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WHAT THE OCTOBER WILDFIRES REVEALED

ABOUT PREPAREDNESS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 10, 2007

Serial No. 110–162

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DIANE E. WATSON, California

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

JARON R. BOURKE, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on December 10, 2007 ...................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Morris, Tony, founder and researcher, Wildlife Research Network; Jeffrey

Bowman, former fire chief, city of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department;

Tracy Jarman, fire chief, city of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department;

P. Michael Freeman, fire chief, Los Angeles County Fire Department;

Chip Prather, fire chief, Orange County Fire Authority; Ruben Grijalva,

director, Department of Forestry and Fire Protection; and Ron Roberts,

chairman, Board of Supervisors, County of San Diego .............................. 16

Bowman, Jeffrey ........................................................................................ 33

Freeman, P. Michael ................................................................................. 45

Grijalva, Ruben ......................................................................................... 65

Jarman, Tracy ........................................................................................... 34

Morris, Tony .............................................................................................. 16

Prather, Chip ............................................................................................. 54

Roberts, Ron .............................................................................................. 72

Ward, Nancy, Region IX Administrator, FEMA; and Mark Rey, Undersecretary for National Resources and the Environment, U.S. Department

of Agriculture ................................................................................................ 95

Rey, Mark .................................................................................................. 110

Ward, Nancy .............................................................................................. 95

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Freeman, P. Michael, fire chief, Los Angeles County Fire Department,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 47

Grijalva, Ruben, director, Department of Forestry and Fire Protection,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 67

Jarman, Tracy, fire chief, city of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 36

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

Prepared statement of Mr. Zev Yaroslavsky, LA County supervisor .... 42

Morris, Tony, founder and researcher, Wildlife Research Network, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 18

Prather, Chip, fire chief, Orange County Fire Authority, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 56

Rey, Mark, Undersecretary for National Resources and the Environment,

U.S. Department of Agriculture, prepared statement of ........................... 112

Roberts, Ron, chairman, Board of Supervisors, County of San Diego,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 74

Ward, Nancy, Region IX Administrator, FEMA, prepared statement of ..... 97

(1)

WHAT THE OCTOBER WILDFIRES REVEALED

ABOUT PREPAREDNESS IN SOUTHERN

CALIFORNIA

MONDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOMESTIC POLICY,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Fallbrook, CA.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., in the

Board Meeting Room at the Fallbrook Public Utilities District in

Fallbrook, CA, Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Kucinich, Issa, and Bilbray.

Staff present: Jaron R. Bourke, staff director; Noura Erakat,

counsel; and Jean Gosa, clerk.

Mr. KUCINICH. Good morning and welcome. The Domestic Policy

Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee will come to order.

Welcome to Congressman Issa, at whose request this hearing is

being held. Congressman Issa, thank you. We are joined by Congressman Bilbray, also from the area, who has been similarly interested in this, and I want to thank Mr. Bilbray for joining us today

as well, and without objection, Members will have 5 days to be able

to submit any additional testimony for the record.

On October 21st, a wildfire began in Witch Creek, a rural area

in the foothills of San Diego. That same day, Governor

Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency. President George

Bush issued a major disaster declaration for the State of California

and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local response efforts.

At the height of the disaster, 23 fires were burning. By the time

all the fires were contained, 517,267 acres of land had been burned,

2,233 homes were destroyed and 10 people lost their lives.

The damage caused by the 2007 Southern California wildfires

could have been much worse, if it were not for the capable response

efforts of local, State and Federal emergency responders.

The absence of additional fires in San Diego, surrounding counties, and in Northern California, also helped make the story of

Southern California’s wildfires a success. Everyone, from local,

State and Federal officials, to media outlets, has described the response to the wildfires as a wonderful success, and the emergency

responders and the intergovernmental coordination that managed

2

firefighting resources were performed competently, effectively, and

professionally.

But if the October experience is to be a window on to the extent

of California’s preparation for future wildfires, then we have to consider how those same fire responders and intergovernmental coordination managers would have fared if they had been confronted

with a different fire, or a number of simultaneous fires in several

different counties. How much of October’s success can be attributed

to adequate training, management and resources, and how much of

it was a function of luck, that California did not have other fires

to contend with at the same time?

The fires that burned throughout Orange, Los Angeles, and San

Diego counties are certainly not the last to impact Southern California. Southern California has historically endured major fires. It

did so in 1970, 1977, 1980, 1985, 1987, 1993, 2003, and now, in

2007.

However, not only have major fires historically been less frequent

than they have been recently, but they’ve also been less severe.

Both the 2003 Cedar fire and the 2007 Southern California

wildfires have been described as ‘‘100 year’’ fires. Unfortunately, future trends indicate that such disasters are on the rise.

According to the Wildfire Research Network, the frequency or voracity of wildfires will increase in the near future due to global

warming, increasing wildland-urban interface and aging vegetation.

According to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 10

trends constitute the ‘‘Wildfire Frequency and Intensity Loop,’’ including a rise in global warming and a growing population in the

wildfire-urban interface.

Is Southern California adequately prepared for these major fires?

Disaster preparedness involves several considerations such as prevention measures, public education and preexisting agreements.

Most importantly, however, disaster preparedness means having

the proper resources and having enough of them.

In California, resources are owned by local responders, bolstered

by State resources as well as mutual aid agreements within the

State, and supplemented by Federal fire and emergency agencies.

Different counties have vastly differing levels of local response capability.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department possesses a total of 13

firefighting aircraft during fire season. Orange County Fire Department possesses two aircraft. San Diego County has two helicopters.

The county of San Diego spent nearly $130 million to enhance its

wildfire prevention, preparation and responsibilities. These improvements included purchasing two wildfire helicopters, improving

its emergency communication system, removing 417,000 dead,

dying and diseased trees, and implementing a Reverse 911 system.

All of these resources were mobilized to deal with the October

fires.

Additionally, the State of California contributed its 13 National

Guard helicopters and 23 air tankers. Yet all of these resources

were not enough on their own. California tapped into the Emergency Management Agency Compact, the EMAC system, and obVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Jun 05, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\49627.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tained assistance from Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina, Colorado,

New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, Washington and Oregon.

The Federal Government also supplemented local and State resources. The U.S. Forest Service, of the Department of Agriculture,

has approximately 10,000 firefighters, three to 400 fire engines, 30

to 40 helicopters, 8 fixed air tankers that it made available to California during its battle with the 2007 fires.

It took everything the counties, and State of California could

muster, and more from the Federal Government, to contain and extinguish the October fires. Our witnesses have told us, again and

again, that had there been any fires in Northern California, as

there were in 2003, that some of the resources used to fight the October fires would not have been available.

Imagine. Had there been only four additional fires in Northern

California, there would not have been sufficient resources to respond to all of them. Southern California was indeed lucky, lucky

because no other fires burned in California during those last few

days of October. But what if Southern California is not so lucky the

next time, when in four to 5 years, another ‘‘100 year’’ fire ignites

and consumes Southern California, and this time, five fires also

burn in the Oakland Hills? Then it might matter that San Diego

County is the only county in California without a fire department.

Instead, the county has a total of 65 volunteer-based and paid

fire agencies. In 2004, 81 percent of voters in San Diego County approved Proposition C, which queried support for a consolidated system and was to be funded with reprioritized revenues, but no new

revenues.

Due to its lack of a county fire department, San Diego County

is dependent on San Diego’s city fire and rescue department as well

as its neighboring counties with well-resourced fire departments.

Today we will hear from several witnesses, on our first panel, as

to whether or not this arrangement is sustainable. The next time

there’s a ‘‘100 year’’ fire, how will the Modular Airborne Firefighting System [MAFFS], help? The MAFF system was not put to use

during the recent wildfires because the Forest Service refurbished

tags were not ready for the California National Guard’s new J

model C–130 aircraft.

According to the Fire and Aviation Management, the fully

equipped JC–130’s will be ready in May or June 2008. The next

time, will a new agreement correct for California Fire’s failure to

utilize Marine helicopters? According to Cal Fire, they have addressed this problem by entering into a short-term agreement with

the Marines in the direct aftermath of the fires.

More recently, Cal Fire and the Marines continued their discussions on a long-term operating plan.

Our job today is to ask our witnesses what more could be done,

and will be operable in Southern California, to ensure that any future response is as successful as it fortunately was in October

2007.

Thank you, and at this point, I want to turn to the ranking member of this committee, Mr. Issa of California, who has been a partner in all matters relating to this committee. He and I work cooperatively. I am glad to be here today, Darrell, and to work with you

4

on this, and I know the district is very appreciative of the efforts

that you continue to make. So, thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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7

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9

10

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Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and this hearing has been

somewhat characterized as my ‘‘Christmas present’’ from the committee, and I actually believe it is. I realize your time is taxed very

heavily, and you could be almost anywhere, and I am glad that you

are here and looking into a matter in which the Federal, State and

local resources were so recently taxed to the absolute limit, and as

you said in your opening remarks, quite rightfully so, this is a situation in which we were lucky.

We did a better job than we did in the Cedar fire in 2003, but

it’s very clear, we also got lucky.

In today’s hearing, I am very hopeful that as we look—in my history since 1977, I was lucky enough to arrive as a 2nd lieutenant,

in time for the Los Padres fire, where I was stationed at Fort

Hunter-Liggett, in the middle of that fire, which burned for more

than a month.

I learned then, with bulldozers, and my Engineer Co., that in

fact we don’t put out fires. We, in fact, let them burn. The reality,

in California, is that we produce countless millions of tons of flammable material every year. Sooner or later, either we will burn it,

we will cut it, or God will burn it. Our fires have a tendency to be

a mixture of we have cut a little bit, on occasions we burned a little

bit, and unfortunately, between arsonists and lightning and other

natural events, we guarantee that we will see fires that we have

to, in fact, control while the fuel is burned again.

As a Federal officer, I am keenly aware that often, we have been

the problem to clearing, prior to a spontaneous event. I hope that

we can, in the future, on a bipartisan basis, realize that habitat is

preserved by small burns and destroyed by hundreds of thousands

of acres burning at once. That is the lesson that the environmentalists, and, in fact, the men and women before us today have learned

the hard way, that in an effort to not burn, to save wildlife, we ultimately often lose far more wildlife and, of course, the lives of men

and women fighting the fire, and our citizens.

I believe that we are going to be stuck between two realities here

today that are not Federal.

One, should we, in San Diego County, spend $100 million to purchase and equip additional fire capability, and $40 million a year,

every year, to meet somebody’s idea of a minimum tasking level?

Or would those resources, and others, be more effectively placed

into—and I say this with some trepidation—a surge capability for

not just San Diego County but for all the counties of California and

the West? That is probably the biggest challenge we have.

Earlier, our senior senator, Senator Feinstein, held a hearing,

and the hearing seemed to get very much tied up into the idea that

if San Diego would just spend a couple a $100 million here and a

couple a $100 million there, we would not have had the damage we

had.

I think it is very clear, and I think our testimony will support,

that we would have had these fires, hundreds of thousands of acres

would have burned, whether or not we had another $40 million of

firefighting capability on an annual basis.

As a San Dieagan, I am keenly aware that when a home catches

fire in San Diego County, or any of the other ordinary and routine

12

emergencies that fire departments handle, we handle them extremely well. We are right-sized for those kinds of events.

When you have 80 mile-an-hour winds, 90- or 100-degree temperatures, and you have, not one, but sometimes dozens of fires

catching, either through man’s efforts, or through natural efforts at

one time, is when we clearly do not have the resources.

Hopefully today, as we explore resources that expand far beyond

those that you would routinely have sitting there in case a cat gets

caught in a tree, euphemistically speaking, we begin to realize that

C–130J’s, DC–10’s, helicopters are very expensive, but they are

force multipliers. We need to have a plan throughout the West, to

make sure that we spend the money wisely, to give us that surge

capability, and if at all possible, find ways to have those resources

properly used for other activities during the period in which we are

not in a fire.

Much has been said in San Diego County about the conflict between Marine aircraft that were available and the inability to utilize them in a timely fashion. I hope today we can put to rest the

fact that this was a 99 percent perfectly fought fire, and a 100 percent textbook-compliant fire. No rules were broken. In fact, the

availability of those helicopters and the scrambling to make those

helicopters available, was, in fact, a new page in firefighting in San

Diego County.

I hope all of us will remember that we did not expect these assets to be available. When they were made available through the

efforts of both the Marine commander and Cal Fire, we were able

to put them to work in a couple of days.

That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t like to anticipate those kind of

opportunistic resources in the future, so that they can be put to

work faster, but I don’t believe that this hearing should dwell on

a delay of a day or two in what was in fact a small portion of the

resources that ultimately fought this fire, but, rather, look at the

best way for the Federal Government to cooperate with State and

local resources, to bring to bear the kind of effective firefighting,

whether it occurs just in San Diego or in 10 spots throughout the

West on the same day.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate, once again, our friendship. I appreciate of course that you are my brother’s Congressman, and he

never lets me forget that. He does vote for you.

Mr. KUCINICH. That is why I am here. [Laughter.]

Mr. ISSA. Every vote counts. But I appreciate you giving us an

opportunity to explore this more fully. Nothing could be more important to the people in the West, than that we get this right on

a Federal, State and local level, and I thank you and yield back.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Congressman Issa.

The Chair recognizes another distinguished member of our subcommittee, if he wishes to make a statement.

Congressman Bilbray and I have similar experience in local government as well as on a Federal level, and I think that having that

experience on both levels is very useful to looking at local concerns

and seeing where the Federal Government might be able to be of

more assistance.

13

So Congressman Bilbray, thank you very much for your presence

here, attendance this morning, and we look forward to your comments.

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I always

have to sort of chuckle, realize, was it 1978 that you and I, and

one other ‘‘young Turk’’ mayor was——

Mr. ISSA Are you Turkish?

Mr. BILBRAY. We were young mayors then. Now we are just worn

out Congressmen. [Laughter.]

Mr. KUCINICH. I don’t want to say speak for yourself but—[laughter.]

Mr. ISSA. He is just ‘‘hitting his stride.‘‘

Mr. BILBRAY. You know, let me just say that I think that Congressman Issa said it very well. Frankly, I come from a background, and like you said, Mr. Chairman, of the local government

level, and there are too many of us in Washington that sit back

and have never really had to have our ‘‘hand on the helm,’’ and

don’t realize the huge gap between the theoretical approach, the

way things ought to work, and how they actually work out.

