PREFACE

"California Aflame!" is a description of the large, destructive wildland-urban fires which occurred
in California from September 22 to October 4, 1970. It is also the record of the strenuous effort
to suppress those fires.
The story is a documentary--you may find it long and detailed. Hopefully, every reader will gain
the sense of what happened during that fiery catastrophe of 1970 through scanning the
Introduction and Summary. Beyond the Summary, the individual reader may wish to study only
those portions of the story which specifically interest him. The Table of Contents should assist in
this endeavor.
Naturally, not even in a document of this length can one find all details of the many events that
occurred or all the statistical data related to the fire activity. Those readers wishing further
information about a particular subject are asked to contact the author. If he doesn't have the
answer, he will direct the inquirer to the proper source.
The author is indebted to the writings and counseling of many people for the facts described in
this documentary. Much information was obtained by interviews with individuals of many
agencies who played key roles in the 1970 fire disaster activity. To name all these individuals for
their valuable assistance would require more space than is available here. Special thanks must
be given, however, to Mark Schroeder, Research Meteorologist with the U. S. Forest Service's
Riverside Forest Fire Laboratory for supplying most of the information and all the diagrams on
fire weather contained in the two chapters, "Fire Weather Conditions Leading to the Disaster"
and "The Fire Disaster"; to Rex Griggs, Fire Prevention Officer for the California Division of
Forestry's Southern California District, for his fire summary bulletins which supplied almost
instant information to news media and to firefighters during the height of the fire activity; to the
several newspapers which supplied photographs and much valuable information contained in the
report; to Lee Burcham, John Hastings, Howard Moore, and Rex Griggs, all employees of the
California Division of Forestry, who critically edited the report and added to its accuracy and
readability; and, finally, to the several typists who patiently remained loyal through so many
reworkings of the report and who undoubtedly must have become ill at the sight of such words as
"disaster," "destructive," and "rampaging conflagrations."
Clinton B. Phillips
Assistant Deputy State Forester
California Division of Forestry
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I N T R O D U C T I O N
From September 22 to October 4, 1970, fire raged through more than half a million acres of
brush and forest in California's wildlands. Thirteen days of uncontrolled flames - flames which
killed people - consumed hundreds of homes built in or adjacent to the wildlands - damaged
thousands of other structures. Thirteen days of disaster. California Aflame!
Destructive forest, brush, and grass fires occur every year in California. Although such fires can
and do happen in every month of the year, the most crucial part of the fire season is generally
from May through November. During a relatively few days of that season, fuel and weather
conditions are often so critical that small fires escape to become large, destructive
conflagrations.
The 1970 fire disaster was unique in modern times, primarily in terms of geographical area
involved, total acreage burned, the wildland-urban nature of the fires, and the large number of
agencies, people, and equipment involved (Fig. 1). Not since the Bar Harbor Fires in Maine in
1947, perhaps, has such a widespread disaster of similar nature occurred. Control of California's
1970 catastrophe depended upon the nationwide depth of the United States Forest Service, the
statewide depth of the California Division of Forestry, and execution of the State Fire Disaster
Plan under which men and equipment from many communities converged upon the various
fires, providing assistance to local firefighting forces.
This story describes the disaster and the organized mutual effort necessary to combat it. A short
version of the story may be found in the U. S. Forest Service's attractively written and illustrated,
"Devil Winds--1970" (1). 1/
1/ Underlined numbers in parentheses refer to LITERATURE CITED on page 69.
2
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SUMMARY OF THE DISASTER
It all started when a man set his match intentionally to tinder-dry grass along the Fish Ranch Road in the
hills behind Oakland. Within minutes flames, feeding on dry coyote brush and pine trees and whipped by
a strong northeast wind, swept to the ridgetop and leaped into homes perched on the steep hillside above
San Francisco Bay. In less than two hours fire completely destroyed 36 homes, badly damaged 37
others, and desolated 230 acres of valuable watershed. Fortunately - and almost unbelievably - the
flames took no human lives (Fig. 2).
The statewide disaster ended--slowly, stubbornly--when the Fire Boss of the 34,000 acre Meyers Fire in
southern California determined his fire had been wholly surrounded by a line cleared of flammable fuel.
Between the start of the Fish Fire and containment of the Meyers Fire were thirteen days of severe peril
and trial to the people of California. It was a time of extreme drought--little or no rain had fallen since
mid-March. A time of low humidity - usually below 10 percent and
occasionally only 1 and 2 percent. A time of extreme heat - temperatures soared above 100
degrees for several days on end. A time of strong, gusty winds - they blew for most of the thirteen
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days, frequently at velocities of 80 miles per hour. During this time 773 separate wildfires burned
nearly 580,000 acres of grass, brush, and timber covered wildlands throughout California. (The
burned area equaled a strip of land more than a mile wide stretching diagonally from the Oregon
border to the Mexico border.) The fires completely destroyed 722 homes when they burned
isolated residences or spread from the hills into urban communities. Sixteen lives were lost,
attributed directly to the fire activity. Suppression costs and damages together were estimated at
233 million dollars. Potential damage from winter floods and soil erosion could add many millions
of dollars in damage.
While it was a time of disaster, it was also a time of triumph for human resourcefulness,
engineering, and compassion. Under provisions of the State Fire Disaster Plan, professional
firemen from hundreds of county, city, and community fire departments joined the wildland fire
protection forces of the California Division of Forestry and the U. S. Forest Service for a common,
organized effort.2/ Firemen and equipment converged on the fires from many directions, assisted
by other government agencies, private organizations, and various industries. Private individuals
worked separately and also combined into impromptu groups to aid the destitute and to assist
firemen on the line. Here there was no generation gap: "long hair" worked side by side with "short
hair" and "hard hats"; young and old found a cause in which they could join harmoniously. This
great human phalanx which stood against a tenacious enemy had its rewards.
Of the 773 forest, brush, and grass fires that occurred during the thirteen days of disaster, only 32
escaped early suppression efforts to become "large" - that is, 300 acres or larger. These 32 fires
accounted for 93 percent of the total acreage burned and 89 percent of the homes that were
completely destroyed. Considering the extreme burning conditions that existed, damages could
have been much greater if more of the 741 "small" fires had escaped. As it was, the combined
efforts of the people of California, working through formal channels of mutual aid agreements and
informal channels of spontaneous volunteer service, undoubtedly saved thousands of acres of
valuable watershed land, thousands of homes, and millions of dollars of potential damage.
