no online link), confirming all my facts, and strangely enough, hitting all the same beats. Hmm. Gosh, it’s almost as though he got the angle – and all the facts – from me! Huh! He also questioned the Fire Department’s strategy, and strategic placement of fire equipment, and even their trucks as being unfit for the job. (Then he wrote an opinion on arsonists in the LA Times last year, as an “expert,” because of his article in the magazine.) Nothing has changed in the LAFD.

You’ve seen the horrific pictures and heard the news of this week’s Station Fire in Angeles Forest – that it’s too smoky for helicopters to make many water drops, and the firefighters are concentrating on backfires and controlled burns, just as Captain Comfort explained their strategy above. Surely, starting fires to stop fires is a last resort. Who knows how many of these various fires could be snuffed out early on, with the right firefighting water tanks? For several days, the LAFD has been describing it as between 0% and 5% contained, even with all the kind aid from other communities. The Times said about the Angeles National Forest fire this week:

More than 2,800 fire personnel from around the state have converged to battle the Station fire, along with 12 helicopters and eight air tankers.

Gratitude is certainly in order. Yet I gotta ask, could the fire have been handled better with the right equipment? Even if it was only a small percentage better, that victory would save wildlands. 18 houses lost so far, and 2 firefighter’s lives, Ted Hall and Arnie Quinones. (And perhaps this is insensitive of me to point out, but they were driving a fire engine on a winding mountain road, which apparently flipped down a cliff. If they had been driving a fire engine made for wildlands, might their lives have been saved?)

I do editorial and political cartoons for Slate now, which is the main reason I haven’t posted here in so long. For the first time in my cartoonist’s career, I get called names, lots of names. Last week one reader called me “a typical Godless liberal.” He got at least one of those names wrong; I am God-fearing, and have been praying for the firefighters, people whose homes were lost, the 2 men, and all the thousands of animals and birds needlessly killed, for several days. (The LA Times writes: “small rodents overcome by smoke lay dead on the ground.” Rodents? Are you a godless word-slinger?) I know that God is first. But I think there’s some hard work to be done by the LAFD to make them the powerful, protective force that Los Angeles deserves.

The comparatively low price of these trucks vs the cost of houses, diminishing parkland, innocent animals lost, and priceless human lives reminds me of that movie a few years ago. What was the name of it? The makers of the Pinto knew that the engine tended to catch on fire in a crash. They weighed the price of being sued for death and accidents vs the price of fixing the engines. They didn’t fix the engines. People died.

Is the state, the city, the county, the laid-back LAFD like that car company? I was kind of hoping the story of the LA Wildfires Station Fire, in 2009, would have a happier ending.

Or were you looking for one of these?

How to catch an arsonist in Griffith Park!

Donna Barstow — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:16:58 +0000

Or, How cb Makes Every Fire a Photo Op. I mean, really, he looked like he’d been lugging the hoses himself the other night, didn’t he? Our councilman, also our fireman. Well, almost!

I got this VERY last minute notice of a meeting tonight, in my comments:

From: “LaBonge News”
Date: August 18, 2008 4:39:35 PM PDT
Subject: Griffith Park Fires Special Meeting

Good Afternoon:

Please join Councilmember LaBonge, Los Angeles fire officials and Griffith Park Rangers tomorrow evening to hear about the suspicious fires in Griffith Park over the weekend. They will present a brief update on the investigation and answer any questions you may have.

Please join us at:

DATE: Tuesday, August 19, 2008
TIME: 6:00 – 7:00 PM
LOCATION: Griffith Park Visitors Center, 4730 Crystal Springs Drive

If you cannot attend, please remember to call 9-1-1 if you see any suspicious activity that you believe may be related to the recent fires. Do not attempt to intervene.

Thank you in advance for your support and cooperation.

I also appreciate the important info Kristin Sabo included in her comment:

I had a good view again of this Saturday’s fire and I hold to my views on cause as well as the excellent LAFD, LA Co FD, and Park Ranger response.

So rather than freaking out about the cause, let’s all be extra vigilant — if you see anyone doing ANYTHING suspicious, call the Park Rangers dispatch immediately since they’re in the park already: 323-644-6661

See you tonight, fellow detectives!

Or were you looking for one of these?

Wrong trucks for the job; condors happy, anyway.

Donna Barstow — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:41:37 +0000

You probably heard about the small fire in gp near the zoo yesterday. I couldn’t see it, but I knew something was up when helicopters started flying above our building and we started a-shaking. I live on a sort of crest, the tippy-top point between the park, the 5, and slk or downtown. I can understand why helicopters don’t want to waste fuel going higher than they need to, but this does give us, below, a rather intimate relationship with the bottoms of these flying things…

Photo: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times

The news media online, mostly TV stations at first, but including Daily News (!) all had the same info:

Authorities evacuated 16 California condors and two King vultures from the area, Jacobs said.

(Well, that’s the part I was interested in, anyway.) They also wrote:

This fire was apparently in thick brush and trees that were not burned in the 1,200 acre blaze that was set by children playing with matches on May 8, 2007.