And I see this hearing as being a debriefing on what, on its face,

kind of really jumps out, that it was a success, but with any success there are always ways we can learn and do it better.

I think that one of the big advantages that I would like to have

this hearing do is take the message back to Washington with the

Chair, that there are some real things to learn, both problems and

successes here, that the rest of America ought to learn.

A good example is the fact that this county, under the State system, has the advantage of having a unified disaster response structure, where fire chiefs, police chiefs, mayors, county supervisors,

are all part of the team, and so they are used to communicating

when there isn’t a crisis, so that it works a little better when there

is.

We still have to improve on that, and I think that is one of those

things of coordinating the State and Federal agency into that local

team, that has shown how well it can work in the past.

I think the Reverse 911 is one that the rest of the country ought

to be really looking more seriously at. I talk to people about, in the

Midwest, about how did this happen? how were you able to basically evacuate the population of New Orleans? And using technology, learning from the Cedar fire, and applying it, and building

on what we learn there, is something that the rest of the country

ought to look at. I do worry about the misconceptions that go over

there.

A lot of these problems are caused by the interface between

wildlands and urban development. What I worry about is that

there are gross assumptions being made there, that the only place

you have problems is where homes have been built, back in the

back country.

Well, first of all, Julian has been there for a 100 years. It is probably one of the most threatened wildlands. At the same time, San

Diego County, Mr. Chairman, the county and the cities have done

something that I think the rest of the country would love to have

done more of, and that is actually bring its wild lands into its

urban interface.

14

In my district, the greatest threat was those open space areas

that we have set aside and preserved for habitat, and for open

space recreational activity, end up being a threat during this

wildlands, that it literally can go right into neighborhoods that

have been there for a 100 years, and the ability to—these canyons,

these open habitat areas then become a tinderbox for these threats.

So these are obviously challenges that we have, and sometimes

we are victims of our own success. I think that one of the things

that we talked about with Mr. Markey’s committee, as we will talk

about greenhouse, the wildfires’ impact on greenhouse gases, is

that every study shows that controlled burns can be better for the

environment, overwhelmingly, if we can be proactive about it, and

I think there is a challenge there, as Congressman Issa said, at

Congress recognizing that there is a place for the Federal Government to be proactive, and not only allowing, but encouraging the

kind of activity that, traditionally, we have blocked and had obstructions in.

I mean, our system basically allows a Federal bureaucrat to hold

everything in abeyance, for years, just because you have to get his

signature or her signature. I think now the burden of proof needs

to be pushed forward, that we want our agents in Fish and Wildlife

to sit there and say what can we do to prevent these problems, so

we can save habitat from major catastrophes such as a wildfire.

And let me just say that anybody that looks at the statistics on

what has happened—Ron, how long ago was Cedar? Four years.

We are talking about conditions, Mr. Chairman, that were twice as

severe as 4 years ago, and we have kept the damage down, almost

to where it was equal, that the conditions were absolutely horrendous, but because of the things we have learned, and built on from

the past, we were able to minimize the impact.

At the same time, with that success pointed out, we need to recognize that we need to do the same thing that we did 4 years ago,

and that is reevaluate, relearn and go back and say, What can we

do better? How can we improve it, so the next time this comes

down, we can again have it again, down the line, I think that is

the success here, and so, you know, as a former chairman of the

local disaster council, I am very excited to be here, to be able to

see how we have built from our successes, where the glitches were,

where there were failures in the system, and build a stronger system for the next fire that comes along, that will be able to protect

the people of San Diego County. And I yield back, Mr. Chair.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Congressman Bilbray.

As I mentioned earlier, without objection, the Chair and ranking

member had the time to make the opening statements, and that

Members and witnesses may have 5 legislative days to submit a

written statement or extraneous materials for the record.

Now I also want to ask those of you—I am mindful of the fact

that we have a room of emergency responders, but if you have a

cell phone, if you could keep it on a vibrate function, it will be easier to conduct this hearing.

So I think that is the only statements we are going to have from

Members at this point.

If there are no additional opening statements, the subcommittee

is going to receive testimony from the witnesses before us today.

15

I am going to introduce our first panel.

Tony Morris. Mr. Morris is a freelance journalist and founder of

the Wildfire Research Network. The Wildfire Research Network’s

goal is to improve wildfire suppression capability and to provide

wildfire research findings to the public and government.

Mr. Morris will represent the WRN, and recently served on Governor Schwarzenegger’s blue ribbon panel on fire protection. This

panel helped secure the purchase of new firefighting supertankers

and other technologies to help the State suppress fires more effectively.

Mr. Jeffrey Bowman served as chief of the San Diego Fire Department from 2002 to 2006. Mr. Bowman has been in the firefighting profession since 1973, and was chief of the Anaheim Fire

Department until 2002.

Ms. Tracy Jarman is chief of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department. Chief Jarman has worked for the San Diego Fire Department since 1984.

Mr. Michael Freeman. Mr. Michael Freeman is the fire chief for

the Los Angeles County Fire Department. As fire chief for the last

18 years, he has led the fire department through many large-scale

emergencies, including the 1993 Malibu fire and the 2003 fires.

Chief Freeman will also be reading the testimony of who could

not be with us today but whose testimony we will enter into the

record.

Mr. Chip Prather is the fire chief of the Orange County Fire Authority. In 2003, Mr. Prather served on California’s blue ribbon fire

commission.

Mr. Ruben Grijalva is the director of the California Department

of Forestry and Fire Protection, and is the State fire marshall for

California.

Mr. Ron Roberts is chairman of the San Diego Board of Supervisors and is currently serving his fourth term in this position. Mr.

Roberts served on the San Diego City Council for 7 years prior to

becoming a supervisor.

So I want to thank each and every one of the witnesses for appearing before this subcommittee today.

To the witnesses, it is the policy of the Committee on Oversight

and Government Reform to swear in all witnesses before they testify. I would ask that if all of you would please rise and raise your

right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Now I ask each of the witnesses to give a brief summary of your

testimony and to keep this summary under 5 minutes in duration.

I want you to bear in mind that your complete written statement

will be included in the hearing record.

So Mr. Morris, let’s begin with you and then we’ll proceed down

the line. Thanks again for being here and you may continue.

16

STATEMENTS OF TONY MORRIS, FOUNDER AND RESEARCHER,

WILDLIFE RESEARCH NETWORK; JEFFREY BOWMAN,

FORMER FIRE CHIEF, CITY OF SAN DIEGO FIRE-RESCUE DEPARTMENT; TRACY JARMAN, FIRE CHIEF, CITY OF SAN

DIEGO FIRE-RESCUE DEPARTMENT; P. MICHAEL FREEMAN,

FIRE CHIEF, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT;

CHIP PRATHER, FIRE CHIEF, ORANGE COUNTY FIRE AUTHORITY; RUBEN GRIJALVA, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF

FORESTRY AND FIRE PROTECTION; AND RON ROBERTS,

CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, COUNTY OF SAN

DIEGO

STATEMENT OF TONY MORRIS

Mr. MORRIS. Chairman Kucinich, ranking member, and members

of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before

you today. Again, I am Tony Morris of Wildlife Research Network,

WRN, a Los Angeles-based citizen nonprofit public safety research

organization, created 7 years ago to improve wildfire suppression

capability throughout California and the United States.

Current statistics show we have lost more than 8,500 homes and

structures in California wildfires in the first 7 decades of this decade. This is significantly more than the 6,500 lost in the preceding

30 years.

Trends like these cannot be allowed to continue. WRN has been

conducting a serious search to answer the perennial questions. No.

1, why does this happen? and two, what can be done about it?

During the California Governor’s blue ribbon fire commission

hearings, following the 2003 Southern California wildfire siege, experienced firefighters said they were hearing essentially the same

comments and recommendations they had heard 10 and 20 years

ago in similar hearings.

WRN now, sadly, must report the 58 recommendations of the

2003 blue ribbon commission have met the same fate—very little

progress. However, acknowledging the 19 pursued by the U.S. Forest Service. These observations indicate the wildfire fighting systems have not been working well for over 30 years. No really significant changes are being made.

When the wind blows hard, lots of houses burn down. We believe

firefighters have been doing their best with what they have, but

when strong winds come, the system breaks down. The issues are

not with the firefighters but with the equipment and other resources provided to them.

WRN addresses these in three categories. Technical, financial

and administrative. Technical challenges are, No. 1, fires are not

attacked soon enough with effective resources. Two, current air

tankers do not carry enough suppressant to attack the heads of big

fires.

Three, airborne firefighting assets do not fight fires at night.

Four, current firefighting systems have limited effectiveness and

high winds. And five, the fire services do not have the viable research and development program to resolve the preceding four

technical challenges.

None of these technical challenges will be resolved, however,

until someone is willing to spend the money. This leads to the fiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Jun 05, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\49627.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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nancial challenges. Wildfire fighting costs have been cyclical, widely spaced high-cost years with many modest cost years in between.

This has led to budgeting concepts of general funds and emergency

funds.

General funds cover moderate year expenses, and emergency

funds are only tapped or spike high-cost years. The general funds

do not include any significant funding for modernization or resolution of spike year problems.

The spending profile for major big spike fires starts out low because all fires start out small, and only immediately available adjacent initial attack forces are involved. But as the fire overwhelms

the ability of the initial attack forces, fire size rapidly expands and

much larger forces are called from ever-more-distant assets. Suppression costs build accordingly, and generally exceed general funding available.

If adequate initial attack capability is provided, the large emergency fund requirements do not materialize.

The moral is more money must be made available to significantly

improve the effectiveness of the initial attacks, and the missing research and development programs to identify the best way to spend

this money.

This is the only way to reduce spike emergency costs. These financial changes will not be implemented without support from administrative arms of the financing governments. Local and State

governments have limited taxing ability to raise general fund allocations. Many changes needed to improve initial attack capabilities

involve complex and/or large capacity new equipment in significant

numbers, that generally require technical expertise beyond that

normally found in the local fire services.

Existing Federal fire services are in no better position to deal

with these issues than local agencies, because organizationally,

they also have limited geographical authority and exist as subsets

of three cabinet-level agencies, with prime responsibilities other

than wildfire fighting.

WRN believe a new cabinet-level agency with prime responsibility for resolving the technical and financial challenges of the wildfire fighting services should be created to adequately collect, organize and present their needs with a single voice and provide information for effective oversight and accountability.

I would like to ask the chairman’s permission to invite Mr. Bob

Cavage, he is the president of WNR, he is an expert in aeronautical

engineering, and he is present to answer any questions you might

have on the technical side. Mr. Cavage is in the audience. If that

is possible.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Morris, and to the gentleman, that will be

fine if we need to involve him in the Q&A, we will ask him to come

forward and we will swear him in.

Mr. MORRIS. OK.

Mr. KUCINICH. So thank you for your attendance as well.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Morris follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Bowman, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY BOWMAN

Mr. BOWMAN. Thank you, sir. Unfortunately, I agree with most

of what Mr. Morris has had to say. I have sat through so many of

these after-action processes where a lot of verbalization takes

place, and within 6 months, very little to any change is made.

I certainly believe, and I will address comments this morning at

the Federal, State and local level, but I certainly believe firefighting and its responsibilities truly are a local government responsibility. The State plays a role in that as does the Federal Government,

but it predominantly is, and should be, a local government responsibility.

Some local governments perform that responsibility better than

others. As the former fire chief in San Diego, I will talk briefly

about my beliefs of the local government responsibility in just a

moment. Before I do that, I would like to say a thank you on behalf

of the citizens of California to the Federal Government for the assistance that you have provided to this region.

The monetary input that has gone into brush and fuel managements and vegetation policies in California, have gone a long way

to help toward the fire prevention side of what has happened here,

in California, in the last 10 years, specifically since the Cedar fires.

I would also say that many of the nice changes that you have

mentioned this morning, and the technology improvements that

have happened in Southern California since the Cedar fire, were

actually funded by the Federal Government. They didn’t come from

local funding.

You mentioned the Reverse 911. Yes, it worked well. That was

funded by you, thank you for that, through Homeland Security

grant funding.

My comment, then is that the Federal Government I believe is

doing a much better job of helping out local and State resources

when it comes to this important public safety subject.

On the State level, it was mentioned by Mr. Morris, I sat in my

kitchen, 4 years ago, when Governor Davis called me and asked me

what we could do about the wildfire impacts in California, and several of the people on this panel and I had already spoken about

what to do next, and out of that conversation came the blue ribbon

commission, on which I sat, as did some others here in the room

today.

My point is that we went through months of researching what

took place and what needed to change, and some of the most basic

recommendations have yet to be done.

One I will mention is the State of California has the Office of

Emergency Services where they provide fire apparatus to local governments in times of emergency. The recommendation out of the

blue ribbon commission was to purchase 150 fire engines. To date,

since 2003, 19 have been purchased, not one has been received by

the State government. I believe that is a focus that needs to have

a tremendous amount of effort put on, so that we don’t come together at the end of the next wildfire and have this same conversation again.

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Military asset and aircraft were talked about, Congressman. I

just have to tell you that another recommendation out of the blue

ribbon commission was that two State agencies and one Federal

agency would come together every year, no later than July, with

a written statement of how we, as the fire service, were going to

utilize local and Federal military assets to help fight wildfires.

And if the recommendation had simply been followed, it is my

opinion that this wildfire siege would have happened much more

effectively, without any of the confusion or the red tape.

I just hope that between now and next year, that recommendation is enacted, so that by July 2008 a written report of status

takes place. At the local level, Congressman, I understand your

concern about funding. Too many people misunderstand that $40 million. That wasn’t to

fight a wildfire. That was to manage, day to day, in San Diego, and

I will let my esteemed colleague to my left remind you that is

something that needs to be focused on here, locally, at San Diego.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much.

Chief.

STATEMENT OF TRACY JARMAN

Chief JARMAN. Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to

participate in this hearing this morning.

I am frustrated, that every time there is a major firestorm that

comes through the San Diego region, San Diego city finds itself

alone, on our own, for the first 24 to 48 hours to fight the firestorm.

Let’s be clear. These fires start out in East County and blow into

the city of San Diego. This was the case in 2003 at the Cedar fire

and the case again in 2007 Witch Creek fire. I need to set the

record straight. Well in advance of both the Cedar and Witch fires

reaching the city limits, the city fire and rescue department had requested additional firefighting resource assistance. In both cases,

we were told there were none available.