California's fire disaster in the late summer of 1970 was costly in many ways. It could have been
much worse. What happened? What caused the fires to burn and to destroy as they did? What is
the nature of the cooperation, the readiness plans, and the State Fire Disaster Plan that assured
prompt attack on the fires by a large number of independent fire departments and public
agencies? How did the people of California work together in a common cause? What lessons were
learned that may prevent or minimize future disasters of this kind? These and other questions are
explored in some detail in this report for two important reasons: (1) A civil disaster, regardless of
cause, can happen anywhere, anytime; and (2) similar burning conditions will occur again in
California, just as they have in the past.
2/ Firemen may be broadly categorized as "structural firemen" - employed by city or county fire departments, legal fire districts, volunteer departments, or
privately-owned fire departments primarily to protect buildings from fire; and "wildland firefighters" employed by federal, state, or local governmental
agencies or by private concerns to protect forest, brush, and grass covered watershed lands-or wildlands--from fire. The California State Division of
Forestry and the so-called "Contract Counties" of Kern, Los Angeles, Marin, Santa Barbara, and Ventura provide fire protection to most of the
privately-owned wildlands In the state. The U. S. Forest Service, U. S. Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service provide fire protection to
most of the federally-owned wildland. Privately-owned wildland within the National Forests Is protected by the U. S. Forest Service under contract to the
state.
6
THE WILDLAND FIRE PROBLEM IN CALIFORNIA
California experiences large, destructive wildland fires almost every year. The state's
environmental conditions all add up to a recipe for fiery disaster: continuous expanses of highly
flammable brush and other vegetation; rugged terrain; long arid summers; dry north and east
winds during the critical part of the year; and a population that insists on seeking living space and
recreation in nature's beautiful but hazardous, flammable wildland.
The state's geography contributes much to the fire problem (Fig. 3). California is third in size
among the states, only Alaska and Texas being larger. Its 158,693 square miles is roughly
equivalent to the area of the eight northeastern states (including Pennsylvania but not New Jersey)
or the combined area of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia. Between its borders with
Oregon and Mexico, California stretches more than 700 latitudinal miles, roughly equal to the
distance across Illinois and Wisconsin or from the south border of Georgia through Maryland. The
state's west coast enjoys the cooling influence of the Pacific Ocean; to the east it faces the dry
deserts of the Great Basin - indeed, nearly a quarter of the state's land area is in desert.
This large land area, complicated by a rugged mountainous terrain, often means long travel time
for firefighters responding to wildland fires and complicates the problem of containing wildfires in
their initial stages. It also means a wide range of climatic and vegetative types, varying from the
moist redwood forests of northwestern California to the dry Mojave Desert mesquite in the
southeastern part of the state. While one section of the state may be experiencing a raging wildfire
under hot and dry conditions, another part may be receiving rain or snow or be bathed in coastal
fog.
The wildland fire problem is reflected in the budgets of those governmental agencies responsible
for protecting the state's 61 million acres of wildland from fire. Each year about one-third the total
expenditures for fire protection on privately-owned wildlands in the United States is made by state
and local governments or by private parties in the State of California. In addition, the U. S. Forest
Service allots about 40 percent of its nationwide budget for fire protection to the National Forests
in California. To understand the necessity of these expenditures, one must understand the
elements that contribute to the start and spread of wildfires in California and also recognize the
threat that such wildfires pose to life, property, and natural resource values.
Forest, brush, and grass fires burn according to a complex set of physical and chemical laws. The
principal ingredients are fuel (the living and dead vegetation that covers the wildlands),
topography, and weather.
Fuels
Only 14 percent of California's land area is occupied by cities or by agricultural crops. Another 25
percent is in desert or in barren mountain areas high above timberline. The
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remainder, some 61 percent, is mountains and hills covered by timber, woodland, brush or grass.
All this wildland vegetation reaches some degree of flammability during the dry summer and,
under the right weather conditions, during winter months.
The drier the fuel, the more readily fires ignite and spread. The greater the accumulation of dead
fuels in proportion to living fuels, the greater will be the fire's intensity.
Adding to the complexity of the wildland fire problem are the many subdivisions, individual homes,
and recreational developments located in the hills and mountains. People build homes
8
I
there because it is more attractive than living in urban cubed conformity. Unfortunately, despite
recent efforts by state and local governments to apply fire safety regulations to such homesites,
wildland residents rarely prepare for the inferno that can sweep through volatile brush and timber
and consume their homes in minutes. More often than not, firefighters find themselves having to
protect homes and other buildings while the wildfire's perimeter spreads rapidly out of control
involving many additional structures. The problem is a major one.
Topography
California's rugged topography (Fig. 4) has considerable effect on wildland fire behavior and on
the ability of firefighters and their equipment to take suppression action on those fires.
The northern two-thirds of the state has large areas of steep mountainous terrain. The Great
Central Valley forms the only major area of flat land in the state. To the east of the Valley lie the
Cascade and Sierra Nevada Ranges, rising to more than 14,000 feet; to the west are the lower
mountains of the Coast Ranges which continue into southern California. The mountains are
slashed by deep canyons with vertical sides which often rise 2,000 feet or more to the ridges.
This rough topography greatly limits road construction and road standards, and hence accessibility
by ground equipment. Initial attack travel time from suppression station to fire may often exceed
three hours by road and trail. 3/
Such rough topography also channels air flow, creating extremely erratic winds on lee slopes and
in canyons. Fires starting in the bottom of a canyon may rush quickly to the ridge and become
large before initial attack forces can arrive - simply because of topography.
Fire Weather
California's Mediterranean climate (cool, moist winters followed by long, dry summers) is the
delight of tourists but the bane of wildland firefighters. Total winter precipitation (snow and rain) is
greatest in the northern part of the state and in the high mountains where timber grows. Rainfall
decreases sharply with a drop in elevation from the mountains to the lower foothills and valleys; it
also decreases latitudinally from northern to Southern California. The lesser rainfall supports a
growth of brush in the interior foothill areas of Northern California and throughout most of southern
California. The dry summer is accompanied by relatively
3/ "Initial attack" refers to the first men and equipment sent to a reported wildland fire for the purpose of "suppressing" (controlling or extinguishing) it.
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high air temperatures and low humidity (dry air) away from the immediate coastline. The long
rainless periods, heat, and dry air combine to draw the moisture out of the large accumulations of
dead fuel and place living vegetation under increased moisture stress.
The most important weather element is wind. It supplies fresh oxygen to a wildland fire; bends
flames forward into new fuels so that fire spreads more quickly; and carries flaming brands
perhaps miles ahead of the main front so that the fire advances in a leap-frog fashion.
10
The prevailing wind in California generally blows from west to east, bringing marine air from the
Pacific Ocean to the interior valleys and coastal mountains. This general wind pattern is modified
locally by topography. Occasionally, and especially between September and May, a high pressure
ridge may move inland over the Great Basin area while a low pressure trough lies along the length
of California. At these times air flow is reversed, with the wind blowing generally from east to west
in southern California and from northeast to southwest in northern California. Dry air moves into
the state from the high, inland plateau at great speeds, often exceeding 100 miles per hour
through the mountain passes. As the air descends to the coast, it also warms and becomes even
drier, dessicating the wildland fuels. Air temperature rises sharply along the coast. In southern
California these easterly winds are given a special name: "The Santa Anas" or "Devil Winds."
Occurrence of the dry north or east winds in combination with a winter drought can mean a
12-month wildland fire season in California. This occurs rather commonly in southern California
where firefighters sometimes spend Christmas on the fireline.
In their potential effect on the start and spread of wildland fires, these weather elements are
commonly unfavorable in California. In 1970 the combined effects of fuel, topography, and
weather were especially bad. All that was needed was the addition of fire-starting ignition sources
by man.
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FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS LEADING TO THE DISASTER
Firemen found themselves confronting an abnormal number of wildland fires through the early
summer months of 1970. Through concerted and cooperative effort, they managed to control the
fires at less than the five-year average in both acreage burned and damages created. Still, they
knew conditions were such that a critical weather change might result in a conflagration anywhere
in the state (8).
Precipitation was only one-fourth to one-half of normal west of the Sierra Nevada crest for the six
months preceding September 22, 1970 (Fig. 5). Living fuels had abnormally low moisture content.
Small dead fuels (dry grass, twigs, and leaves) were at the explosive stage; large dead fuels (logs,
limbs, fallen trees) had dried out more than usual for that time of year. By the end of September
the "Timber Buildup", a cumulative numerical index used by forest firefighters to measure the
relative amount of moisture in the large dead fuels, ranged from 127 percent of the 13-year
average in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains to 275 percent in the redwood and Douglas-fir
timber of northwest California. The figure was 193 percent in the mountains of southern California.
Air temperature had also been above average in many parts of the state (Fig. 6). Red Bluff, in
north central California, had 117 days with temperatures of 90 degrees or above by the end of
September, a new record for that location.
12
Dry, warming east and northeast wind had moved into California on an excessive number of days
during the late winter and spring months of 1970, nullifying the beneficial effects of early winter
rains. During early September, the wind again returned an abnormal number of times.
The integrated effects of drought, low humidity, high air temperature, and high wind velocity are
measured and cumulated through the fire season and expressed as a "Fire Weather Severity
Index." This index for the last of September was above the 13-year average for all areas of
California except a small section just north of Death Valley on the east side of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains (Fig. 7). Most areas in the state were 200 to 400 percent of average and a few were
400 to 600 percent.
The stage for disaster had been set. Wildland firefighters in California knew they were sitting on a
time-bomb that had been ticking away since the last significant rainfall in mid-March of 1970. Their
minds returned to 1967196419611955 and other years when similar conditions had
produced large, destructive wildland-urban fires. There was no question that a fire disaster could
occur. The only questions were, "Where? When?".
13
THE FIRE DISASTER
September 22: Fire in the Oakland Hills
On September 21 a high pressure ridge of air had started moving into the Great Basin, creating a
drying, off-shore wind along much of the California coast (Fig. 8). By early morning of the 22nd
most of California was feeling the effects of these winds (Fig. 9). In the Oakland and Berkeley
Hills, winds were clocked at 20 to 50 miles per hour, relative humidity fell to 12 percent and
temperature rose to 85 degrees. It was 10:25 a.m. The time had come.
14
15
The place was the Fish Ranch Road, on the east side of the ridge that marks the boundary
between Contra Costa County to the east and Alameda County (and the City of Oakland) to the
west. It was here that a young man intentionally ignited the grass. As he sped from the scene in
his car, the flames took hold, then licked greedily upslope through the brush and on over the ridge
into the pine trees and expensive homes on the Oakland side (4).
While the Fish Fire in the Oakland Hills was not the first nor the largest wildland fire to start that
day of September 22, it was the first to involve many homes and to become a .disaster to
hundreds of people (Fig. 2). In respect to fire weather and fire behavior it resembled the great
Berkeley Fire of September 17, 1923, which blackened a 72-block area in the adjacent City of
Berkeley and destroyed 900 homes.
Larger fires occurred that day in Humboldt County in the northwest corner of the state, in Yolo and
Stanislaus Counties in the central part, and in Riverside County in southern California - all burning
under the same extreme weather and fuel conditions (Appendix B). Recognizing these severe
conditions and the potential threat they posed, fire control administrators cancelled days-off for all
California Division of Forestry employees and recalled off-duty personnel. The same actions would
be taken for firefighters of other agencies throughout the state in the days to come. In addition,
outdoor burning permits were cancelled in the Division's North Coast and Central Coast Districts.
Shifting of men and equipment around the state had started. On that September 22, firemen from
more than a hundred departments had a sampling of the holocaust yet to come.
September 23 and 24: A Period of Lull
Dry north and east winds decreased in speed to some extent in the most critical fire areas on
September 23 and early on the 24th; temperatures dropped slightly, but air and fuel remained dry
(8). The Clarks Butte Fire in Humboldt County continued to spread through brush and valuable
pine and fir timber until it was finally contained at 3,395 acres on the 25th. The Corona Fire in
Riverside County also was stubborn but was finally picked up on the 24th. Elsewhere in the state,
many other fires started but were caught in the initial attack stage by firemen determined to keep
the critical situation under control.
On September 24, the National Weather Service's fire weather forecast for southern California
said in part, "A Red Flag warning for Santa Ana winds late tonight and Friday. Tonight: Santa Ana
winds northerly, 30 to 50 miles per hour, beginning higher levels and passes in northern portion of
district. Friday: Santa Ana winds moderate to strong at high levels and in and below passes.
Outlook for Saturday: continued Santa Ana winds and warmer. Fire danger expected to be very
high to extreme on Friday."
Each day the Western Fire Weather Coordinator of the National Weather Service prepares a
rough estimate of the fire danger in the western states and makes a prediction for the
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following day from information supplied by fire weather forecasters in the districts. Ratings are
given from "1" ("Low" fire danger) to "5" ("Extreme" fire danger). Figure 10 is a copy of the chart
prepared September 24 predicting the fire danger on the 25th. A Red Flag, such as is shown in the
"Extreme" area in California, is used only in very critical situations. Needless to say, the Red Flag
warning was justified!
17
September 25: Southern California Erupts in Flame
Santa Ana winds came to southern California as predicted and persisted until the 29th. Winds
reached hurricane speeds of 80 miles per hour. Humidities dropped as low as 2 percent;
temperatures soared upward into the 90's at some stations along the coast to over 100 degrees.
Similar dry and windy conditions had returned to northern California as well. Easterly winds were
clocked at 80 miles per hour in areas east of Red Bluff. While fires continued to start in the critical
northern part of the state, the principal activity now shifted to southern California.
Dispatchers in southern California recall how little traffic there was on the radios early on
September 25. They say the firemen seemed to be like sprinters in their blocks who had taken a
long, deep breath and were awaiting the shot of the pistol in the hand of the starter.
The wind increased in velocity. It seemed to suck every bit of moisture from the air and from the
wildland fuel that lay waiting for a spark to ignite it. Then all hell broke loose! The Devil Wind lived
up to its name.
At 9:55 a.m., in southern San Diego County adjacent to the Mexican border, an ember from an
abandoned, smoldering campfire jumped the confines of a narrow scratch-line and was blown into
parched grass. At first, just a wisp of whitish vapor rose from the grass, then an explosive flash of
yellow flame. The fire grew, spread rapidly ahead of 50 mile per hour wind into tinder-dry brush,
roared toward Tecate Peak Lookout, and turned southeast into Mexico. The International
Fuelbreak, running more or less parallel to the border with Mexico, helped hold the fire's north
flank and guided it away from valuable watershed land on the California side of the border.
Within moments, the fire suppression system came alive. The California Division of Forestry
dispatcher at Monte Vista, using a planned dispatching sequence, sent initial attack suppression
units on their way. Within an hour and a half the fire had grown to about 700 acres.
This was the beginning of a busy 10 days in southern California. Soon many fires were being
reported in San Diego County and throughout the south part of the state. Local fire control forces
were already being stretched thin by mutual aid requests (Fig. 11).
Air tankers were used at first to drop chemical fire retardants in an effort to stop the fires at small
acreage. By noon, however, these aircraft were forced to remain on the ground because the wind's
gale speed and turbulence made dropping from 100 to 200 feet above the rugged terrain too
dangerous a mission. A valuable fire control tool had been lost temporarily.
At 10:30 a.m. in Riverside County another campfire was struck by the Devil Wind and carried into
nearby brush and grass; that night the flames would be stopped just short of expensive homes on
the outskirts of Redlands.
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One minute later, some 80 miles to the west, an excited citizen drove into the Los Angeles County
Fire Department's Station 125 and reported a fire starting along the Ventura Freeway near Las
Virgenes Road. A full brush fire response was started at once. But even as Fire Company 125
pulled out of the station, the men could see what was happening. Within five minutes they were
radioing to headquarters, "Fire going good. Fifty acres already. Send 10 more companies" (7). The
Wright Fire had begun its journey of destruction. It soon developed into a tornadic fire storm,
propelling dense clouds of pre-heated flammable gases across roads and firebreaks where they
mixed with gusts of fresh air and exploded in brilliant balls of flame. The fire roared downslope
through dense, heavy brush and trees toward fashionable Malibu Beach lying in wait on the shore
of the Pacific Ocean.
Twenty-five miles north of where the Wright Fire started and some 20 minutes later, the howling
wind - now gusting at velocities up to 75 miles per hour - blew down a power line. Sparks crackled
in the dry grass, and flames, spurred by the wind, leaped forward like a team of spirited stallions.
Within hours the Clampitt Fire would hurdle the Golden State Freeway and race southward
through Chatsworth to join with the Wright Fire. It would also turn west into Ventura County and
eventually link with the Guiberson Fire in the Simi Valley (7).
19
More fires started that day in southern California: The Bailey, Foothill, Agua Dulce, and the El
Toro; all became large and destructive (Fig. 1). There were also numerous small fires caught by
initial attack forces which rushed from one blaze to the next without adequate time to perform
thorough jobs of "mopping up" the embers behind them.
Soon it became evident that local forces could not wholly handle the sudden flurry of fire activity.
The California Division of Forestry's Southern California District Office in Riverside requested
assistance from the State Forester's Office in Sacramento. At about the same time, the Los
Angeles County Fire Department and the Ventura County Fire Department asked both the
California Division of Forestry and the California Office of Emergency Services to provide
needed help. Having already been alerted, it was but a matter of minutes before firetrucks,
bulldozers, Conservation Camp hand crews, and air tankers were heading south from northern
California to aid the beleaguered forces.
Because the fire disaster was reaching such widespread proportions and involved the firefighting
apparatus of so many separate fire departments, there was need for a coordinating body.
Therefore, in accordance with the State Fire Disaster Plan, Region 1 GHQ was established at
Los Angeles County Fire Department Headquarters (6).
In the wake of the fire disaster and total commitment of state forces, Governor Reagan applied
for federal assistance from the Office of Emergency Preparedness. As a result of this
application, the state received considerable help, especially from military forces and from highly
trained and experienced Indian crews flown in from several western states.
Late that afternoon Kern County, north of the Tehachapi Mountains, became a part of the
disaster when the Rankin Ranch Fire exploded in grass and brush (9). Some of the firefighting
forces heading south toward the Los Angeles Basin were diverted to this new outbreak.
But, still, what was to be the largest fire of them all had not yet begun.
September 26: The Laguna Fire Starts in San Diego County
While the Wright, Clampitt, and other fires continued to devour homes and wildland vegetation in
the Los Angeles area on September 26, the Devil Wind still blew furiously in San Diego County.
Even before the Tecate and other fires in the county had been contained, another spark flashed
and a new monster sprang to life.
Deer hunters at the 5,700 foot level of the Laguna Mountains, about 35 miles east of the City of
San Diego, saw the Laguna Fire start at 6:11 a.m. when the wind blew a tree down and across a
power line. The hot line crackled and started a series of small fires in dry grass and weeds. Fire
spread quickly into young timber, sending up huge sheets of flame and almost engulfing the
hunters as they ran up a canyon to their car.
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Despite prompt attack by the U. S. Forest Service, the Laguna Fire moved out fast, pushed by strong wind, and spotted
as much as a mile ahead. Air tankers made a single series of chemical retardant drops and then were grounded for the
remainder of the day because of high wind speed and severe air turbulence.
By 7:00 a.m. the Fire Boss asked the Cleveland National Forest dispatcher to mobilize for a major conflagration and to
notify law enforcement agencies to start evacuation of all persons in the fire's path. Mutual aid was sent by the California
Division of Forestry and by several communities in San Diego County. That evening the fire surged into the mountain
community of Pine Valley and razed homes in several resort areas as it rapidly covered some 30,000 acres in its
beginning hours. The Forest Service called for additional help and within hours was receiving hundreds of experienced
Indian firefighters from Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.
Elsewhere, new fires escaped initial attack efforts of the tired firefighters and became fiery catastrophes. The Camarillo
Fire in Ventura County demolished seven homes; the River and Speedy Bogart Fires in Riverside County took six more;
the Palm and Verdemont Fires in San Bernardino County destroyed eight homes between them; and farther to the north
in Monterey County still another expensive home went up in a ball of black smoke in the Los Laureles Fire. The
Guiberson Fire in Ventura County started when the gale force wind blew down another power line and began its
southwestward march over Big Mountain. It eventually linked with the Clampitt Fire, which advanced through Simi Valley
from the east (Fig. 1).
The Rankin Ranch Fire in Kern County continued to grow as needed men and equipment were difficult to find. Then, on
the afternoon of the 26th, the Rankin Ranch's air tankers, which were at a premium on the large number of fires
throughout the state, were diverted to a new fire nearby on Red Mountain (10). The effort to keep the new fire small was
to no avail. The Red Mountain Fire was destined to enlarge to over 25,000 acres before it was contained on October 3
(Fig. 12). But its acreage would be exceeded by the Rankin Ranch Fire's 32,725 acres.
September 27: The Inferno Spreads
The fires continued to spread. The Val Verde Fire, which had started in Los Angeles County on the 26th and burned
rapidly westward into Ventura County, was stopped just short of the town of Piru - or in the town of Piru, considering the
numerous spot fires extinguished in grass within the small community.
The Wright, Clampitt, Agua Dulce, Guiberson, Rankin Ranch, and Red Mountain Fires were still raging out of control.
Each of these fires ran with the howling wind which scooped up masses of flaming leaves, bark, branches, and wooden
shingles, transported them for a mile or more, and threw them down on waiting grassy fields or on a checkerboard of
wooden roofs where each flaming ember became a potential new fire.
20
The greatest destruction that day was caused by the Laguna Fire, in San Diego County. Flames, pushed by the Devil
Wind, roared at express train speed through the Lyons Valley area. Like a probing army, the holocaust sent one column
of flames racing northward toward Alpine, Harbison Canyon, and Suncrest, and another column southward toward
Highway 94. The main fire front continued its advance westward, leaping ahead from ridge to ridge, sending flames into
Jamul and Mexican Canyon, and speeding in a terrifying 100-foot high wall of orange, red, and white flames toward the
towns of El Cajon and Spring Valley, the eastern ramparts of the City of San Diego. High noon turned to night as the
dense, black smoke column ahead of the flames was held close to the ground by swift erratic east winds. Sparks and
ashes danced wildly among homes in El Cajon as the enemy moved forward--and was at last brought grudgingly to a halt
by a set and well organized phalanx of men and equipment from some 70 different fire departments and agencies and
thousands of frightened but determined homeowners. The fire was blunted but had grown to 160,000 incinerated acres
(Fig. 13).
21
That afternoon in Harbison Canyon one group of hardy citizens - a nudist colony successfully defended their green oasis
against the onslaught of the Laguna Fire after ignoring sheriffs' orders to evacuate. As one San Diego newspaper
reported 4/ "Displaying raw defiance to the sheriffs' orders, sun worshippers beat back the roaring flames with naked
courage and shovels. The nudist park barely survived the fire."
Overhead, the ESSA 8 satellite circled the earth and recorded the fire activity, demonstrating its potential for providing
fire intelligence in future years (Fig. 14).
Still more fires started that day, escaped control, and became large in size. While most of these fires were in southern
California, the battle shifted to some degree back to the central part of the state where campfires started two fires,
despite the banning of all outdoor fires by
A/ Robert Dietrich, San Diego Evening Tribune, October 1, 1970.
22
the State Forester. One of the two fires occurred in Mariposa County - the gateway to Yosemite National Park - and
burned nearly 2,000 acres of brush and woodland grass and one home.
The day was nearing its end when the second campfire escaped its bounds at 9:45 p.m. in an area that had been taken
over by hippie communes. The Buckeye Fire started in an isolated part of Salmon Creek on the Los Padres National
Forest in Monterey County along the
23
I
central California coast. It made its first run to the top of Silver Peak where it came under the influence of strong, dry
east winds that pushed it downhill westward toward the Pacific Ocean and into the southern range of the mammoth Coast
Redwood trees (Fig. 15). By daylight the fire had already consumed 2,000 acres. Control efforts were hampered because
the National Forest had already sent some of its firefighting forces into the southern part of the state, and all local
sources of organized firefighters had been exhausted. The Buckeye was on its way, burning in extremely rugged terrain
where access by roads and trails was nearly non-existent. Only the use of the Forest Service's infrared scanner, flown to
California from the Boise, Idaho, Interagency Fire Center, permitted firefighters to maintain continuous vigil of the fire's
location and progress. Bulldozers constructing firebreaks on distant main ridges and helicopters transporting men and
supplies were the tactics used on this fire.
The temperature on the 27th had been 105 degrees in Los Angeles, the hottest day in that coastal city since 1963. It
made Los Angeles the hottest place in the nation on that day. In San Diego, near the Laguna Fire, the temperature had
been 95 degrees and humidity was 7 percent; winds had reached 70 miles per hour in the fire area. The peak in the
burning conditions had been reached, but the fire catastrophe had not yet ended.
September 28: The Disaster Reaches Its Peak
September 28 probably saw the greatest number of firemen and their equipment assigned to the California fires.
Although it is difficult to enumerate all the forces brought to bear in such a fluid situation, probably some 19,500
professional firemen from about 500 separate departments and agencies were involved with wildland fires in California
on that day, through mutual aid agreements, the State Fire Disaster Plan, and inter-state and intra-state movement of
forces. Thousands of other people were also involved in the suppression effort or in support roles.
Early in the day the fire situation looked encouraging with the exception of the Buckeye Fire in Monterey County and the
Red Mountain Fire in Kern County. The Wright Fire in the Malibu area was contained, if not wholly controlled. The
Clampitt Fire was contained in the Chatsworth-Woodland Hills area in Los Angeles County; and although it was still
spreading toward the Guiberson Fire in the Simi Valley-Moorpark area in Ventura County, firemen were almost on top of
the situation. The Guiberson Fire continued to spread across the hills between Simi Valley and the Santa Clara Valley to
the north, but did relatively little damage except to remotely located oil well equipment. The Wright Fire in the Malibu
area was still loose and threatened many homes but was being fought to a standstill by resolute firemen.
Even the huge Laguna Fire in San Diego County was blunted; it would continue to enlarge its territory for several days,
but on September 28 firemen felt for the first time that they had the upper hand. The Laguna Fire had become nearly
175,000 acres and had averaged a phenomenal rate of spread of over 3,000 acres per hour for the first 48 hours. It was
the largest fire in San Diego County's history. In fact only one other wildland fire had exceeded that acreage in the history
of California: the Matilija Fire, which had burned 219,000 acres of remote watershed land on the Los Padres National
Forest in 1932.
As earlier fires were contained or controlled on the 28th, new ones sprang up to take their places. In the early afternoon
of that day, tired firefighters on the Laguna Fire were suddenly shifted about 12 miles north to engage a new flaming
monster, the Boulder Fire. The Boulder had started in an isolated canyon and soon spread southwestward through
valuable pine and brush covered watershed toward the Laguna Fire. Within two hours it had moved about two miles,
driven by gusty winds blowing up to 60 miles per hour. It threatened to destroy Cuyamaca State Park but was held back
by a fighting force of stubborn firemen aided' by the Middle Peak Loop fuelbreak.
Up to this time San Bernardino County had been relatively quiet, though not without its fire activity. The situation
changed in a hurry. At 1:35 p.m. a man in his early 20's threw some ignited fireworks into the brush at the mouth of Lytle
Creek Canyon. The Meyers Fire quickly gathered strength and speed, heading southwest over the shoulder of 5,230-foot
San Sevaine Peak toward the communities of Etiwanda and Cucamonga on the far side of the mountain. By late that
night the fire had devastated some 7,000 acres of brush and timber (Fig. 16).
25
September 29 and 30: The Situation Improves Slightly
The Devil Wind gave firefighters a short respite on September 29 and 30. Some of the larger fires were finally contained
or fully controlled. The Wright, Clampitt, and Guiberson fires which had burned together and now composed one huge
blackened area - had finally been tamed at more than 147,000 acres. Together they had completely demolished 189
homes, damaged hundreds of other homes and structures, and taken four human lives. Serra Ranch, once a grand
mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean and in recent years a Roman Catholic retreat for priests and laymen, had burned
to the ground at an estimated loss of a million dollars. The Spahn Movie Ranch, since 1968 the home of the Charles
Manson hippie "family" (then on trial for murder in a Los Angeles courtroom) had been wiped out by the flames.
On the afternoon of the 29th, fire crews in San Diego County were still struggling with the Laguna and Boulder Fires and
several smaller ones. Suddenly another fire broke out in timber near the mountain town of Julian, just eight miles north of
the rampaging Boulder Fire. No organized fire department crews were immediately available to take action on the fire
which threatened to spread into the center of the apple-growing community. The local sheriff
quickly alerted everyone in town, and soon a small but determined army of men, women, and children was marching
rapidly toward the blaze with whatever hand tools they could grab. They managed to hold the fire to less than five acres
until six firetrucks, dispatched from the Boulder Fire, arrived to extinguish the flames. In times of such stress, the
community spirit of mankind seems capable of overcoming many obstacles.
On the night of the 30th, the north flank of the Buckeye Fire was successfully contained when the Forest Service firemen
ignited a tremendous backfire which leaped forward and engaged the advancing main fire front in a brilliant flash of
flame visible for many miles. About an hour later the nearby Pacific Valley Ranger Station received a telephone call from
San Francisco; a passenger in an airliner heading north at the time the backfire and main fire met in a huge tornadic
inferno had seen the awesome scene and wondered what unearthly event had occurred.
Many such feats of control action took place on September 29 and 30.
October 1: The Devil Winds Return
The dry, hot winds again came from the east on October 1. Although this time they persisted for only a couple days and
were somewhat weaker, they still caused uncontrolled fires to spread violently through the dry wildland fuels and to
destroy more homes and valuable watershed vegetation.
Driven by a strong north wind, the Buckeye Fire surged to the South but was stopped before it could reach the Hearst
Castle at San Simeon. The Boulder defiantly broke its bonds and was halted short of the Cuyamaca State Park only by a
dogged band of tired firefighters and by 10 air tankers making repeated drops of chemicals (Fig. 17). With 50 mile per
hour wind and relative humidity at 7 percent, the Red Mountain Fire in Kern County swept through prime fir and pine
timber at the 6,000 foot level.
The most serious break-out occurred on the Meyers Fire which had been close to containment. Driven by 70 mile per
hour gusts of wind, the fire raced downslope to the southwest toward the foothill communities of Etiwanda and Alta Loma.
The wall of flame forced the evacuation of local residents and about 4,500 students of Chaffey College. Although a few
spot fires ignited on the college grounds, the main fire front was stopped about a quarter mile from its target by backfiring
from a prepared firebreak and by a line of massed firetrucks and firemen. A pall of black smoke and ashes covered the
area and near-darkness came at 4:30 p.m. As one newspaperman reported 5/, "Even earlier, chickens had gone to roost
in Cucamonga. A cock crowed. For them, the day had ended."
5/ David L. Otis, San Bernardino Evening Telegram, October 1, 1970.
27
In San Diego County the day ended also for a young man recently released from a mental institution. He was spotted
setting a string of fires along a deserted country road by a California Division of Forestry observer flying over the area in
a patrol aircraft. Within minutes the man was apprehended in the act of starting another fire by arson investigators
directed to the scene by the aerial observer.
Unfortunately, the scourge of new fires had not come to an end. At 2:55 p.m. that day, far to the north in Humboldt
County, still another arsonist set his match to dry forest fuel in an area where timber had been recently cut for harvesting.
Within moments, huge tongues of flame leaped rapidly upslope through parched logging slash, cut logs, and residual
young-growth trees. The fire grew to 10 acres in one hour, to 200 acres in less than two hours. Hastily built bulldozer
trails were jumped by flames time after time as a thin line of firefighters tried to stem the flow of fire through the forest.
Local initial attack forces of the California Division of Forestry had been depleted to a large extent by the fires in southern
California. Therefore the Division relied upon and received assistance from the timber
28
industry, fire districts, firetrucks sent by the State Office of Emergency Services, and forestry students from the College
of the Redwoods and Humboldt State College. By 8:00 a.m. the next morning, the fire had spread to 1,800 acres of
valuable commercial timber and posed a threat to the Founders Grove in Humboldt State Park, a stand of huge virgin
redwoods whose age dated back to the birth of Christ. A call went out for additional help.
Fortunately, the help required for new fires was finally becoming available from the southland.
October 2 and 3: The End Is In Sight
A most welcome event occurred. Late on October 2 a low pressure area that had been bringing thunder showers to
southern Arizona moved westward into southern California. Startled firefighters looked up and were gladdened by drops
of rain wetting their grimy faces. The showers were scattered. Precipitation varied from a few hundredths to as much as
an inch. Cool marine air moved in; temperatures dropped; relative humidities rose appreciably. Rain showers continued
on the 3rd and 4th, helping to bring the last of the fiery monsters to their knees.
Although no rain fell in northern California, weather conditions had improved. The Camp Grant Fire in Humboldt County
was contained on October 3 without having reached into the grove of ancient redwoods. On the 2nd, most of the
Humboldt County California Division of Forestry personnel who had been dispatched to southern California fires were
quickly returned to join their comrades in final containment action on the Camp Grant.
October 4: The Last Large Fire is Contained
The grievous conflict between nature and man was over (Fig. 18). The Fish Fire, Wright, Clampitt, Rankin Ranch,
Laguna, Red Mountain, Buckeye, Camp Grant, and, finally, the Meyers Fire - they destroyed no more. But the cost had
been fearful (Fig. 19).
Four firemen and a helicopter pilot were killed in an unfortunate aerial accident on the Fork Fire on the Angeles National
Forest. Eleven other people had died in connection with the fires. A few firemen were badly burned in isolated flare-ups
around the hundreds of miles of fire perimeter. Otherwise, injuries - although numerous - were minor in nature,
considering the extreme hazard which the men faced.
29
The firemen also received many moments of cheer, however. The Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and many other
citizen organizations and informal groups throughout California provided food and drink right on the fire line. They
dressed wounds and rinsed smoke-reddened eyes; provided cots and blankets where a few moments of sleep could be
snatched; and washed firemens' clothing while they slept. The same special care was given to those people whose
homes were destroyed, damaged, or threatened by fire. Even bewildered animals - both wild and domesticated - were
gathered up by Humane Societies, assisted by volunteers, and treated as very important guests. Man lost to the fires -in
terms of human, material, and natural resources. But man also gained - in terms of showing a capacity to plan and work
in a community effort to overcome a common enemy; in terms of testifying to compassion for his fellow man in time of
great peril and need; and in terms of demonstrating new science and technology in finally defeating an adversary that
was capable of many times the destruction that actually took place.
Man also knew that there would be more wildfires as long as he lived, worked, or sought recreation in the wildlands. He
acknowledged past errors in his relationship to nature and explored how he might rectify those errors in the future.
31
RESPONSE TO THE DISASTER
Fire protection agencies in California were well aware of the extreme fire weather and fuel conditions preceding the
thirteen-day fire disaster. They had experienced such conditions many times before and knew what the consequences
might be. As a result of past experiences, they had devised mutual aid plans and made agreements to assist each other
when the fire load became too great for local forces to handle.
General Plan of Response
The strength of the firefighting organization in California lies in a highly coordinated and cooperative plan of action at the
federal, state, and local levels of government. At the federal government level the United States Forest Service not only
can move its forces to places of emergency throughout the state, but also can draw upon nationwide federal assistance.
At the state level the California Division of Forestry also is organized to move its forces quickly to any area within
California. Fire departments of local governments - counties, cities, and fire districts generally confine their fire activity to
their area of local responsibility; however, under terms of day-to-day mutual aid agreements, they can cross political
boundaries to assist their immediate neighbors. The same day-to-day mutual aid agreements also exist between the
Forest Service and the Division of Forestry; and between those two agencies and their many federal, state, and local
government neighbors. The result is a "local assistance" plan which handles the ordinary small and medium sized fire
situations.
Disasters do occur, however, which local political subdivisions cannot handle even with the assistance of their neighbors.
Recognizing the probability of major disasters -- fire, flood, or earthquake -- or other civil disruptions, California has
enacted an "Emergency Services Act" (5) Under this act, a "State of Emergency" can be proclaimed by the Governor
whenever a catastrophe is beyond the control of a political subdivision and requires the combined forces of a mutual aid
region or regions to combat. The Act requires assistance of all state agencies, other political subdivisions, and private
agencies upon request by the Governor's coordinating body, the Office of Emergency Services. In the event of a
proclaimed fire disaster, all agencies operate under the State Fire Disaster Plan, coordinated by the Fire and Rescue
Division of the Office of Emergency Services; this Division also has state-owned firetrucks and other equipment assigned
to local and state government fire departments throughout the state which it can dispatch to fires. If a disaster is beyond
the control capabilities of all combined state forces, the Governor may ask the President of the United States to declare a
major disaster and to provide federal assistance through the Office of Emergency Preparedness. Depending on the
nature and extent of a fire disaster, there is therefore a planned build-up of fire control assistance from the local, to the
state, to the federal level.
The total system of mutual and outside aid and emergency plans was implemented during the 1970 fire disaster. How the
system worked and how other public and private agencies and individuals reacted to "dove-tail" into the overall
cooperative activity is described in this section of the disaster story.
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service provides fire protection to National Forest lands, which comprise nearly one-third of
California's wildland area (lesser areas of federally-owned wildland are protected by the Bureau of Land Management,
the National Park Service, and the military) (Fig. 20). Under contract to the State of California, the Forest Service also
protects privately-owned land located within the National Forest boundaries. Because the National Forests are contiguous
to lands protected by the California Division of Forestry, the Forest Service has a statewide assistance agreement with
the Division for interagency use of men and equipment. In addition, it has agreements with many local communities
within and adjacent to the National Forests and with four of the five Contract Counties: Kern, Los Angeles, Santa
Barbara, and Ventura.
33
The Forest Service became enmeshed in the fire disaster early in this period. On the afternoon of September 22 the
Corona Fire, which started in Riverside County on privately-owned land under the protection jurisdiction of the California
Division of Forestry, was carried by east wind onto the Cleveland National Forest. Thus began thirteen days of
involvement by the Forest, Service.
On Friday the 25th, more fires spread into or threatened the National Forests. The Forest Service became fully involved
as a member of the suppression team as it joined forces with the Los Angeles County Fire Department on the Clampitt,
Agua Dulce, and Bailey Fires and with Kern County on the Rankin Ranch Fire. Regional forces from throughout the state
began to converge in southern California. Experienced hand crews were requested from the Pala Indians in San Diego
County and from Mexican-American agricultural workers in Tulare County.
The next morning, September 26, the Laguna Fire sparked in the grass on the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego
County and began its rampaging journey to the west. Before the day had passed, other fires tested the strength of the
Forest Service: the Fork Fire on the Angeles National Forest and the Red Mountain Fire on the Sequoia National Forest.
In addition, the Liebre Fire, the Val Verde Fire, and others demanded assistance of this federal agency.
In view of critical conditions throughout the state, the Forest Service requested out-of-Region manpower to bolster the
depleted striking force in northern California. Early on the 26th, eight 25-man crews were ordered for statewide needs;
then an additional 150 men. Shortly after noon, 200 more men were requested from Region 4 (the central Rocky
Mountain area) and another 200 men from Region 3 (Southwestern Region). By 2:45 p.m. 2,100 firefighters and
supervisory overhead were en route to California from the 11 western continental states. These men were available
because the areas from which they came faced no serious threat of wildfires at that time.
On the following days the Forest Service experienced still other major fires as parts of the overall disaster: the Buckeye
Fire on the Los Padres National Forest on the 27th; the Boulder Fire on the Cleveland National Forest and the Meyers
Fire on the San Bernardino National Forest on the 28th.
On October 2, in view of the continued high fire danger and the dispersal of fire protection forces, the Regional Forester
closed 12 National Forests in central and southern California to all public use. Decreasing winds and rising humidity
lowered the fire danger and permitted lifting the closure late on Sunday, October 4.
The six project fires that started on the National Forests burned a total of 195,261 acres: 159,299 acres of National
Forest land and 35,962 acres of land under the direct protection responsibility of other agencies (Appendix B). These
fires required the use of 40 aircraft, more than 1,000 firetrucks from all cooperating agencies, and over 6,000 men -
2,500 of whom were brought in from neighboring states, including a large number of crews from the Indian nations. In
addition, the military services sent many men and much equipment upon request.
While the dry fuel, rugged terrain, and strong north and east winds were the major factors contributing to
the catastrophic size and destruction of these fires, the lack of an adequate initial striking force was also
an important reason for so many fires becoming large in the National Forests. The Assistant Regional
Forester in charge of fire control said later, "Initial attack crews financed and manned to less than half of
planned strength were a poor match for the burning conditions experienced during this period. All large
fires on the National Forests were man-caused and could have been prevented if adequate prevention
manpower had been available. The challenge, then, is to develop ways and means of spiking up
prevention and control efforts during these critical periods."
Despite heavy losses created by the six major fires and despite extreme burning conditions, the National
Forests of southern California successfully contained 90 fires at relatively small size during the disaster
period. During the same time, the northern California National Forests were experiencing high to extreme
fire danger. Nevertheless, the northern ten Forests suppressed 95 fires, with none being over ten acres
in size and the total loss of only 25 acres being a remarkable record, indeed, under the conditions that
existed. Six of the northern California National Forests went through the critical period without the loss of
a single acre to fire. Much of this fine record was due to reinforcements that the Forest Service was able
to bring into the state from other Regions; much of it was due, too, to cooperative assistance from other
firefighting agencies in California. As the Assistant Regional Forester expressed himself later, "Once
again the situation demonstrated the high degree of coordination and cooperative effort that exists in
California."
California Division of Forestry
Coordination and cooperation among fire suppression agencies were also important ingredients in
operations of the California Division of Forestry. Within minutes after the Fish Fire started in the Oakland
Hills on September 22, both the Oakland Fire Department and the California Division of Forestry
(responsible for fire protection in the area where the fire started) recognized they had a major fire and a
potential disaster. They immediately requested assistance. They received about 400 firemen, 116 pieces
of firefighting equipment, several bulldozers, and 11 air tankers from 48 communities and agencies,
including the Office of Emergency Services which sent 26 pieces of fire apparatus through its Regions I I
and IV Dispatch Centers. Some of the assisting forces came from as far as 80 miles. Many citizen
volunteers arrived to help pull hose, man nozzles, and save personal belongings. One veteran Oakland
Fire Department fireman said, almost in disbelief, "if it hadn't been for those long-haired hippies from
Berkeley, we'd have lost the entire ridge."
Other fires throughout the state began to tie up men and equipment. The outlook was becoming grim.
35
The California Division of Forestry, which provides direct fire protection to about 28 million acres of the
state's wildlands (Fig. 20), took immediate action to gain the full effectiveness of its 235 initial attack
crews (operating 374 forest firetrucks), two 8-man helitack crews, 137 Conservation Camp crews
(averaging 15 men each), 58 initial attack bulldozer-transport units, 21 air tankers, and other firefighting
forces. Recognizing the severe fire weather and developing fire activity, on September 22 the Division
cancelled days-off for all fire control personnel and recalled off-duty personnel. The cancellation
remained in force until October 5. Burning permits were suspended by the Division in the North Coast
and Central Coast Districts on the 22nd and in the remainder of the state on -the 27th, with a few specific
exceptions for reasons of public health and safety. This suspension was not lifted until October 5.
Like the United States Forest Service, one important strength of the Division of Forestry is its ability to
shift large numbers of men and equipment quickly from one part of the state to another. This strength
was demonstrated during the 1970 fire disaster when, with a few notable exceptions, the large fires were
concentrated in the south half of the state. Remarkably few fires occurred in the Division's area of direct
protection responsibility in northeastern California and in the central Sierra Nevada mountains during the
13-day period, despite the extreme fire potential. Consequently, the Division was able to draw upon
those areas for the help needed so badly elsewhere.
The greatest strain on the Division's resources occurred on and after September 25 with the beginning of
major fires in southern California. This strain was complicated by the large number of Division forces
already committed to going fires in northern and central California and by the "fire potential" indicated by
extreme fire weather and fuel conditions in the northern part of the state. Nevertheless, the sudden rash
of fires in the south and the frantic requests for assistance demanded that help be sent. Before the sun
had set on the 25th, the Division had dispatched 32 initial attack firetruck crews, 35 Conservation Camp
crews and other forces to Kern County and southern California.
The Sacramento Statewide Dispatching Center immediately went into an expanded 24-hours a day
manning pattern to coordinate the statewide movement of men and equipment. Because of many
requests for information that were already keeping the telephone lines humming, a Public Information
Office was set up adjacent to the Dispatch Center. For the remaining days of the fire disaster,
Sacramento Headquarters of the Division of Forestry was a beehive of activity as were Ranger Unit and
District Headquarters Offices.
Approval of federal disaster assistance by the Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness on the
morning of September 26 and later by the President resulted in the Division requesting help from the
federal military services and from the U. S. Forest Service. To help meet the growing fire problem, the
Division received through the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management a total of 156 Indian
firefighters from the Snake River and Shoshone nations for use in San Diego County. From the federal
military services (all were represented), the Division received help from 227 men, 68 pieces of ground
equipment, and 19 helicopters. Other major assistance came from the State Military Forces (National
Guard).
36
On September 28, at the peak of activity, 76 Division of Forestry firetruck crews, 31 Conservation Camp
crews, and 139 overhead were serving in southern California from the Division's five other administrative
districts. In addition, 12 firetruck crews, 28 Conservation Camp crews, and 46 overhead personnel were
assisting the Kern County Fire Department on the Rankin Ranch and Red Mountain Fires - joint fires with
the Sequoia National Forest. On the 30th, more firetruck crews, Conservation Camp crews, and
overhead were dispatched to the CDF's portion of the Buckeye Fire in Monterey County which was being
fought jointly with the Los Padres National Forest and the Hunter Liggett Military Reservation. In addition
to inmates in organized Conservation Camp crews, 591 inmates trained in forest firefighting techniques
came from the Department of Corrections' penal institutions throughout the state.
In many movements of men and equipment the Division used the "task force" concept, commonly
adopted by fire departments in California especially for mutual aid situations. