Lessons Learned from the San Diego, California Wildfire

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In making the decisions to protect people’s lives from hazards and disasters, evacuations sometimes become necessary. Of course early in the reaction to the incident, or the response phase, this may become a decision for local and state emergency managers. The San Diego, California wildfire which occurred in October 2007 caused a large scale evacuation. This essay is an analysis, and identification of lessons learned from the evacuation incident. As well a plan of personal recommendations and improvements will be made based on information covered in the National Housing strategy, and Robert Stafford Act. Wildfires started as an annual and seasonal occurrence in the south western region of California since the early 1930’s in part because of the hot dry summers and the hot dry turbulent Santa Ana winds that blow in from the desert during the fall months. Now it has become a yearlong event (Mckay, 2010). These conditions greatly contribute to the “fire season” throughout this area. This set of circumstances in conjunction with downed power lines and humans that ignited fires took place in October of 2007. This led to a series of fires that burned more than 500,000 acres, destroyed 1,500 homes, killed 9, injured 85, and forced the successful evacuation of around 500,000 people out of harm’s way. Several fires spanned the county and created the devastation. The first fire dubbed the Harris Ranch Fire started 9:23 am October 21, 2007 in the South Eastern portion of the county. Was determined to have been started by an illegal campfire, and moved North West fanned by the winds. The fires continued to start in differing areas of the county over a 72 hour period, some sparked by downed power-lines, and suspicious circumst... ... middle of paper ... .... The lessons learned from the many events will provide an extensive knowledge base and benchmark that all emergency managers can draw from to better position citizens for survival of large scale evacuations and sheltering events. Works Cited County of San Diego (2008) San Diego fire AAR main document. Retrieved January 21, 2011, from http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/oes/docs/2007_SanDiego_Fire_AAR_Main_Document_FINAL.pdf. Federal Emergency Management Agency (2008). National housing strategy. Retrieved January 21, 2011, from http://www.fema.gov/pdf/media/2008/ndhs_public.pdf Mckay, J. (2010 January/February). Major player Matt Bettenhausen, Secretary, California Emergency Management Agency. Emergency Management, 16-18. San Diego Mayor’s Office (2008). Fire after action. Retrieved January 21, 2011, from http://www.sandiego.gov/mayor/pdf/fireafteraction.pdf

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