At this last fire, I requested a 100 additional engines, 600 additional firefighters, including hand crews, and we were told none

were available.

However, at the same time, we are expected to often send out engine strike teams to assist other fire agency requests within the

county of San Diego. It is unfortunate, but looking to the future,

I think we will need to consider the commitment of the firefighting

resources to other areas.

I don’t say this lightly, but you must understand, my primary responsibility is to provide the highest level of fire protection services

possible for the citizens and visitors to the city of San Diego. That

being said, and based on recent history, I may need every available

city firefighting resource here, within the city, to fulfill that responsibility.

You need to be aware that historically, the county of San Diego

has, and still lacks, the firefighting resources necessary to protect

its residents and visitors during significant firestorms.

In a previous hearing, the blame or burden seemed to be placed

primarily on the city of San Diego to solve this regional issue. Specifically, the immediate availability of additional fire suppression

resources. This is a much larger regional issue. Solving this issue

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is the responsibility of the county, the State, and potentially, the

Federal Government.

Sure, I can build 22 more fire stations within the city that will

help us on our day to day responses, but those fire stations and

personnel are not going to make a substantial difference when a

Santa Ana firestorm blows into our city. Twenty-two additional

fires stations would provide five additional strike teams, not nearly

the firefighting assistance I need when I am requesting a 100 additional engines, like I did during the Witch Creek fire.

During the recent Malibu fire, dubbed the Corral fire, I was told

that there were 45 strike teams available to suppress this 4,000

acre blaze. I realized I had a total of 10 San Diego fire and rescue

strike teams in Rancho Bernardo for a 9,000 acre fire. This was

more than twice the size of the Corral fire, with a quarter of the

resources to fight it.

I am exceptionally proud of the job our firefighters did in saving

nearly 6,000 homes. It is also important to note that there were

neither lives lost nor any major injuries to firefighters or citizens

within the city of San Diego.

I need to reiterate that we, the San Diego Fire and Rescue Department, were there in force when the fires burned into the San

Pasqual Valley and Rancho Bernardo communities. Our firefighters

fought the fire aggressively and never gave up.

At the peak of the fire, we deployed 480 San Diego city firefighters. That was more than half of my department, was on the

fire line. The community knows this as do our firefighters.

We welcome being part of the regional solution. Although we are

by far the largest firefighting in the county, the city of San Diego

Fire and Rescue Department should, by no means, be considered

a silver bullet with a responsibility to provide the majority of the

additional firefighting services needed in this county.

I acknowledge the greatly improved cooperation between Federal,

State and local fire agencies. This is a vast improvement over our

experience during the 2003 Cedar fire but we still have a long way

to go. As a city, we are not going to get there alone, nor should

there be an expectation that the city should shoulder the entire

burden. It is not fair to the city or its citizens.

Other fire agencies and local government jurisdictions need to

step up and share the responsibility of helping resolve the regional

issues.

I want to thank you for this opportunity. I recognize that County

Board of Supervisor Ron Roberts and Bill Horn have stepped forward with a proposal and we appreciate an opportunity to be a

part of that ongoing solution. So thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jarman follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Chief. I want you to know

that, as all the witnesses should be informed, that your entire

statement will be put in the record of this hearing, as, without objection, will be the testimony of Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev

Yaroslavsky.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Yaroslavsky follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. At this time we will hear from Chief Freeman.

Chief, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF P. MICHAEL FREEMAN

Chief FREEMAN. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee,

thank you for being here. I represent the Los Angeles County Fire

Department which provides fire suppression and life safety services

to a 2,296 square mile area within the 4,400 square mile county

of Los Angeles. More than 4 million residents and 58 cities, and all

unincorporated areas are protected.

Each year, we provide fire code enforcement, planning for highrisk wild land areas, and respond to more than 900 reported brush

fires.

During the Southern California firestorms of October 2007, we

coordinated and sustained wild land firefighting operations, combatting four large complex firestorms, some occurring concurrently,

and also to deal with several other fires within our county. All of

these were fanned by gusty Santa Ana winds.

As soon as upper hand, in even a small way, was gained, additional personnel from Los Angeles County, 45 engine companies,

dozers, crews, helicopters, were sent to other areas still in peril.

In total, 35 homes were lost during October in Los Angeles County. What we believe made a big difference for us was first,

preplanning, equipment purchases and contracts which gave us

many resources needed to mount considerable air and ground attacks. Our department focus on preplanning enabled us to better

meet the needs of these simultaneous incidents.

At the core of predeployment planning is focus on operational

readiness, so that firefighters have the right training and equipment to fight these fires when they do occur.

Another important component is the staffing of three highly

trained and organized incident management teams, ready in the

event of a major incident.

Daily, we monitor local weather conditions, initiate increased fire

suppression staffing and equipment levels, including additional helicopters, prepositioning fire engine companies prior to the arrival

of predicted Santa Ana winds.

When the California mutual aid system is operated, it is obviously essential, and it is critically so, to our ability to respond to

and contend with large-scale wild land fires.

Mutual aid, however, takes time to activate and during fire

sieges in which multiple incidents are underway, waiting for resources to come from long distances, or being released from one incident and assigned to another can be challenging.

During the height of the battle in October, 127 of 232 total fire

engines in Los Angeles County, were engaged in firefighting at

these major incidents. Over 1,800 firefighters from Los Angeles

County worked around the clock on these wildfires. Nine firefighting helicopters, including three Sikorsky Fire Hawks, which belonged to the county, with 1,000 gallon water-dropping capacity,

flew day and night.

Three contract aircraft, two 1,600-gallon capacity SuperScooper

airplanes, and a 2,200-gallon capacity Helitanker helicopter aided

our firefighters.

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Firefighting staffing also included 32 15-member fire hand crews,

8 bulldozers, 13 dozer tenders, 37 fire patrols, and staffing of 80

reserve fire engines.

Despite all of our preplanning and predeployment measures, the

mutual aid system still played a major role in our ability to respond and contain these fires, saving hundreds of homes each time.

During these wind-driven events, no fire department can stand on

its own.

Our philosophy is that a strong mutual aid system does not relieve a locality of its responsibility to assess jurisdictional threats

and prepare for them.

We have invested in more resources of our own, whether through

direct acquisition or creation of seasonal lease agreements, so that

additional resources are readily available to attack wildfires quickly, and keep them small, if possible.

We recognize this following the devastating 1993 firestorms in

Malibu and Altadena when hundreds of homes were taken. We

have four recommendations. We submit those in our testimony. We

emphasize, once again, that the State work to increase the surge

capacity, that is, additional engine companies through the acquisition of more fire engines.

These companies could be staffed by local fire departments.

A Federal-State partnership to establish and identify funding for

predeployment costs and mutual aid response.

A Federal fleet of air assets used by the Federal Government

needs to be upgraded.

Federal-State sponsorship to fast track applied technology to create a real-time GPS-based mapping system for incident commanders to use in managing these major wildfires.

Again, thank you for your time and being here with us this

morning.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Freeman follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Chief, and I know that everyone’s time is very valuable, and we are going to keep moving

through the hearing. Please let Mr. Yaroslavsky know that we appreciate him submitting that written testimony and that testimony

is going to be in the record of this hearing as though he were here

to present it.

Chief Prather.

STATEMENT OF CHIP PRATHER

Chief PRATHER. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank

you for this opportunity and for your leadership on this very important and very real issue.

I too have submitted a comprehensive statement addressing the

scope of your questions that were provided in the invitation.

The key points in that document, which do acknowledge that the

outcome of this conflagration is better than that which resulted

from the 2003 firestorms, are centered on two things.

The assumption that the number of deaths and burned-out

neighborhoods at this time, no matter how much better than the

2003 conflagration, is not acceptable for our community.

And second, that the path to achieving a better outcome, while

hard to bring about, while hard to bring about, is pretty easy to

identify and understand.

Specifically, achieving a better outcome requires risk based land

management. In other words, we must deal with the fuel-loading

in the areas adjacent to the wildland urban interface, and we must

have zoning requirements that acknowledge a community fire risk,

along with a set of building and fire codes that are truth-tested in

a wildland-urban interface.

In California, a new set of building and fire codes will become effective over the next 6 months, which do just that for new construction.

However, as Congressman Bilbray pointed out, the larger risk is

those preexisting nonconforming structures in the hundreds, if not

thousands of neighborhoods, that were built before the modern

codes were enacted, or the many communities that adopted local

code amendments to address the historical fire risk in those neighborhoods came about.

The second part of the solution in my opinion, is to have an engaged community that is motivated to take the necessary steps to

harden our homes and create defensible space, and for us in the

fire service to have the tools available to enforce that compliance

when those residents are not motivated to do so.

And last, as you have heard, and as you have also stated, there

must be a robust initial attack firefighting force on the ground and

in the air to keep the fire small.

And when those conflagrations that will continue to occur in

Southern California do happen, there must be the surge capacity

of local, State and Federal assets, to quickly provide additional air

and ground assets to stand between the people who are at risk and

the advancing fire.

The brush fire risk in Orange County, much like that of the jurisdictions which my colleagues protect, happened in minutes, not

hours, not days. I don’t know what is fact or what is fiction when

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it comes to the resource issues of the air and ground asset problems with this most recent conflagration. But I do know this.

If we expect to change the future, we must have additional air

and ground assets quicker, and there must be more of them, and

as I say, they absolutely must address the prevention and compliance issues at the same time.

Bringing about those changes will require strong leadership at

the highest levels, accountability to ensure steady progress, and

the money necessary to support that effort.

Mr. Chairman, it is my hope that this committee will provide

some of that leadership and I thank you for taking what I hope is

a first step in bringing about a different future. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Prather follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Chief, thank you very much. I have had a chance

to review your testimony and it is quite comprehensive, and I think

that it will be very helpful to the work of this committee. Thank

you.

The Chair recognizes Mr. Ruben Grijalva. Welcome, sir.

STATEMENT OF RUBEN GRIJALVA

Mr. GRIJALVA. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Kucinich,

Congressman Issa, Congressman Bilbray. Thank you for inviting

me to speak with you today, and as the chief of Cal Fire, let me

begin by saying that saving lives is our first priority in the fire

service. All firefighters know that.

Emergency disaster response is a highly coordinated skill that

takes years of experience, cooperation among many entities, and

millions of dollars in place. It works better in California than anywhere else in the world.

During the October firestorm, the actions performed by emergency responders resulted in dramatic improvements over the 2003

fires. The State was prepared like never before. Cal Fire, the U.S.

Forest Service, and local government, predeployed additional engines, aircraft, and personnel to Southern California in advance of

the fires because we knew the potential risk from the weather conditions that were presented.

This level of predeployment did not occur at this same level in

2003. Fire/weather personnel predicted the Santa Ana winds to be

a moderate event. However, the weather began the perfect storm

of high temperatures, low humidity, high wind speeds, and at times

reaching hurricane speeds in some areas.

During the October fires, we mobilized more and different equipment faster than we did in 2003. In fact, in a 2-day timeframe, we

mobilized more than we did in a 6-day timeframe in the 2003 siege.

There were over 15,000 firefighters on the ground, and in the air,

fighting fires in Southern California.

Through various mutual aid agreements, we received assistance

from a number of States, probably over 30 States, ultimately. We

also received assistance from every military branch, on the ground

with bulldozer assets, in the air with helicopters, and also in gathering real-time intelligence information in the middle of a

firestorm.

In total, there was approximately 1,145 different fire agencies

fighting these wildfires.

Let me mention, that in addition to the 23 large fires that occurred in six counties in Southern California, an additional 251

fires were extinguished by the fire service personnel, without damage, between October 20th and the 25th.

No one can deny that the collective response and performance of

the emergency personnel in October was anything less than extraordinary.

They managed the most orderly mass evacuation in the State’s

history. Authorities estimate more than a half a million people

were evacuated from the path of the fires. Lives and homes were

saved by emergency personnel who risked their own lives over and

over again. Despite worse conditions faced this year, the 2003 fires

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resulted in hundreds of more homes destroyed and more lives lost

than in 2007.

Fires are won and fought on the ground. Aircraft is certainly an

important tool, but planes and helicopters are not effective without

firefighters, engines, water tenders, bulldozers, and assisted by an

evacuation plan and properly managed shelter.

I can tell you, in particular, on the Witch fire, that our air tankers dropped on that fire, within 2 minutes of that fire’s origination,

again in 5 minutes, and then again 7 minutes later. That is three

air tankers dropping 1,200 gallons of retardant each. Without support from resources on the ground, the fires blew right past it and

was not contained by air attack.

There’s been a lot of focus on the air coverage, the use of and

limited use of, for these fires. But focusing solely on the asset minimizes the primary role of firefighters on the ground and their successful efforts.

I will submit the rest of my testimony for the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Grijalva follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Grijalva. We are now

going to hear from Chairman Roberts.

Mr. Roberts.

STATEMENT OF RON ROBERTS

Mr. ROBERTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me officially

thank you for being here today. And I also want to thank both Congressman Issa and Congressman Bilbray. You should know that

unlike many elected officials who have been here, these two Congressmen were here during the fire, they were working hard, not

when the cameras were rolling, but off camera, to understand what

was going on, and to help to contribute to solutions, and they,

along with Congressman Hunter, I just want to acknowledge and

to thank them.

We have just experienced some of the worst firestorms in California history, and I refer to this as a ‘‘perfect firestorm’’ in that the

high winds, low humidity and dry brush, all contributed to the disastrous mixture. It has already been noted how many homes. We

lost over, approximately 1,700 homes. The majority of these were

in the unincorporated areas of the county. They weren’t in cities.

They were in the unincorporated areas, and tragically, there were

10 people who lost their lives.

Today, we are moving forward, the debris is being removed, and

we are seeking to get back to a situation of normalcy, whatever

that might be.

These fires, just like the fires that swept through here in 2003,

will teach us a great deal. In fact, they already have. There are

some things, however, that we already know. We know, for example, that the evacuation of more than a half a million people in San

Diego County, while not perfect, worked very smoothly.

And we also know that the timely deployment and use of military aircraft did not, for a variety of reasons. Since 2003, as you noted, we have invested nearly $130 million

to enhance our ability to combat, prepare for, and respond to

wildfires. In addition to a number of things that we have done to

remove diseased or dying trees, over 400,000, the county did implement a Reverse 911 system, and just before the firefighters were

put in place, a much more technologically advanced mass notification system.