That’s weird. Since I followed the stories about that fire pretty damn closely, and even started this blog because of it, I knew that it was a homeless man, who started the fire with his cigarette, and got burned as he tried to put it out. (Reminder to Tom LaBonge: Fire is often started by fire, including SMOKERS that you still allow in parts of the park.) So I wrote to Brian Humphreys at LAFD Blogspot yesterday, and he confirmed that it wasn’t bratty and badly-raised kids who started the May 2007 fire, but they did start this one, in March, 2007. Only, it wasn’t kids, it was 2 teen boys, 16 and 17, who turned themselves in, or had parents who did.

Brian said no word yet on what caused the one yesterday, but added:

There were indeed a multitude of aircraft, including fire, law enforcement – with both at times outnumbered by the news media.

In this case, I think the news media might have been better off talking to their fact checkers.

I’m pleased that the LAFD put this out in only 3 hours. They certainly worked hard, with 200 firefighters deployed. However, I am still surprised and disturbed – okay, pissed off – that their main criteria for success is still saving people, buildings, and — well, and nothing. Nothing else counts. The rest is ignored in their reports (although not necessarily by the firefighters themselves, of course) , including habitats, trees, 25 acres of vegetation and animals. As I complained loud and clearly last year, (I thought) there’s NO SUCH THING as “just a brush fire” in the middle of several hundred acres of protected animal, bird and landscape habitat.

I doubt if the LAFD could have done a better job with what they have now. Probably not. But why won’t Fire Chief Berry signify the importance of, and make strategic plans for, fires in a wildlife sanctuary? I’ll tell you why: because what they need to put out fires in the park is different from any other part of the city, and the LAFD and/or the city, whoever makes these decisions, refuses to buy the right kinds of trucks. I investigated this a year ago. Mr. Humphreys acknowledged my facts as being correct. They cannot get into heavy brush or hills using the trucks they have now! And this will just continue, as we continue to have dry weather like this.

According to the info on the LAFD blog, they used 5 brush patrols, which is all the city owns. But these are very small trucks, with a small amount of water. We’re talking 25 burning acres, people. The LAFD has only OES Type 1 trucks, the ordinary garden variety, and the longer the hoses, the less water pressure. They are reduced to sitting on the roads, not the trails. Fire truck numbers go up as the trucks get more rugged, and are able to maneuver in difficult terrain such as national forests, where they use OES Type 4.

I am begging you, Mayor V, can’t you give us at least one Type 2 truck for Griffith Park? Only God can give us rain, but you can give us something big and red and powerful. Thx in advance.

Or were you looking for one of these?

Don’t yell out fire in Silver Lake.

Donna Barstow — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:17:05 +0000

Cause then you’d be stuck, wouldn’t you. We don’t have any water.

The last couple weeks I wake up in a panic, and run to the window to see if by any chance dwp has started to refill the lake. The Times warned about the Big One coming, like Northridge or worse. If water pipes break – and they will- do ya THINK we might need a big source of available water?

Sierra Madre fire from my kitchen window.

And how about that rain we’ve been getting, huh? Not. We’re ONE WEEK AWAY from when we had the gp fire last year. (the reason I started this blog)!! Hello, fire season here, and nada from dwp as far as water. It doesn’t help that I spotted the current fire in Sierra Madre on Saturday night. (I never knew I could see that from here.) Once again, the news refers to it as “only a brush fire,” as no lives or homes were lost. Tell that to the dead animals.

Thanks to one of my firemen readers, I found out last year that Los Angeles doesn’t have the right kind of trucks to effectively fight wildfire. Trucks go from Type 1 to 4; they use 4 in the very deep national forests. All we have is Type 1!( I explored more about fire trucks here, and please check out Jason Randall’s excellent comment – he is one of the heroes.) Horrible, but true: one year later, they still don’t. So almost all the water was transported in helicopters from Silver Lake.

They used Hollywood Reservoir first, but within a few hours switched to Silver Lake, every single day, every 10 minutes. In the 7 years I’ve lived here I’ve seen and heard (and felt) those great helicopters fly over to use Silver Lake many many times, for fires in the Burbank and Glendale hills, small fires in Griffith Park, etc. I decided to call the LAFD to see how important they think open reservoirs are to firefighting.

I talked with Chief Michael Fumas first (doesn’t Fumas mean smoke in Spanish?), and he was so polite, helpful, and knowledgeable, as I found all the firemen to be. They are certainly the best-bred city employees I’ve ever come across!

He explained some of the characteristics of the firehogs, Skycranes, and Superscoopers. (There’s a fascinating article here on why Los Angeles County doesn’t want the Canadian Superscoopers coming down here…and it’s not just because they’re so Big and Powerful. And Russia has a Waterbomber that holds 11,000 gallons!) Here’s what we have in Los Angeles: 4 Firehogs, that hold 300 gallons, and 2 Skycranes that we rent during some months, that hold 1000 gallons.

The helicopters drop a stinger down and it sucks the water up so fast, in less than 5 minutes. He said there are also heliports where helicopters can pick up water, but that is slower. dwp has the pipes gridded so that some water will always be available if some areas are shut down. He said that in an emergency situation, having available large bodies of water like Silver Lake is very important to firefighters.

Next I talked with Captain Glen Smith, of Air Ops. He had an interesting point: that even some heliports may get their water from the reservoirs, so they could be affected by the Silver Lake draining, too. His opinion on Silver Lake is that it is essential for it to be filled in case of city emergencies.

Last but not least I talked with Captain Comfort, in the hydrant unit. Smaller helicopters can get water from hydrants or from tender trucks. The Captain emphasized how much faster it is to suck up water from an open reservoir than to refill it from the ground. He said in a wildland situation (in any hilly area without roads) “we don’t chase fires, we just contain it.” And since they don’t have any large off-road fire trucks, their range is limited to the length of the hoses: only 300 to 500 feet! He added that the longer the hose, the more loss of water pressure, too. There are a limited number of small Brush Patrol trucks (4), used in Red Flag situations, that are off-road, and able to go deep, but obviously interior areas are mostly dependent on helicopters for big firefighting.

Captain Comfort said that the LAFD will certainly get water somehow, even without open reservoirs, but it greatly helps both in maneuvering, and speed, to use reservoirs to save lives and property. And for earthquakes he said it becomes even more important for domestic supply.

So there you go. Fire season, and the dwp could give a rat’s ass.

For your convenience:

How to call the dwp commisioners:

commission@dwp.com

dwp Commission
111 N. Hope St., Room 1555
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Ph: (213) 367-1356
Fx: (213) 367-1423

Or were you looking for one of these?

Fire trucks: big, shiny, and red

Donna Barstow — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 00:59:47 +0000

Of course I take all my wonderful commenters equally seriously, but I was puzzled and concerned with what commenter Scott said the other day:

The brush patrols and Hummers dont even qualify as a type 4 apparatus. The engines that were called from Downtown, Hollywood, S. Central did they even meet OES type 1 status? Were they equipped and trained to make an offensive attack using progressive hose lays, can the LAFD firefighters support dozers/crew lines for firing operations. Were fixed wing aircraft used on initial attack to “:paint” the area ahead of the fire with fire retardant? It wasn’t until the following morning that CDF S-2 air attack crews were called in. Also so the taxpayers know, it was dragged out for 4 days so the State would flip for the bill.

Is it possible that the LAFD was using the wrong trucks for this fire?

(Because why should dalmations have all the fun? pb Liz Kearley of Teddy, a long-haired dachshund.)

Now, I can only identify a couple of cars, let alone trucks, let alone FIRE trucks. So I decided to give the Fire Department a call today. And who should pick up but my very first commenter from that thread, Officer Brian Humphrey! And here’s a picture of him and a very nice article about him! I had already known his name from several positive references Kevin Roderick had made on lao. We introduced ourselves and I asked him the big question. I was very disappointed to find out that he confirmed what Scott said: The LAFD has only OES type 1 trucks, nothing higher. None of the three other types which are recommended for wildland fires!

Okay, I was more like shocked. I don’t know exactly when fire season begins and ends, but I guess it’s every day this year, as the Post reports this is LA’s driest year in 130 years, with only 3.21 inches of rain. We already lost over 25% of Griffith Park to fire, and at every meeting I’ve been at since, the Rangers say it’s getting more unrainy all the time.

There’s a saying in the unions: If you don’t have the tools, don’t take the job. Of course, in this case it could have been that the City of Los Angeles didn’t approve a Fire Department budget for necessary trucks. Can’t Los Angeles beg, borrow, or steal a much needed truck for wildlands for as long as this season lasts? Did the “wrong” trucks have anything to do with the lengthy time it took to control the fire? God bless our great firefighters in this country, for always going above and beyond the call of duty. For being heroes. But how can they do their best work if they don’t have the right equipment? (Or MAYBE, training, or better management…)

Officer Humphrey said none of the neighboring Fire Departments have the three other types of trucks either, but Ventura County does. I strongly suggest we become BFF with Ventura til this blows over.

I also asked him about the part of Scott’s comment that suggests the fire lasted 4 days to get some type of State aid. This would be so heinous and immoral that I can’t believe it could be true. He compared firefighters to a football team: the team may or may not have great ratings, but all the players care about is winning the game. I believe him.

But I decided to call the State Department of Finance, just to see what they would say. They pretty much didn’t know anything about it, but said it’s the Office of Emergency Services that decides who gets what money. Then I called the LA office of Governor Schwarzenegger to ask them. A pause, and then William No-Name there said the OES makes determinations of money amounts based on acreage and property damage, not amount of time the fire rages. (over 800 acres, in this case.) And acreage burned has an effect on aid from the State. So I can’t prove or disprove what Scott suggested…not yet, anyway.

Please don’t let it be true that any city would let anything at all burn just to get outside aid. I refuse to give up my innocence. It just isn’t right.

Or were you looking for one of these?