The Cedar Fire: Terrible Fire, Bad Press, Good Outcome

The Cedar Fire

Terrible Fire, Bad Press, Good Outcome

After my wonderful, fun and rewarding 31 year with the Santa Monica Fire Department, I was asked and accepted to become the Interim Fire Chief for the Lakeside Fire Protection District. The Lakeside Fire Protection District is in San Diego County and is home to over 60,000 residents living in the communities of Lakeside, Eucalyptus Hills, Moreno, Winter Gardens, Lakeview, Johnstown, Blossom Valley, Flinn Springs, and other areas of unincorporated El Cajon. The service area is primarily suburban residential, but also has several core commercial zones, some light industry, and many rural/agricultural properties. The district also has a significant wildland/urban interface. There a four stations, 10 pieces of apparatus and 65 members on the department.

I accepted, and in October of 2003, became the Lakeside FPD Interim Chief. The plan was for me to be the Interim Chief for approximately 3 months. My stay turned out to be nine months.

Two weeks after I started working the Cedar Fire started. The Cedar Fire up until recently was the largest fire ever to hit California. Conditions of fuel, weather and terrain created the perfect scenario for a fire storm. The north-easterly winds were blowing at 45 miles per hour, the area of origin hadn’t burned for over 20 years, and the terrain was difficult to get to. When the Cedar Fire started there were fires already burning in Ventura, L.A. and Orange Counties. Therefore, there was no mutual aid available from anywhere in Southern California. As a matter of fact, the first mutual aid came from the San Francisco Bay Area.

The fire really did a job on the community of Lakeside. We didn’t lose any buildings but the fire burned 295 homes. There were 21 fatalities in San Diego County and Lakeside had 14 of them. At one point in time during the fire it was calculated that the fire burned through Lakeside at an amazing rate of 30,000 acres an hour. That calculates out to be 10 football fields a second. Many times people inside and outside the department said “Chief Stein, welcome to Lakeside.” Needless to say we had a lot of work to do when the fire was finally extinguished.

Because the Cedar Fire was so destructive, the news media started to distribute a lot of bad press regarding the response and success of the fire mitigation effort. Of course their goal was to sell papers and not really get the true facts. People got caught up in the bad news reporting and we were deluged with calls wanting to know what happened and why we allowed the fire to be so destructive. I decided that we would conduct a town hall meeting at the local Lakeside VFW Hall. I thought that the people of Lakeside would appreciate the meeting and have the opportunity to congratulate the department members for their heroic effort in preventing even more building and life loss. WRONG!!

The VFW hall had a capacity of 300 people and 600 showed up. They were not happy campers. I started off the meeting telling the crowd how proud they should be of their Lakeside Firefighters. I said “I have seen more acts of heroism in the last two weeks than I have seen in my 32 year fire department career.” They could have cared less. All they wanted to know is “where were you when my house burnt down?” I tried to explain how we were overwhelmed by the fire and it was impossible to save every house. I was thinking “do the math! 30,000 acres burning per hour, 8 staffed engine companies” “There was no way we could protect every house.” Of course I didn’t say that. They wanted nothing to do with my explanation. They wanted to know “where were you.” They were really upset. One lady had to be removed by the police.  The police thought she was going to attack me. So did I. The audience theme kept on returning to “where were you.” At that time I didn’t have all the facts regarding time frames and apparatus locations and activities. At the conclusion of the meeting I promised to get all the information they wanted and share it with the community.

A short time after the meeting at the VFW hall I assembled my senior staff and the executive board of the union. I was concerned because the community was down on the department and the morale was suffering. I asked if we had the technical knowledge to produce a power-point and video presentation on the Cedar Fire and our activities during the fire. The answer was a resounding yes. As a matter of fact one of our firefighters had a part time job with the San Diego Chargers. He worked in the Chargers video highlight division. He had plenty of time to help with the video portion of the project because if you remember the 2003 season for the Chargers, they didn’t have many highlights. Together we identified the program parameters as far as length, design and content. Both groups picked the people who would be involved in the project. Once the group was picked, I met with them just to make sure we were on the same page regarding design, length, and content.

Three weeks later the project was completed. Words can’t describe how impressed and proud I was of the job the group did. The presentation was 45 minutes long. It was a combination of power-point, video, incident radio calls and narration. The presentation started off with an overview of the department. Most in the audience were not aware of the department size, apparatus, equipment, area of response and the number of annual emergency and non-emergency calls.

The introduction was followed by the fire story identifying the pre-fire conditions of weather, fuel, terrain and the start of the fire. The start and speed of the fire was explained and the initial response of the fire mitigation efforts. The audience was amazed with how fast the fire spread. Included in the presentation was a recorded 911 phone call from a family of four who were trapped in their home by the fire with no way out. The audience eyes watered when the mother thought the end of their life was near because of the approaching fire. When the house started to fill with smoke firefighters burst through the front door and carried residents to safety.

Another amazing part of the presentation was a recorded radio communication from a Lakeside Engine Company about to be overrun by the fire. The Captain indicated that they were trapped and were heading to a house for protection. He gave their location and you could tell he was running for cover during the radio communication. For several minutes people tried to make radio contact with the trapped firefighters. No response. Then finally what seemed to be an eternity the trapped engine company communicated they were shaken but OK and back in action fighting the fire. The audience cheered after the Captains radio communication.

The department made over 100 presentations of the Cedar Fire program. It was interesting to observe the audience arrive at the presentation location. Their body language was hostile and so were their words. When the presentation was over their whole demeanor changed. Most were hugging, shaking hands and even kissing the firefighters. The department once again became the darlings of the community.

So, what leadership lesson does this story depict? First, it is the leaders’ responsibility to have a feel for the mental demographics of the community. Then, if the demographics are negative, do something about it. Secondly, get your people involved. Successful delegation includes a clear statement of what they are to do. How far they can go, and how much checking you intend to do. Share with them the relative importance of the job so that they can judge how much attention the project should receive. Tell the team why you delegated the job to them. If it shows that you have confidence in them, they will try much harder to produce a quality end result.

After the successful completing of the project, reward them. Along with the verbal thanks and pats on the back it is sometimes appropriate to do a little more. I realized that the project members were spending a lot of their own down time at work and at home working on the project. I wanted to let them know that I appreciated what they did and I was aware that they took some time away from their families to work on the project. In order to thank them again, I invited the project members and their wives or significant others to have dinner on the department. I bought the drinks and the department bought the dinner. The result of this effort was their increased desire to do more for the department. Even the wives were offering their husbands to the department.

The delegation process worked extremely well in the Lakeside FPD. Executed properly it can work in your department also.

VIVI BENE- LIVE WELL

RIDI SPESSO- LAUGHT OFTEN

E AMA MOLTO- LOVE MUCH