That system is capable of notifying not just on landlines, but

using cell phones and e-mail systems to notify people that they

need to consider evacuation. More than consider. Sometimes it is

mandatory.

The county of San Diego also holds a strong belief that land use

and zoning ordinances are extremely important in minimizing the

loss of life and property. Our codes and our ordinances are among

the most advanced in this State.

But you need to also understand the local geography. It has a

canyon system that runs right into the heart of this entire county,

in fact, very close-in to downtown San Diego.

While evacuations are a preferred method of protecting lives, we

have also developed a shelter-in-place program. In fact some of our

newer communities have a shelter in place, and clearly designed

evacuation routes. And by the way, the five new communities that

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have shelter in place, there were no homes lost in those areas. So

perhaps this is something that needs to be looked at, in detail.

We also require defensible spaces around both our large and our

small subdivisions, and in some instances, these defensible spaces

exceed 200 feet in width.

It is, however, difficult, if not impossible, to go back and retrofit

our older communities. But in addition to the zoning ordinances,

our building codes are among the strictest in this State, and I understand there will be new building codes soon required by the

State, but we require, first of all, noncombustible or fire-resistant

exterior materials, dual-glazed windows and fire sprinklers in all

new construction.

These are just a few of the things that have been done.

OK. I will do that. Can I make——

Mr. KUCINICH. If you would go ahead and wrap it up.

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes. I will. I think there are some things you need

to be aware of and I will just mention a few. There are things that

maybe need to be considered by the Federal Government.

The Bureau of Land Management, for instance, only operates its

fire departments here five, not 7 days a week, and a cost-cutting

move has reduced the number of days that most stations are open.

You can be of help to us, and I think both the Congressmen are

working on systems that would allow us to fight fires the way that

a modern war is being fought, and that is usually, and especially

the systems that are available, that could help us with earlier detection of fires, and then the surveillance and the information that

we need in the management of that firefighting process.

There were systems that were available to us late in this fire,

that really were of no consequence in helping us where the fire was

after most of the damage had been done.

We need to be able to bring those things on line earlier. These

are Federal assets and I know that both of the Congressmen are

very familiar with Global Hawk and other things. There is no reason why these are used in hurricanes but not in fires. So we would

like to see that perhaps in reconsideration of the way some of the

Federal equipment is being used, and also looking ahead to things

that we will need to do with Federal assistance.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Roberts follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Roberts. We are now

going to move to questions of the witnesses. We are going to move

to questions of the witnesses. I would ask the witnesses to engage

in this exchange and let’s try to get right to the point.

I want to start with Mr. Bowman. You spoke of a blue ribbon

commission and past recommendations which have not been followed. Does any recommendation come to mind, that you think

would be helpful if it was followed at this point?

Mr. BOWMAN. Do I need a microphone?

Mr. KUCINICH. I think it would be helpful if you had it.

Mr. BOWMAN. Yes, sir. I mentioned two of them. The purchase

of the OES fire engines is probably the least expensive, most effective change that can happen, because those units, once they are

purchased, are spread throughout the State in an area where you

can have the surge capacity that was mentioned by some of the

other speakers. They are not staffed until a wildfire or a disaster

occurs.

So you don’t have the day to day staffing. You have immediate

resources available to augment local government’s response to

these kinds of incidents.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Bowman.

Chief Jarman, how often are you asked to assist cities surrounding San Diego, such as East County?

Chief JARMAN. Oh, we assist on a daily basis through the mutual

aid system.

Mr. KUCINICH. And does providing that assistance strain your

own resources?

Chief JARMAN. Well, the part that is mutual, we try to support

each other. The surrounding cities oftentimes do help us, in return,

if we are overtaxed. In a firestorm situation, typically, we go out

and help the surrounding communities in order to prevent the fire

from progressing, because eventually it ends up in the city of San

Diego.

Mr. KUCINICH. So do you have any recommendations as far as

easing the city of San Diego’s burden as far as its resources?

Chief JARMAN. Well, I think our county is underresourced as a

whole. I think the city of San Diego, for day to day operations,

needs to build like 20 plus fire stations. But I believe the surrounding agencies also need to step up the amount of resources that are

available in the county.

Looking at our regional county fire department, with an adequate, sustainable funding source would benefit the citizens of San

Diego. It would improve our efficiency. It would drop the boundaries and allow us to respond better and support all the region.

Mr. KUCINICH. Now you had mentioned you have a quarter of the

resources to fight a fire that was significantly larger than the Corral fire. Whose responsibility is it to bolster the resources you have

available?

Chief JARMAN. I believe it is on the local, State and county governments to ensure that there is enough resources to protect the

citizens during—it is challenging. We talked about surge capacity.

When a firestorm like that, with 50 additional reserve apparatus,

all the agencies within San Diego County could staff the reserve

apparatus. We have off-duty crews that are available.

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Mr. KUCINICH. So would having a county fire department improve fire preparedness and response?

Chief JARMAN. Yes. I believe that a regional, a county fire department, with a adequate sustainable funding source, would improve emergency response.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Chief.

Mr. Morris, Governor Schwarzenegger as well as Cal Fire contend, that even if they had sent a dozen more aircraft into Southern California during the first 24 hours of the wildfires, that would

have been useless in light of the ferocity of the Santa Ana winds.

Do you agree?

Mr. MORRIS. Not necessarily. There are only certain—excuse me.

Let me—could I please swear in Mr. Cavage? He’s a technical expert, our planning expert.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Do you want to first state your name, please.

Mr. CAVAGE. It is Robert Cavage.

Mr. KUCINICH. Can you spell that for the record.

Mr. CAVAGE. C-a-v like in Victor, -a-g-e.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Raise your right hand.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. Let the record show that the witness has answered in the affirmative.

I would ask staff if you would provide the gentleman with a

chair.

I am going to ask the question again for the record.

Governor Schwarzenegger as well as Cal Fire contend that even

if they had a dozen more aircraft sent to Southern California during the first 24 hours of wildfires, they would have been useless in

light of the ferocity of the Santa Ana winds.

What is your opinion on that, sir?

Mr. CAVAGE. The whole issue is what was the wind speed at the

time. If it is over 35 miles per hour, all of your air assets, except

a few fixed wing, SuperScoopers, and some helicopters, everybody

else gets sent home.

So I don’t care if you had 10 times as many airplanes that we

have now. When the wind gets up to that speed, safety says you

don’t send them, you don’t send them. Now that doesn’t mean those

aircraft cannot be used at other times. The fire isn’t over 35 miles

per hour all the time.

So there is a period of time when it is true, the air forces were

not available and they may be useful. But there is a buildup period

and it depends on when the ignition occurs.

Like in the Cedar fire, we had 12 hours notice before the winds

hit the homes, and yet nothing happened because the airplanes

couldn’t fly at night.

So there are technological changes that need to be made to make

those aircraft effective as possible. The military has been doing this

for decades. There is no reason why that technology can’t be transferred to the civil fleet.

Mr. KUCINICH. So just to clarify before I turn the questioning

over to my colleague, Mr. Issa, at what point, at what wind speed

are you saying the aircraft is less effective?

79

Mr. CAVAGE. The number that is typically used as a rule of

thumb is 35 miles per hour. However, there are adjustments. Some

aircraft, some helicopters——

Mr. KUCINICH. What about the Witch Creek fire? What was the

wind speed there?

Mr. CAVAGE. I am sorry. I don’t know that. The people on the

ground——

Mr. KUCINICH. Does anyone here know the answer to that question, what the wind speed was at the Witch Creek fire? Anyone?

Mr. Grijalva, do you know what the——

Mr. CAVAGE. It was 68?

Mr. GRIJALVA. I think we’re technically challenged on that.

Mr. KUCINICH. If you could just say, you know, I will repeat the

answer.

Mr. GRIJALVA. It varied from time to time. I actually have two

pilots here with me that flew the Witch Fire, who can give you accurate information of what they saw while they were in the air.

But they actually went up, came down, went up,. They were also

looking at the wind changes throughout the fire, and, you know,

they are here in the audience, if you want to swear them in.

Mr. KUCINICH. Sure.

Mr. GRIJALVA. They actually flew the fire.

Mr. KUCINICH. Sure. I mean, without objection, if we could have

another minute for my questioning on here.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, I think the testimony was showing

the maximums were up to 45 to 85, but, you know, that would be

a fluctuation as the chief was saying.

Mr. KUCINICH. I just think it is important for us to establish this,

you know, certain assertions are being made, and I just want to

make sure the record is clear on this.

OK. If the gentleman would just——

Mr. GRIJALVA. Can I introduce them.

Mr. KUCINICH. And the gentlewoman—come forward.

Mr. GRIJALVA. This is Billy Hoskins who is a——

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Hoskins.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Bill Hoskins who is one of our air tanker pilots,

and Lynn McGrew——

Mr. KUCINICH. So would you—I just want to get the names here.

Mr.—is it Billy or William?

Mr. HOSKINS. Billy.

Mr. KUCINICH. Hoskins. H-o-s-k-i-n-s?

Mr. HOSKINS. That is correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. And?

Ms. MCGREW. Lynn McGrew. L-y-n-n M-c-G-r-e-w.

Mr. KUCINICH. And you are both pilots?

Ms. MCGREW. We are both based out of Ramona.

Mr. KUCINICH. Could you raise your right hand, both of you.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. KUCINICH. Let the record show the witnesses answered in

the affirmative.

I just would like you to speak to the question of what the winds

were at that time, and to speak to the question of the effectiveness

of firefighting. At what point is it diminished from the air? At what

wind speed?

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Mr. HOSKINS. Yes, sir. I can’t be specific about the wind speeds

because it varied so greatly. But at the beginning of the Witch fire,

two or three three pilots that initially attacked it—that’s us—did

exactly what Mr. Grijalva said. We worked on the fire. I think we

had eight drops on it before it completely, you know, escaped us.

And as he said, without ground forces immediately there, that is

what was going to happen to this fire. The 35-mile-an-hour figure

is a rule of thumb and you should consider ceasing fighting fire

aerially. At that point is not required that we do that.

Mr. KUCINICH. Is there technology that would give firefighters a

greater lead?

Mr. HOSKINS. We fight fire now, at considerably higher speeds

than that now. You have to choose your drops more—with that in

consideration. You don’t drop crosswise with the wind because it is

going to blow it way downrange. If you can drop on the flanks of

the fire, you can still do it at relatively high speed.

Mr. KUCINICH. I want to thank you. I want to go to Mr. Issa now.

I took about 10 minutes there, so you can do the same.

Mr. ISSA. No problem, Mr. Chairman. Hopefully we will have a

second round at this time.

Mr. KUCINICH. We will. I want to thank Mr. Hoskins. Thank you.

Mr. ISSA. Billy, before you go——

Mr. HOSKINS. Yes, sir?

Mr. ISSA. I will start with you since you don’t have a chair. You

are a contractor out of Ramona?

Mr. HOSKINS. That is correct. All of the current air tanker pilots

are contracted to the State of California. We work for DynCorp at

this present time.

Mr. ISSA. Right. And the aircraft that you brought to bear on a

surge basis out of Ramona?

Mr. HOSKINS. The Turbine S–2. That is what was operating out

of Ramona at the time.

Mr. ISSA. OK. I just wanted to make sure that the chairman had

this, because that is a factor in California, is that some of our

surge is absolutely contractors at their own expenses, that they

don’t hope for fires but they are there when we need them, over

and above primary government resources.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Issa.

Mr. ISSA. Before you go, Billy, you don’t fight fires at night under

the current rules?

Mr. HOSKINS. No. In my opinion, that technology is a long, long

way off. We are dealing with terrain that is so abrupt, that it is

even very difficult for helicopters to fly it at night.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that. The reason I ask is, almost without

fail, our winds drop off at night, don’t they?

Mr. HOSKINS. That is correct.

Mr. ISSA. So in a sense, if the Federal Government, which does

not know how to fight and fly at night, were to, as a result of this

hearing, bring about that technology in time, you would be gaining

the time in which winds are least of a problem and in fact, you

know, by definition, the best time to fight a fire is when the winds

are low, the winds are low at night. Is that fair? Forgetting about

how long it might take us to develop that capability and field it.

Mr. HOSKINS. I will have to agree with that.

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Mr. ISSA. OK; thank you. You know, it is one of the big questions

for us to take back to Washington. So thank you for being part of

that.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Can I clear up one thing for the record?

Mr. ISSA. Sure.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Billy is an exclusive contractor with Cal Fire. He

is not one of the private ‘‘call when needed’’ contractors.

Mr. ISSA. I understand. But he does have another day—he does

have another life between fires.

Mr. GRIJALVA. No; no. They fly Cal Fire.

Mr. ISSA. Oh. I apologize.

Mr. BILBRAY. Only if he plays golf.

Mr. GRIJALVA. They fly Cal Fire aircraft. They are on exclusive

contract with Cal Fire.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Thank you. I still view them as part of the—you

know, they are part of our surge capability, if you will, because

that is all that they do is make themselves available for that.

Mr. ROBERTS. Congressman.

Mr. ISSA. Yes, Ron?

Mr. ROBERTS. And maybe you need to direct that question to

Chief Jarman. But the city of San Diego’s helicopters fly at night

and does fight fires at night, but they are not permitted to fight

the fires that are under State control during the night.

Mr. ISSA. Chief, that may be a good one for you to followup.

When you have a city-only fire, do you fly at night?

Chief JARMAN. Yes, we do. Copter one was up flying the first 24

hours and flew through the night. That is typically what we do. It

is the difference between a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft. So

that helicopters can fly at night and we proved that during the

Witch fire.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. I will take that back with us too. Chief,

while I am on you, though, you know, we talked about the codes

in San Diego, and for that matter, California.

Isn’t it fair to say that homes are dramatically safer for fire purposes today than they were at any time in the past? In other

words, progressively, we have been getting rid of shake roofs, boxing in eaves, in a sense, eliminating what used to make homes fire

traps, at least in new construction and major retrofits?

Chief JARMAN. I would say that is true in new construction. Our

challenge are the older homes that are along the edge of the canyons, to focus on boxing in those eaves, changing the attic vents so

the screens are tight enough. I think there is a lot of progress we

could make there.

Mr. ISSA. So from a standpoint of residential fires not related to

brushfires and wildfires, your job, in a sense, has become better in

the last 100 years, that firefighting as we used to know it, when

homes burned down, and Congressman Kucinich and I are both

Clevelanders, so we go back to oil and all kinds of other heating

systems that California hardly knew.

But the fact is homes burn on a per population basis, less today

than ever have in the past, and that has been a downward trend,

hasn’t it?

Chief JARMAN. I would say for the most part, it has been a downward trend, but last year we actually saw about a 20 percent inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 12:01 Jun 05, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00085 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\49627.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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crease in residential fires, a change that we are looking into and

researching to find out what the cause is.

But typically, over the past 100 years, yes, it has reduced. We

have made a lot of progress.

Mr. ISSA. And doesn’t it give you a challenge in that your day

to day base load for firefighting is actually lower than it was at any

previous time? The amount of firefighters necessary to do the job

is, on a per population basis, is inherently a dropping figure, while

a wildfire isn’t going to drop. That surge isn’t going to drop a bit?

Chief JARMAN. Well, given the number of high-rises that the city

of San Diego, the region has experienced, I think it is still a challenge for us, as firefighters, to have the personnel available, whether it is a high-rise or a firestorm. You still need the capacity in

order to deal with the——

Mr. ISSA. Are high-rises a greater fire threat per capita?

Chief JARMAN. Than wildfires? No. I would say the wildfires are

a greater threat per capita based on the fact that the high-rises are

typically sprinklered.

Mr. ISSA. OK. You know, because from a Federal standpoint, we

have no basis to participate, nor is it appropriate for us to comment

on whether you need 20 stations to take care of the cat in the tree,

the heart attack, or, in fact, regular fires that occur on a basis. We

do have a role to play in these Federal disasters, and that’s hopefully one of our challenges.

Chairman Roberts, you mentioned the canyon structure. Presently, the canyons in San Diego County are in fact a habitat-run

area. In other words, we are not allowed to break the habitat capability for endangered species purposes.

So you have to have a non-broken, for purposes of migrations of

various species, you have to have a non-broken canyon, as a result,

substantially, a non-broken fire corridor; isn’t that true?

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, I think that is largely the goal, is to provide

for movement of wildlife between the various systems.

Mr. ISSA. And a good fire break is also a good break in habitat

migration, isn’t it?

Mr. ROBERTS. There are times when the two come in conflict

with one other; but not in all cases.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Does the county of San Diego have requests that

would help alleviate the fire risk while maintaining some semblance of habitat and endangered species conservation, that have

not been answered by the Federal Government? In other words, are

there things you would like to do that we haven’t let you do?

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, I think there are instances where there are

conflicts between environmental goals and safety goals, and I mentioned the possibility and difficulty of retrofitting, especially our

older communities. In the newer communities, and communities

that we are planning for tomorrow, we do extensive fire studies as

part of the planning and then decide what that clear zone needs

to be along with the other protections that need to be built into

those communities.

But it is very difficult, and in some cases it is very counter to

environmental issues in the older areas.

Mr. ISSA. OK. That is a good one to know.

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Chief Jarman, going back to you for a moment, and because we

don’t have a BLM representative—to be honest, this isn’t a fed

panel—isn’t it true that the lands you are speaking of—and I won’t

take East County per se—but outside of the incorporated area of

San Diego, isn’t it true that they are disproportionately the open

areas, Federal and State parks, Indian reservations, BLM land,

and the like, and aren’t those the areas of greatest shortcoming in

firefighting?

Chief JARMAN. I would say that is a true statement.

Mr. ISSA. So would it be fair for this committee to take back that

meeting our requirement on Federal lands, including Indian reservations, such as the La Jolla reservation that was so devastated,

and, in fact, that is a very poor tribe that does not have the possible resources, that us reevaluating what it takes to ‘‘step up to

the plate’’ to meet those requirements, which are outside the county’s direct responsibility, is a take-away?

Chief JARMAN. I believe it is. We should probably look at the fuel

loads in those areas, prescribe fire management programs, something along those effects within our region.

Mr. ISSA. I appreciate that. In your experience, firefighting at

night is something that you believe is essential in San Diego, and

you would again take away that we should make this a priority for

Federal firefighters?

Chief JARMAN. Yes, I do. The interesting thing about a firestorm

is the challenge. It seems that between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m., the

winds do pick up. It is different than what we typically see on a

typical afternoon where the winds are from one to five and then

they shift. So that is a difference that we experience during these

firestorms.

Mr. ISSA. I know there is going to be more questions than there

is time, but just one thing in your experience. The tendency toward

low water consumption in and around homes. For the most part,

isn’t low water consumption and, in a sense, a dichotomy with trying to stop fires?

We can’t grade hillsides there because they will erode. Even the

various other types of plants that are fairly low, they have a tendency to be low in water consumption and easily burned, unless you

want to have red apple on every single hillside in California.

Chief JARMAN. That is true. There was one structure that was

surrounded by aloe plants, and actually, they believe that might

have helped slow the fire down. So it is something that we have

looked to the experts for recommendations along what should the

citizens be planting.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you.

Congressman Bilbray.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Grijalva, the locals have said that they can fly

helicopters at night but can’t fly over the State-controlled lands. Is

that true?

Mr. GRIJALVA. Well, right now the—I don’t know if it’s working

or not—right now, the Fire Scope board of directors is looking at

night flying as a policy and has recently released new standards for

night flying.

84

We at Cal Fire are also looking at that, although we do not do

it right now, at least for helicopters for the future.

So as long as they are keeping within the criteria established by

Fire Scope, that they could fly at night. But they are not controlled—we are not up in the air at night, so our air traffic control

managers are not up there at nighttime.

Mr. BILBRAY. Well, this is one of those things we need to work

out. If the city of San Diego has the capability of putting a ‘‘bird’’

in the air that could respond, don’t you think that we should be

looking at making sure that we have the control system ready to

where we could use a resource, if it is available right now?

I mean, in other words, it just seems logical that if a resource

is out there, we don’t want to end up with another situation where

we ran it again, where the State didn’t plan on this, or didn’t have

the capability to tap into certain resources that you would want.

My question again is, if the fire is held—next year—will we be

able—will you be able to call the city of San Diego and say, look,

do you have a unit that can fly? She says yes. Do you have the ability to use that unit?

Mr. GRIJALVA. Well, the way it works in Southern California is

with the majority of the counties, they are contract counties with

the State. So, for example, LA County is a contract county with the

State. They have their air resources, they fly at night, and they

could fly over SRA at night under their control system. So in San

Diego, we don’t have that down there. So there is parts of the State

where that can be done.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. Then we should be talking about what it

would take to get the protocols and get the relationships to use

that, and I think that is——

Mr. GRIJALVA. We are doing that through the regional organization called Fire Scope, looking at it on a statewide basis.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. I understand the statewide basis. I hope that

we are able to work with the local disaster council, to make sure

that the system, you know, the degree of urgency that we have for

the next, you know, seven, 8 months, that we have ‘‘got our act together,’’ so we don’t have to be, respond in that.

Mr. Bowman, when you talk about fire suppression being a local

responsibility, and being a former mayor and county supervisor I

understand the constitutional issues here.

Aren’t you really, though, saying that it is the local property

owner, traditionally, has been the one response?

A good example is if the police—if you have a vacant lot that is

overgrown, the city of the county normally goes in, or the fire district normally goes in and tells that property owner you have a responsibility to maintain that property or you have a responsibility

for fire suppression.

Is it more fair to say that it is the local property owner, the people owning the property in the location that bear the real responsibility for fire suppression?

Mr. BOWMAN. No. They clearly have a responsibility to maintain

a fire-safe property.

Mr. BILBRAY. Right.

85

Mr. BOWMAN. The local government also has a responsibility to

oversee that. My comment, however, was directed at local government funding for fire protection.

If you look at a couple of counties represented here today, Los

Angeles is one and Orange County is another, I would find it prudent that you ask how much money those counties spend on fire

protection. There is a city fire chief here and we have talked about

city local funding for fire protection.

To me, this region, San Diego County, is well behind Orange and

Los Angeles, and virtually every other county in the State of California. That was the purpose of my point.

Mr. BILBRAY. Chief, what percentage of your county is owned by

Federal and State?

Chief FREEMAN. I’m not sure I could give you the percentage but

it is a relatively small amount.

Mr. BILBRAY. Small amount.

Chief.

Chief PRATHER. Same. Relatively small.

Mr. BILBRAY. Well, for the record, 51 percent of San Diego County is owned by the Feds and the State, and I will tell you something. If I was a mayor, and somebody, a property owner owned

half of my city, basically felt that they did not have an obligation

to participate with the other half, I would say you are damn wrong.

And I think that when the State and the Feds want the right to

own all this property in San Diego County, then just as we say to

the private sector and to the private owner, and to the city and the

county, you have a responsibility to bear your proportional responsibilities there, you darn well, we have a right to say to the Federal

Government—and this is a big difference, Mr. Chairman, in your

county as opposed to this.

I mean, you can imagine, you probably get 5, 10 percent of your

county owned by the Feds and the State back East.

Mr. KUCINICH. Depends on how fast the subprime hits. [Laughter.]

Mr. BILBRAY. Right.

Mr. KUCINICH. Not funny.

Mr. BILBRAY. But I think the real issue here is proportional responsibility and that is where we do bear more responsibility in

San Diego County because we have more rights in San Diego County than we do in either one of your counties.

Global Hawk is a good example of the real-time response. Somebody was talking about real-time response here. That the Federal

Government has a capability there, that we can get a bird up, get

the information to you, so you can see exactly what is going on, and

this is a capability that we should be able to be talking about from

the Federal Government’s point of view.

It is that real-time response is going to be really critical. I want

to say that again. I think there is proportional rights with this

issue but there is proportionally responsibility, and the big difference between us and other counties in California, especially the

urban counties, is we are one of the few, if not the only urban county that has the majority of our jurisdiction controlled by Federal

and State agencies.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Bilbray. We are going

to one more round on this panel.

Picking up on the question that you asked, Mr. Bilbray, and the

numbers that you cited about 51 percent of the land being owned

by the State and the Federal Government in San Diego County, I

would like to start with LA County Chief Freeman.

How much do you spend annually on fire protection?

Chief FREEMAN. About $800 million a year.

Mr. KUCINICH. And what about Orange County, Chief Prather?

How much money do you spend annually on fire protection?

Chief PRATHER. Approximately $260 million.

Mr. KUCINICH. OK. San Diego County, Mr. Roberts.

Mr. ROBERTS. I don’t know the answer to that.

Mr. KUCINICH. According to staff, the answer is $8 million. Now

if that in fact is the case, I think the comparison here is instructive, even with the fact that you have 51 percent of the land owned

by the State and Federal Government.

I want to, at this point, ask Mr. Freeman, in your testimony you

write that a strong mutual aid system does not relieve the locality

of its responsibility to assess jurisdictional threats and prepare for

them.

Do you feel that Orange County and San Diego County are living

up to their responsibility of preparing for jurisdictional threats, and

if not, what do you recommend they do to prepare themselves?

Chief FREEMAN. I think that my comment applies, in general, as

a concept. I am not an expert, by any means, on either of those

counties.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, your opinion. Would having a county fire department improve fire preparedness and response, and has there

been a case for Los Angeles?

Chief FREEMAN. Well, sir, I am not sure that the structure, in my

opinion, is what is key. I think what is key is what are the threats

and what are the needed assets, resources, and capabilities to address those threats, and then whatever structure is determined by

the local authorities, and if it is a partnership between local, State

and Federal, then that structure should be decided by them.

Mr. KUCINICH. What about this structure, Chief Jarman, with respect to the county fire department and its role in this?

Mr. BILBRAY. I believe a county—a county fire department? It

would minimize the potential for duplication of services. It could

provide for more efficient and effective use of the fire resources and

management. It would enable the equitable distribution of fire resources throughout the region. It would provide for dedicated fulltime resources that would be available to address the needs

throughout the county.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Chief.

Mr. Grijalva, Riverside contracts with Cal Fire for a fire department. How is that different with your arrangement, from your arrangement with San Diego County, and would contracting with the

county help you increase your resources?

Mr. GRIJALVA. In Riverside County, the way it works is a lot of

cities contract with the county for fire protection and then the

county contracts with the State for fire protection. So throughout

most of Riverside County, city, county and State fire department

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is the same. That is one model that I think works extremely well

in the State.

I think the LA County model also works extremely well, i which

many cities contract with LA County and the State then contracts

with the county to cover State responsibility area.

Those are two different models, they both work well, but they

both work well because both counties invest a significant amount

of money in fire protection.

I think those are, from my perspective, looking at a statewide

perspective, two counties that are models.

I think Ventura County, Orange County, do an outstanding job

in terms of prevention. So while they may not have the same investment and resources as some of the other counties, they have

a significant amount of investment in fire protection and they do

an outstanding job in prevention, which helps minimize the need

for suppression resources.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Grijalva. Now a final

question to Mr. Roberts.

Chief Jarman mentions that if you ask for fire response assistance in the future, that she wouldn’t be able to help because the

city of San Diego is the first priority.

Is that characterized correctly?

Ms. JARMAN. That is correct.

Mr. KUCINICH. What will the surrounding counties do to respond

to their fires in that case, and what kind of assistance can the

county provide them?

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, I don’t want to misconstrue the chief’s comments. We have a mutual aid agreement, and I don’t think the

chief is talking about disbanding that, you know, local sense.

Maybe so.

Mr. KUCINICH. Chief——

Mr. ROBERTS. I think you need to understand, though, you know,

the county model is different. We also don’t have a Water Department and we don’t have a Trash Department. We don’t have a lot

of things you might see with other counties. We have a different

model. And when you talk about spending, you are just looking at

a part of this. You are not looking at the total picture.

There is a lot more spent on local fire prevention and preparation, and response, than is coming from your staff. It is done under

special service areas where the funding goes into a district. There

is a different history here, and I am not saying that this is perfect—and we are moving with some consolidation—but if you walk

away from this, thinking that somehow a county fire department

is going to take care of the issue, then I think that your time will

have not been well spent. Very well spent.

Mr. KUCINICH. Chief, do you want to respond, based on your understanding of fighting fires and the sufficiency of one county,

based on its historical structure, versus where you are at now in

terms of the real challenges that you face in meeting the firefighting needs?

Chief JARMAN. The mutual aid, day to day, would still be there.

It is when the firestorms come through, that I would have to consider how much can I lend to other cities, given the limited resources we have.

88

Regionalization and consolidation, without adding additional

units, will not make any difference in the same regional area. So

it is one area where we are talking about the surge capacity, the

additional units, either the 150 from the State or the 50 from the

county. We have short-term goals, which is, what can we do to be

ready for next summer? Is it possible to get 50 more engines within

our county by next summer? And then you have the long-range,

which is regional consolidation, where does it make sense to consolidate and leverage our global resources?

Mr. KUCINICH. And, again, you know, this hearing started with

the assumption, and with the testimony, that those involved in

fighting the 2007 wildfires did a very good job, and especially compared with past efforts. The question today is preparedness and

looking at the resources that are available and the allocation of

them. And we have been proceeding in a constructive way.

Mr. Bowman, do you have anything to say about that as the

former chief, in terms of preparedness and participation?

Mr. BOWMAN. Well, I think Chief Jarman made the comment. I

would just add to it that the city of San Diego, because it is wellstaffed, is the first agency that is called to send units out of the

city, and she was asked a question earlier, does that have an impact on the city? It absolutely does. If she can’t restaff the vacant

stations that exist because they were sent to the outlying county

areas, the city of San Diego, then, is left ‘‘holding the bag,’’ to find

out how they are going to deploy units to fight that fire, once it

comes into the city. So she has a definite problem, and there is an

impact to the city residents when she sends her units to the outlying areas.

Mr. KUCINICH. Does the county have any difficulty, then? Does

the county ever get stretched thin?

Mr. BOWMAN. The county of San Diego is stretched thin on every

event. What hasn’t been said here is that in the 1970’s, this county

opted out of providing fire protection, and thereby created these 60-

some volunteer agencies that protect the back country, the East

County that Tracy referred to.

Volunteer agencies do a great job, but they are volunteers and

they are not adequately staffed to handle any kind of a major

event. So the county cannot respond, in effect, the way an Orange

or a Los Angeles County could respond, with a fully funded, adequately served, fire service agency.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Bowman. I want to,

at this point in the hearing, say it is uncommon for the kind of cooperation that Mr. Issa and I have had throughout our time serving as Chair and ranking member, but it is also uncommon to have

a chairman of one party, the majority party, pass the gavel to the

ranking member of the minority part. But in recognition of our

close working relationship, I am going to do that right now. I am

going to have to leave. But I want to assure my good friend, Mr.

Issa, by continuing cooperation—I have some other questions that

I will submit for the record and engage our witnesses further.

But, again, Mr. Issa, thank you very much for this hearing, and

at this point I am going to be leaving. But at this point you are

now the Chair, so——

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Mr. BILBRAY. Don’t say I didn’t warn you on what he was up to

as soon as you leave the room, though.

Mr. KUCINICH. I have complete trust in this man.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate you holding this in the limited time you had available.

Mr. KUCINICH. I am sorry. Before I leave, I just want to make

sure that I thank the Fallbrook Center here, and Fallbrook Public

Utilities District, for making this wonderful facility available, and

also for the members of the staff of the majority and the minority,

for their efforts in traveling here, as well as participating in structuring this hearing. So thanks.

Mr. ISSA [presiding]. Thank you, Dennis, and it really is unusual.

Congressman Kucinich and I had the privilege of working in opposite roles in the last Congress, and it was bipartisan. It has been

bipartisan on every one of our hearings in Washington. It is kind

of unusual but perhaps opposites attract, and it works out perfectly

for both of us. Plus, again, I have to keep my brother happy.

Brian, you will now represent the loyal minority in the rest of

the hearing.

I want to followup on what Chairman Kucinich was getting to,

for a couple of reasons. I have had the privilege of representing Orange County, Riverside, and San Diego Counties, and Chief

Prather, if I get it correctly, Orange County is different than San

Diego County in that substantially, you are a county of cities. You

are not a county, any longer, of unincorporated areas, to any great

extent.

Is that fair to say, for the record?

Chief PRATHER. We are sort of like what Chief Grijalva described

in Riverside. We have contracts with 22 of 34 cities, and the unincorporated area, and governed under the JPA laws of the State of

California.

Mr. ISSA. Right. But your decision to have a county structure is

a decision by your various cities. You know, I was there when the

last couple cities came in, and, you know, basically, you are a county of cities. You are not a county of large Federal and State and

unincorporated areas. That is not where most of the residents or

most of the land is held.

Chief PRATHER. For the most part; yes.

Mr. ISSA. OK. You know, when I contrast that to—and I asked

for a reason.

Chairman Roberts, if we were to take Encinitas, Carlsbad, Vista,

Oceanside, San Marcos, Escondido, El Cajon, National City, you

know, go through the incorporated areas, if we take those out, the

one thing I find interesting is all those cities have no State or Federal land in them, to speak of. By definition, Camp Pendleton is not

in Oceanside, and so on.

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, Miramar, and many other bases are in——

Chief PRATHER. We didn’t mention San Diego.

Mr. ISSA. No. I am not counting San Diego.

Mr. ROBERTS. You are excluding the city of San Diego?

Mr. ISSA. Right. So excluding the city of San Diego, and excluding those other——

Mr. CAVAGE. Imperial Beach is the only one with major——

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Mr. ISSA. OK. But take all of those cities out, just take those out

because they are not part of the county structure, currently. If you

were to take the remaining lands, including here, in Fallbrook, and

put them under a county fire department, how much of that would

be Federal and State lands?

In other words, when you take out all of our cities, instead of 51

percent, don’t you end up with about 90 percent would be Federal

and State lands, and a relatively small amount of the burnable

area would actually be the homes and people of the unincorporated

county, and East County is probably the exception. But certainly,

in North County, you generally get into Federal and State land,

pretty quickly, when you get out of the incorporated areas.

Mr. ROBERTS. Right. You actually do in the East County also.

But I don’t know what that percent—I have no idea. It would be

a pretty high percentage. I suspect it would be somewhat less than

90 but it would be a significant percentage.

Mr. ISSA. OK. So rephrasing what I asked earlier, because I

think it is worth making sure it is in the record: If we were to have

the Federal Government and State agencies live up to their obligation at the level that Chief Jarman lives up to in the city of San

Diego, wouldn’t we be not having this discussion we are having

here today, about the county versus the city?

Isn’t the substantial portion that you have, better than half of

the geographic area of the county, is owned by the Federal Government or the State government. They are generally, you know, undeveloped, highly combustible, and untaxed. They represent no revenue to the county, or to the city, and they, in fact, are, for the

most part, relatively sparsely protected by firefighting organizations.

I look at the La Jolla Indians. They rely on BLM, primarily, with

some contract capability. Rincon has a firefighting capability, that

substantially is to take care of their incorporated area within the

tribal areas. Pechanga, the same thing, and so on. Their fire departments are not nearly sufficient to take care of, in some cases,

tens of thousands of acres.

Mr. ROBERTS. I lost the question. I am sorry.

Mr. ISSA. The question is hasn’t the record been made a little bit

unclear, in that if the county simply said, OK, we are going to have

a county fire department, what would you really man, if the Federal and State are supposed to take care of theirs? What would you

really be manning, today, in the way of—and Fallbrook is probably

one of the exceptions.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Ramona and Chula.

Mr. ISSA. Well, Ramona. But that is the whole question, because

I want to make sure that we don’t misunderstand. You are not Orange County and when we take out Federal and State lands, and

take out the incorporated cities, there isn’t that much left, is there?

Mr. ROBERTS. Well, there are some significant populated areas,

but I mean, your point is well made, and it really goes to the comment that I made, that if you left here thinking that a county fire

department is automatically going to be a solution to this—the city

and the county have a good working relationship.

In fact all of the cities in the county, in this region, participate

in the Unified Disaster Council, that in many respects could be a

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model for a lot of the other areas. We have some different circumstances in both geography, and organization, and Federal and

State ownership, and because, as an example, perhaps a different

way of doing things.

But, you know, with all due respect, the reason why the city of

San Diego has a helicopter is because a supervisor went out, initially, and was able to get the money for that. Not that they funded

it on their own. In fact, it is an ongoing supply of money to help

them sustain that, both in corporate giving, which a certain supervisor helped to put together, and in a sustaining fund from what

is called the Safe Port.

So there is a good working relationship. I don’t want to do anything to harm that. In fact, we are looking at how we can most effectively bring resources, and, you know, among the things we need

to do a better job at is our brush management, and other things

that are virtually no cost, other than the fact that you need to have

your fire departments and your fire marshalls going out and enforcing the rules.

And in neither the city of San Diego, or in the county, or in any

of the other cities, these efforts are at maximum right now. So, you

know, there are some things we need to do locally, that I can assure you that we are going to be recommending and moving forward on. The question of, you know, whether having one fire department is a solution, or not, is not as clear to me as it might be

to some others.

Mr. ISSA. Well, and I want to do one closing question. The county

maintains an Emergency Response Center. That is where we met

during the fire.

Mr. ROBERTS. That is correct.

Mr. ISSA. That is not included in the $8 million that you put into

fires, but it was an asset brought to bear, wasn’t it?

Mr. ROBERTS. There are a number of things. I told you, and I

suggested earlier—I shouldn’t say I told you—and the chairman, in

fact, acknowledged, that we have spent $130 million over the last

4 years. It wouldn’t take much of a mathematician to figure that

is in excess of $8 million a year.

Mr. ISSA. OK. I am going to give everyone just a quick last

chance to followup with each of us, but I am going to put something out here on the table, not just for the record, but as a takeaway for those of us going back to Washington.

If I understand correctly, separate from Federal and State issues,

if the Federal Government were to, one, evaluate the ability to create safe zones through forms of clearing or forms of modifications

that would allow for better fire breaks, that would be something

that would be helpful in the case of this and future fires.

The efforts that we have made to allow for constructive clearing

of dead lumber, dead trees, and so on, particularly the pine infestation, is doing some good. We should continue to support that.

The assets, such as Predator and Global Hawk, that were

brought to bear, with their ability to see through smoke, the ability

to see in an environment in which the naked eye may not be good,

and their ability to fly at night, is something that we should be exploring, whether more of that could be brought to bear as a resource on day one of a fire and other emergencies.

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The ability of all assets to be able to fly at night and perhaps

the Federal Government funding the ability for these resources to

be better able to do it.

I will say as to the C–130J’s, you know, they are a State asset,

they will be in place in 2008. But they are a Federal asset, we provide them and pay for them, and should be embarrassed that it

took so long to get the J model with an effective FAA-approved retrofit for their suppressive materials.

But that certainly is an example of an asset that we know flies

in above 35-mile-an-hour winds. And I am going to close with just

one question. We have technology in the military for precision

bombing, that can deal with incredible amounts of wind and other

activity.

Do you believe—this may be an aeronautical thing—that the

Federal Government also should be looking about whether we have

technologies that would automate the ability to drop in high-wind

situations, in difficult situations, better?

In other words, can we bring more technology to bear in the fight

against fire, when we have these high winds and a human being

is just frustrated by trying to drop in 40-, 50-, 60-mile-an-hour

winds.

I see a head shaking. Is that a yes, that we should take that

away? [Laughter.]

We should invest a little more in microphones the next time we

come down from Washington.

Mr. ROBERTS. In our written testimony we addressed that subject, and, in fact, there are some things being worked out with respect to suppression that it would be in direct response to what you

asked. It is underfunded. These people are just hanging on by their

fingernails. We have some illustrations in the testimony as the concept that we think has that potential.

Mr. BILBRAY. Mr. Chairman, can I followup.

Mr. ISSA. Actually, we are going to let you close on this one. Go

ahead.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. Following up on that, having spent some time

with the firefighters out there, the fact is it is high altitude, usually vaporizes before it reaches the fire, and I know they are working on this balloon application for portable, so you don’t have to use

a tank. But it seems, as a layman, that the capability of using the

balloon concepts, to be able to use high, so you don’t have the vaporization, that basically you have some kind of container, small

containers that can deliver the product onsite, from a higher altitude, where it wouldn’t vaporize, is there anybody working on that

kind of technology?

Mr. CAVAGE. You are right on target. Look in our submittal.

There are pictures of that concept, that they are already beginning

early stage development.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. I guess 35 years in Government, you finally

pick up something every once in a while. OK.

Mr. CAVAGE. Right now, you have a transport aircraft that has

a rear-loading ramp. You have an opportunity that you ought to explore.

Mr. BILBRAY. OK. Anybody that has ever seen a water balloon

launcher hit somebody, you know how effective can be. But I won’t

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identify my children as being one of those people that launch water

balloons.

Mr. ISSA. You Tube has already identified them, Brian.

Mr. BILBRAY. I know. You know, Mr. Bowman, you were pointing

out the fact in the 1970’s, the county abandoned the efforts, and

I think it is only fair that we all talk about some base issues here

that the chairman has to put up with.

We talk about the capabilities, being able to be online, but we

ignore too often—I would say this to the State legislators—the fact

is the money has to come from somewhere. We have over 50 percent of the territory exempt from assessment, and then, in the

1970’s, Mr. Bowman, San Diego County was locked into the lowest

rate in the entire State, and was punished because it hadn’t been

locked in to where—you know, LA County, you can see how much

a larger portion of the ‘‘pie,’’ of the property tax they are able to

get because the State was able to do that, and because they had

aggressive legislators who were willing to protect their ability to

raise revenue.

San Diego County has always been at that short end, at the lowest level in the county. In fact, the only one that even gets close

I think is Orange County.

So where there is no money, there is not going to be the capability of spending the money. And so I think that one of the challenges we have to recognize is we are going to have to try to build

on that.

But we can’t just throw money at this problem in San Diego

County cause the legislature, unless somebody enlightens them to

the fact that equal protect under the law means San Diegans get

equal protection with San Francisco, which gets twice the percentage, we ought to be talking about the fact that we need to be not

just looking at being bigger. We need to talk about being smarter,

and we are forced to have to be smarter because we don’t have the

resources down the line.

Mr. Chairman, I think that everybody here has to recognize that

we have our job to do. Mutual Aid has been great for San Diego

in extreme north and south, where you have the smaller cities that

can respond. city of San Diego, say, Coronado, back in the late

1970’s, when they didn’t want to be part of mutual response, and

sure as shootin’, the Landing Fire was the biggest urban fire at

that time, and kind of persuaded the naysayers that participation

was good.

I just have to go down the line and say, though, that, you know,

we all have our things. I think the chairman and I are going to

work at making sure real-time capabilities are there, because it is

fine to have the capabilities to drop it but if you don’t know where

the fire is, in real-time, then it can’t be done. And that is our job

and we will work on that.

The State of California, I think it is fair to say that we ought

to damn well make sure, before we get to the next fire season, that

we have worked out the way to be able to have our resources in

the air in San Diego, like we are in other States, and I think our

challenge there is to make sure that capability works on that aspect.

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The counties, the county chairmen, and the coordination that

needs to be done there, needs to continue to work with you in making those bridges.

But I think the biggest thing here is that rather than pointing

out all the problems that we have had, which we have had some

big problems, we should leave here, not pointing fingers, except understanding that we need to do our part to be able to go on. Like

I said, money alone is not going to solve this, cause it is not going

to be there.

We do need more resources, but we also need to be smarter, and

I hope we all walk away from this aware of that. Thank you very

much. I sure appreciate the chance, and it is kind a nice to be able

to sit down and talk to local government people who actually do

things, rather than the Feds that we always have to work with,

who do a lot of talking and not much action. Thank you very much.

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, and that certainly makes a case against

term limits, when you have 35 years of experience speaking. I

would like to thank our extended first panel.

With your indulgence, Members that were not here today, upon

reviewing the written record, may have questions.

Would you all agree to answer, in writing, if you are given questions by committee members who couldn’t come out to California.

Thank you.

Mr. ISSA. And with that, the first panel is dismissed. We will

take about a 5-minute break before the second panel comes up.

[Recess.]

Mr. ISSA. I apologize. There wasn’t time to change the name tag

to Chairman Issa. But I think we will get through this OK without

the promotion.

We now go to our second panel, and with your indulgence, if the

people from the third panel arrive in time, we are going to consolidate, seeing as we are kind a consolidated here at the dias.

Ms. Nancy Ward is the Region IX Administrator of FEMA. I

could do a longer bio, but that pretty well says it all. and Mr. Mark

Rey is the Undersecretary for National Resources and the Environment for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Rey, we appreciate your being here. We had about 10 requests for different people from USDA, and they said you could answer all the questions. So they ‘‘threw you under the bus,’’ and

hopefully, you will appreciate that the questions may fall outside

your ability to answer in real-time, and also, Ms. Ward, that may

happen to you, but we are a committee of oversight that is perfectly

happy to take things in writing, for the record, and then act on

them, because the complete committee report will probably take as

much as 30 days to complete and put into an action plan.

So, with that, I would ask both the witnesses to rise and raise

their right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. ISSA. Let the record show that both witnesses answered in

the affirmative.

Ms. Ward, you probably heard earlier, that your entire statement

will be put in the record, so it is best if you assume that you have

said all of that, and now, for the next five or so minutes, if you

would use it as a basis to give us that which may not have been

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within the federally authorized proofed, vetted, and allowed-to-besaid record, and you have my personal assurance, that if you go off

your notes, there will be no repercussions.

Administrator WARD. Absolutely.

Mr. ISSA. Please go ahead. Thank you.

STATEMENTS OF NANCY WARD, REGION IX ADMINISTRATOR,

FEMA; AND MARK REY, UNDERSECRETARY FOR NATIONAL

RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE

STATEMENT OF NANCY WARD

Ms. WARD. Thank you, and it is a pleasure to be able to participate today. As you know, I am the Regional Administrator for

FEMA Region IX, and so the firestorms in October were under my

responsibility as being in Southern California.

As you know, the 2005 hurricane season was a catalyst for

change and improvement with FEMA, and in my vast experience

in emergency management, I can tell you that the Federal coordination for the California wildfires response has been unprecedented

in the level of collaboration and cooperation between all of the partners, not only Federal, State, tribal, local and voluntary organizations.

I personally, on the first day, went to the State operations center

to initiate joint operations. On Tuesday, FEMA started holding

video teleconferences with Federal agencies, State agencies, and

the president declared a major disaster declaration and designated

my call to the Federal coordinating officer, who is also here with

me today, and within 24 hours an integrated joint field office was

established with Federal response teams from multi-agencies, and

many more other personnel on the way to assist.

To give you a brief scope of the Federal response, FEMA staged

more than 79,000 liters of water, 24,000 cots, 42,000 meals-readyto-eat, and, in addition, provided 42,000 blankets and other types

of sheltering response items to support sheltering efforts.

FEMA’s Joint Field Office issued 92 mission Assignments, totaling more than $40 million, for direct Federal assistance from our

partner Federal agencies in support of the State and local governments.

And even as local and State firefighters were still responding to

the immediate fires, and they were not as yet distinguished, key

elements of Federal-State strategy for recovery types of activities

were initiated, and a housing task force to support local governments in identifying short- and long-term housing options for displaced residents. A debris management task force, which we knew

would be a huge issue, so that we could thoroughly and timely remove the disaster-related debris.

A multi-agency support group which was initiated to support

local government in addressing, in an environmentally sensitive

way, the future flooding and erosion and debris flow concerns for

the upcoming rainy season, and we have already seen some of that

actually play out.

And then finally, a tribal task force to help the affected tribes to

get technical assistance and supplemental assistance.

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So I can tell you that firsthand, the wildfire response, that

FEMA has learned that we cannot wait for a State to become overwhelmed prior to offering assistance, and by pressing forward an

engaged partnership with the State, FEMA ensures that the resource gaps are filled and that the residents can get the muchneeded assistance more efficiently and effectively.

This certainly helps with our mission to reduce the loss of life

and property, and I would like to thank you again for the opportunity to participate.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Ward follows:]

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Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. Rey.

STATEMENT OF MARK REY

Mr. REY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The fire community, perhaps uniquely, among government entities, values after-action reviews, because new lessons can almost always be learned, and result in improved performance, and shortly, I will speak to a couple

of areas of improved performance, particularly with respect to the

use, in Southern California, of military reserve and active aircraft.

But results do speak for themselves. So I think it is instructive

to compare the 2003 fire siege with the one we just experienced in

2007, because they provide benchmark years.

I will compare them for all seven Southern California counties in

12 key areas. First, with regard to preparedness, as my testimony

indicates in detail, there was better prepositioning of a larger number of assets in 2007 than was the case in 2003.

The 2003 event was an event of 15 days of duration, whereas the

2007 event was an 18 day event with sustained higher winds, and

drier fuels. In 2003, there were 213 ignitions. In 2007, 271 ignitions. Those resulted in large fires in 14 cases in 2003, and 20

cases in 2007.

That means that the initial attack success rate was identical in

both years, at 93 percent, with more fires and more severe conditions in 2007.

In 2003, the event burned 750,000 acres. In 2007, 518,000 acres.

In 2003, we lost 5,200 major structures. In 2007, only 3,050 major

structures. There were 24 civilian fatalities and one firefighter fatality in 2003. There were 10 civilian fatalities and no firefighter

fatalities in 2007.

In 2003, 237 firefighters were injured. In 2007, only 140. In 2003,

we evacuated upward of 300,000 people in the seven counties. In

2007, we evacuated upwards of a million people in the seven counties involved.

Since 2003, the Federal land managing agencies have treated

275,000 acres for fuel reduction purposes, with an investment of

$300 million. In my testimony or attached to my testimony, you

will see results of fuel treatment work that did save communities

and homes, particularly in the San Bernadino incident.

Unfortunately, as a consequence of a court decision handed down

by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on December 5th, the rate of

fuels treatment was slowed significantly.

The 9th Circuit reversed the Eastern District of California, eliminating the use of categorical exclusions for fuels treatment work,

which will reduce the amount of fuels treatment work that we can

do by about 14 percent over what has previously been accomplished.

In particular, some projects on the Cleveland National Forest

that helped save Mount Palomar, would now be not lawful under

the 9th Circuit decision.

Even though 13 is considered an unlikely number, let me add a

13th factor for comparing 2003 and 2007. Since 2003, 180,000 new

homes have been built in the wildland-urban interface in these

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seven Southern California counties. That is right at 60 percent of

the new home construction, regionwide.

So in 2007, there was a lot more to protect, and there likely will

continue to be.

Now in terms of areas of improvement, we do believe that effectiveness could be improved by consummating the local agreement

between Cal Fire and the Marines for the use of Marine helicopters.

We also believe that a stand-ready mechanism for the C–130H

MAFFS could expedite their call into duty, and as the testimony

has already indicated on the first panel, we are completing the

work of outfitting the C–130J series, so that they will be available

for the next fire season.

In every after-action review, two separate questions must be

asked. First, were there things that could have been done better?

The answer in this case, and almost always, is yes. Second, were

the things that weren’t done as well as they might have been,

things that materially affected the outcome of the incident?

In this case, in the case of the use of military aircraft, there is

no evidence to indicate that would be the case.

With that, I would be happy to submit the balance of my testimony for the record, and respond to any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rey follows:]

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Mr. ISSA. Thank you.

Mr. REY. But I do have some helpers here who I can call on, if

needed.

Mr. ISSA. OK, and unless they require an in-depth questioning,

we will just assume that they will whisper in your ear and you will

then know all you need to know to tell us.

That is because of the limited microphone. I want to make things

work really well without passing it any more than necessary.

First, Ms. Ward, I have to start off with a little bit of a criticism,

and I hope you will take it—and I believe my staff has let you

know about this in advance.

I have a constituent, Ms. Amy Wheeler, who, on 10–22, had her

and her mother’s mobile home burn to the ground. And it was

unsavable, as mobile homes often are, once they get going. She

called FEMA on 10–24, as soon as the declaration was made. She

received a denial letter on 11–2, and I have that denial letter, and

what I find amazing, this is—and she has been told, and I have the

whole situation, that I will give you for the record, or for your

records.

Essentially, there is an automated denial that says, yes, you

have asked, yes, you may have had your house completely burned

to the ground, yes, FEMA people were on the ground and FEMA

people were out looking, and yet it says, ‘‘Determination: ineligible,

insufficient damage.’’ Mobile home is completely gone.

This is a category, housing assistance, and the language, and I’m

not holding you responsible; but you are the messenger here.

Ms. WARD. Absolutely.

Mr. ISSA. ‘‘Based on your FEMA inspection, we have determined

that the disaster has not caused your home to be unsafe to live in.‘‘

Let’s just say it continues on from there. This is one of hundreds,

actually, probably thousands at this point. But hundreds of letters

that were sent to people who lost everything. And I realize, and I

have been told in the past—actually, I was told in anticipation,

that nobody is proud of this letter.

Ms. WARD. That is correct.

Mr. ISSA. Do you need the Committee on Oversight and Reform

to write a letter to replace this letter? Or can you take back with

you the clear instructions, that a letter that, on its face, is only

going to serve to cause further pain and suffering to the people who

receive it, that FEMA will make a change without legislative action.

Can you give us a reasonable assurance of that today? Or at

least that you will carry it back.

Ms. WARD. I think I can, sir. In the case of Mrs. Wheeler, I actually think that there might be two, actually, two problems. I think

the hundreds of letters that you refer to, that they received denials,

were due to the homeowners or residents having insurance, and at

the time that they called and registered for assistance, they had

not been told of what their insurance or disposition would be to

their insurance claim.

I think, unfortunately, Mrs. Wheeler should have received that

still ‘‘bad letter,’’ but I think in Mrs. Wheeler’s case, she received

a letter that probably should have been replaced by the insurance

letter denial.

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And basically what it does is ask them to settle with their insurance and then come back to FEMA with what that disposition is,

so that we could assist possibly with any unmet needs, and we

know that, we are changing, are hopefully changing the letters. I

don’t think that the committee has to do it in legislation. But we

are very aware that these letters of the insurance denials caused

much consternation, and certainly much confusion in the way they

are worded.

Mr. ISSA. Let me ask you a question because I realize that we

can do what we usually do, except in this case the Committee on

Oversight—I have to be a little careful when I say this—we could

blame the lawyers, except our staff tend to be lawyers on this committee.

But wouldn’t it seem reasonable to you, as regional director,

somebody who has to deal with the people, that the full and complete truth, either for Mrs. Wheeler and her mother, or anybody

else, is one, we recognize that your address is within the affected

area, therefore you are eligible.

Two, we recognize that you have met the 60 day requirement to

make a claim, something that is critical because you don’t make

the claim, you are done.

Ms. WARD. That is correct.

Mr. ISSA. Three, at this time, information is insufficient to verify

whether you will receive funding. Here are the factors. Boom,

boom, boom. Please be aware that your file shall remain open for

further followup. Use this reference number.

Now that is the way my insurance company would probably have

dealt with my house burning to the ground, and I don’t know how

much, you know, how much I lost in it.

Is that, in layman’s terms, a tool that will be helpful to you,

when you deal with people who have had these catastrophic losses?

Ms. WARD. Absolutely. I couldn’t agree with you more, and there

is probably hundreds of FEMA reiterations that went back to

Washington, asking for that type of rewrite.

Mr. ISSA. OK. I have to tell you, Bobby Jindal is a dear friend

of mine. He came into Congress 2 years after I did and we have

been dear friends. He now of course is the Governor-elect in Louisiana.

He brought me stories like this——

Ms. WARD. Oh, yes.

Mr. ISSA [continuing]. And they didn’t hit home until one of my

constituents have one.

Ms. WARD. Absolutely.

Mr. ISSA. And I went: But the whole trailer park is gone. It is

not even just this house.

Ms. WARD. That is exactly right. That is exactly right.

Mr. ISSA. So I appreciate that and I appreciate your good demeanor as we made that point abundantly clear.

Can I ask that you take special attention as to Mrs. Wheeler and

make sure that she gets an appropriate personal letter——

Ms. WARD. I will. I was not made aware of Mrs. Wheeler but I

will take your letter, and make sure that someone specifically calls

her and goes over.

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Mr. ISSA. OK. That would be helpful, because I think she deserves at least something that isn’t automated.

Ms. WARD. Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.

Mr. ISSA. I am going to switch over to Mr. Rey for a second. I

told you that you are all of USDA, and I know you were in the audience earlier, so you heard tremendous accolades for the work you

have done to diminish, in some cases, and I am particularly happy

that Palomar mountain, that hadn’t had a fire in, I understand, 37

years, was savable, where, without some of that clearing, it probably wouldn’t have been.

But isn’t it true that what sounds fairly small, 14 percent, that

you won’t be able to do, isn’t it really a 100 percent of some areas

that is 14 percent of the clearing? It is not like you clear 14 percent

less.

Mr. REY. That is correct. There will be some areas where projects

are scheduled that will have to be delayed or abandoned, at least

delayed a year at a minimum, as we move to retrofit the project

and comply with this new decision.

Mr. ISSA. So for the next foreseeable year or two, until either the

courts or processes change, we have areas that won’t be cleared,

and as a result ,harm to homes and lives is clearly in jeopardy as

a result of this court ruling.

Mr. REY. We estimate that about 400,000 acres of treatments,

nationwide, will be delayed by this ruling, putting people at risk

and in harm’s way.

Mr. ISSA. In a prudent perspective, California being the poster

child for that, how much of that 400,000 is here?

Mr. REY. A fairly significant amount. I can get you the

specific——

Mr. ISSA. Somewhere between a quarter and three-quarters,

though. It is a big chunk.

Mr. REY. Yes. Probably about 30 to 40 percent.

Mr. ISSA. OK. That is one that goes beyond just my committee,

but certainly we are going to be watching.

As to USDA, I have a particular ‘‘bone’’ to pick that I think you

are already aware of. We don’t want to blindside anyone. But why

is it, corn is a crop, and avocado isn’t?

Mr. REY. Well, they are both crops but——

Mr. ISSA. One of the you cover and the other gets no money.

Mr. REY. For disaster payments?

Mr. ISSA. Yes.

Mr. REY. Yes. You know, that is a different part of USDA than

the one that I run, unfortunately.

Mr. ISSA. I warned you.

Mr. REY. But I can get you a response for the record.

Mr. ISSA. OK.

Let me ask you a question because I want to make you take the

legalese hat off.

Corn takes, you know, less than a year to grow. It is seasonal.

If you burn it all to the ground, the next year you actually probably

get a better crop because you have the benefit, if you will, of all

that burn. Avocados, almonds, pomegranates, any number of other

orchard type crops, you burn them, you have 5 years before you get

anything.

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Doesn’t it fly in the face of common sense, that, in fact, the disaster is far worse in the case of the loss of an orchard, because it is

far longer than it is in the case of—whether it is radishes or corn.

Mr. REY. Annual crops.

Mr. ISSA. So is there any sensible reason you can justify this in

your mind, that I should be aware of, or this committee should be

aware of?

Mr. REY. I think part of the reason that the crop insurance program doesn’t yet reach perennials like orchards is the premiums

would have to be significantly higher.

You know, the Farm Bill is currently before Congress. There are

some new proposals for disaster assistance. That might be something we can look at as the Senate-House conference on the Farm

Bill continues. It starts its deliberations after the Senate has completed its work.

Mr. ISSA. OK. I am going to make the assumption, for the record,

that it has more to do with the amount of Congressmen that get

lobbied, in how many States, for how many votes.

Certainly, when I look at the sugar subsidy and the ethanol subsidy, I don’t have any question, it has very little to do with the

common sense, but, rather, with how many back yards it is in.

As far as you know, is there any leeway—and this is perhaps

good for the USDA—leeway in the current law that would allow

these strict Federal guidelines to be waived or limited? In other

words, do you have any jurisdictional capability to do any more

than you are presently doing for the constituents that are right

here in Fallbrook, for example, with their avocado losses?

Mr. REY. We met with a number of the 2-weeks ago and the

Farm Services Agency, which is the agency that runs the preponderance of the disaster assistance programs, is looking in now at

what the length of our flexibility is to provide some assistance. So

we are looking pretty hard at what we can do.

Both the Farm Services Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service have made some money available. So while we

might not be able to give them crop insurance relief, we do have

some other disaster relief that is being made available to them.

Mr. ISSA. OK. As you know, it is over $30 million, and I mentioned avocados. Unfortunately, ornamental trees and shrubs, basically everything we do here in Fallbrook seems to be not covered.

Mr. REY. Right. There is a lot of nursery stock that was damaged

in the fire.

Mr. ISSA. Yes; an awful lot. This is not directly related to you but

it is pretty significant to the people in this district, and because I

note, or noted that the Governor’s office had representation here,

I wanted to make a point that the Army Corps of Engineers has

been unable to clear the San Luis Rey River of trees and brushes,

which first of all burn, and second of all, clog the ability for draining of the San Luis Rey.

So if you don’t end up getting burned as a result of this river

that runs through the area, then, instead, you will simply flood the

surrounding communities, and that failure is because the Fish and

Game, the State agency, has decided, after almost 20 years, that

they are entitled to 65 acres of mitigation not previously asked for,

when, in fact, this project was fully federally mitigated.

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I thought I would mention that only because, one, we are still

talking fire, and two, we are about to go into flood season, and I

thought I would take advantage of your presence to make at least

the representatives of the Governor well aware that the issues that

we have related to agencies don’t end with fires.

Mr. REY. And we did have experience, post 2003 fire, that we had

some catastrophic floods as a consequence of the failure to get

brush cleared. So that is a real problem.

Mr. ISSA. And I guess back to FEMA, I will ask the easy question. When you say meals-ready-to-eat, you are talking about military MRE types?

Ms. WARD. That is correct.

Mr. ISSA. OK. I am an old C ration guy, so I actually think those

are an improvement.

Ms. WARD. Yes. Absolutely.

Mr. ISSA. And the good news is is if you have one left over, it

is good for years.

Ms. WARD. That is right.

Mr. ISSA. But other than the successes—and I want to congratulate you, not just at the Qualcomm Stadium, but throughout the

region. FEMA arrived quick. You brought people in from all over

the country. The blue shirts were immediately noted, and I think

that helps dispel the idea that every disaster is going to be another

Katrina or Rita, that in fact FEMA can do and do well.

But nobody said a word, in the earlier panel, about any shortcomings that FEMA had in this process, and I think you should be

commended for that. But what are your lessons learned? What resources should we, in the Federal Government, be adding to your

capability that you have learned as a result of this disaster?

Ms. WARD. Well, quite honestly, Congressman, I think you are

already doing that in terms of the post-Katrina reform act and the

budget that FEMA has benefited from since Katrina.

As you know, prior to Katrina, FEMA was no bigger than a medium size high school, and we are now finally getting the resources

that we need. One is we are establishing incident management

teams, that actually, right now, they are an ancillary duty, so we

will have permanent teams that can work with the State and prepare for them.

Second, we are doing 24-hour watch centers for situational

awareness, which is benefiting us greatly.

In terms of the fire, I think one of the successes that we tried

here, in California, for the first time, and we will continue to do,

and we have learned greatly from, is the unified command with the

State of California, very, very early on, and putting Federal and

State division supervisors down with each local government.

We have not tried that before here, and it was a huge success.

So we will start now training the rest of the State on this success

story. So it is a lesson learned, that we can take statewide. Those

would be a few of the things.

Mr. ISSA. Now the earlier panel did mention the assets that were

brought to bear late in the fire, particularly overhead architecture

that gave greater visibility to where the fire was, and one might

say where the red team, blue teams were, or could be.

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I mean, it is an area that clearly, you don’t direct funding for,

to bring to the battle. Is that an area, though, that you believe substantial resources should be brought, and if so, what resources?

Ms. WARD. I do think it’s a technology that we can benefit from.

Several days into the fire, we turned to DOD and asked for some

of their imagery resources, and they agreed to fly some of those resources, as a training mission, one, for themselves, but to see what

actually we could benefit from, certainly at the incident commander

level.

And we do think, while we have not used it on fires much, in

Southern California this was a true training mission, but I do

think that they could benefit greatly from this technology, especially in an area like Southern California where your perimeters

can be mapped and that can directly go back down to the IC to see

how the fire is moving and the wind conditions.

So it is not something that FEMA does but we certainly can mission-assign that task to those areas who do provide that technology, and from what we saw in the training missions, it was very

successful and something that I think we should continue.

Mr. REY. There is one complication, though——

Mr. ISSA. Yes, Mr. Rey.

Mr. REY [continuing]. And that is that much of that technology

is still classified, so the military would have to use it directly, or

declassify it so civilian operators could use it. It will have to be one

of those two things.

Mr. ISSA. And I have the good fortune of being on the Intelligence Committee, so I am well aware that we are not going to tell

you the license plates of every vehicle in the area, to use something

out of the television genre. But that is a challenge and I appreciate

you bringing it to us.

A couple more questions. Those resources, post the incident, in

order to lock into time the actual damage done. It is obviously a

resource you don’t have.

Is that a resource that would help you in accurately assessing

who gets the letters? But also accurately assessing fraud that may

be perpetrated after a major disaster?

Ms. WARD. I think it would be beneficial in terms of getting into

areas that we can’t put our assessment teams down into quickly

enough. But the specifics of damages not being able to be seen, like

damages that we would say is major damage to a home, from

smoke. If it wasn’t burned to the ground, you’re not going to be

able to get that damage. So we would want to go back and——

Mr. ISSA. Even if it were declassified, that we can see the smoke

damage inside a house.

Ms. WARD. That is exactly right. So I do think that it would help

us in significant disasters to be able to do that aerial, and we do

do that, actually, in some widespread flooding, some hurricane

damages, to actually keep from having to put boots on the ground

to do that individual assessment.

Mr. ISSA. A little closer to home, we had an interesting conundrum, if you will, in reimbursement, that we haven’t resolved, but

I want to make you aware of it.

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The La Jolla Indian tribe, and the chairman is expected to be

here shortly, was devastated in this fire. They were evacuated and

many of them stayed in a hotel at the Pechanga Casino.

Ms. WARD. Correct.

Mr. ISSA. Now Pechanga tribe did not say anything other than,

you know, we are essentially closing off our casino rooms to make

room. They made their hotel available and granted lots of other assistance.

Now no good deed goes unpunished, unfortunately, in the Federal way of thinking. They offered a hotel. The hotel has a regular

rate. The people stayed in them, and when I encouraged Pechanga

to—even though they said, well, we would give it to them, I said,

wait a second, they would much rather you give them the reimbursement as a separate gift, you provided something for which

every other citizen was getting, you know, if eligible, was getting

a reimbursement check.

They were told that wasn’t the case, that the tribes, even though

separately incorporated, were being treated as one. Right now, we

are a little frustrated in that La Jolla, desperately poor, doesn’t

have the money to rebuild, they are living in trailers out there, and

the money that normally would have been paid to the hotel operator, which to be honest, Pechanga has said if they receive the reimbursement, they will separately gift that to La Jolla. But the Federal Government would normally pay for that.

Can you think of a valid reason that we shouldn’t pay for La

Jolla Indian Reservation people who stayed in those hotels, won’t

get paid, while if a La Jolla Indian Reservation person went to any

other hotel, they are getting reimbursed?

Ms. WARD. Congressman, it is my understanding that the Red

Cross, after about 4 days, provided reimbursement to the Rincon

Harrah’s as well as the casino. So I will look into that, to make

sure.

Mr. ISSA. OK.

Ms. WARD. But it was my understanding that there was about

four or 5 days, when they evacuated to those places, that they

weren’t reimbursed. But it was about four or 5 days into the event,

that we facilitated a meeting with the Red Cross and our tribal liaisons to have the casino reimbursed for the remainder of the stay.

So I will look into that and be sure to get back to you.

Mr. ISSA. OK. And I appreciate it. The La Jolla are among the

most challenged.

Ms. WARD. That is correct.

Mr. ISSA. Quite frankly, they are what Indian tribes had in this

area before casinos.

Ms. WARD. That is right.

Mr. ISSA. And so it is an area where we are going to need a lot

of rebuilding.

I guess, do you have other things for me, or for this committee,

that you think we should take away?

Mr. REY. One take-away that I would add is in responding to the

first panel’s discussion over night flying——

Mr. ISSA. Yes.

Mr. REY [continuing]. That is not merely a technology question.

It is a safety question. The Forest Service discontinued night flying

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in a fire environment in 1978, after a midair collision between two

helicopters whose pilots did have night vision goggles, resulted in

the death of eight firefighters.

So yes, there is technology available to facilitate night flying, but

it is inherently less safe than flying during the day, because even

night vision goggles in a firefighting environment have limitations,

because the fire flares up, the fire is going to blind the pilot who

is using night vision goggles.

So it is a tradeoff, and it is a tradeoff, that if we make it the

other way, we will undoubtedly increase the number of air fatalities that we experience.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Last but not least, are we doing enough? Do we

have the resources defined for coordinating the after-action Federal, State and local? Or do you feel that, in fact, as much as there

have been good things said about who is working with whom, as

Federal entities, do you believe that the coordination of all these

things, such as what we discussed here today, is formalized in a

way in which they will be done before next fire season?

Ms. WARD. Congressman, I can’t speak to the firefighting resource activity and their after-action process, but I can tell you that

in FEMA’s case, we don’t let anyone return home, quite frankly,

without a multi-agency after-action sessions in each of their functional area of responsibilities. But I can’t speak to the specific firefighting routines.

Mr. REY. With regard to the firefighting, the improvements that

we have identified will be in place by the next fire season.

Mr. ISSA. Including those J model C–130’s?

Mr. REY. Including the J models.

Mr. ISSA. OK. Last but not least, Ms. Ward, I will leave you with

this. The trailers that need to be stored on an ongoing basis. Camp

Pendleton has been suggested.

One of the interesting things I find as the Congressman representing Camp Pendleton is my 129,000 acres can do everything.

Just ask the people around the area.

What I would like you to take back is nobody is pushing back on

doing their fair share. But the history of trailers being stored and

unused is not particularly good.

And what I might ask you to seek is a dual use capability, that

if those trailers can be reasonably used in some approvable way by

the base, so that they not lay empty and unopened until needed,

that might be the ultimate win-win.

They are not asking to be paid for rental, but it occurs to me to

have resources like that, it may be that in fact they should be

made available for some Federal use.

I joked, quite honestly, I joked with the base commander, the regional commander, about, oh, couldn’t we store them on Del Mar

Beach? He immediately thought that was just peachy. But quite

frankly, there are possibilities that they could serve a dual use for

transit personnel, military personnel, and I can assure you, they

won’t last any less time than they do sitting unmanned.

And so if you could take that back, to see whether or not that

could be accomplished.

Ms. WARD. I will definitely do that.

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Mr. ISSA. OK. And with that, I would like to thank my second

panel. You have been good. I have been a little briefer. That is the

advantage of having just one microphone and two people.

OK. Then I will close this by thanking everyone who came here

today. We are going to dispense with the third panel because we

have hit the time, and the folks are not here. So without objection,

that is it. Without objection, this concludes it. We are adjourned.

[Whereupon, the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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