The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center published a study in December on the 13 wildfires that ravaged Southern California in late October and early November 2003.

On Nov. 7, the center assembled a six-person information collection team in Southern California. Under the direction of team leader Dave Christenson of the Lessons Learned Center, members of the team spent seven days conducting interviews with 107 people involved in the battling the Southern California fires. Respondents worked from 43 different fire and ICS positions, representing at least 12 different city, county, state and federal agencies.

The 70-page report begins by defining the scope of the disaster, which was of such a scale it “may redefine the concept of the wildland urban interface,” the report said. “The statistics to date are staggering: 12,000 firefighters, 750,000 acres burned, billions of dollars in damage, approximately $120 million in suppression costs, 4,000 homes destroyed, 22 human lives lost….

“These events put people in new territory. The enormity of the situation pushed people into positions that the system and the rules were simply not prepared to handle and forced significant mental shifts in the thinking of those involved. Out of 107 interviewees, almost all used words like ‘conflagration’ and ‘catastrophic’ as they tried to describe what they had seen.”

The lack of interoperable communications systems was cited as the biggest challenge in battling the fires. Municipal and county fire departments in California have all converted to an 800MHZ radio communication system.

“Virtually every respondent cited the incompatibility between this communications system and the VHF systems used by state and federal agencies as the largest problem encountered on these fires. Radio interoperability problems caused coordination problems between cooperating agencies, command and tactical units, air and ground units, and even between engines on the same strike team. …”

View the complete report online at www.wildfirelessons.net/Index.htm under “Information Collection Teams.”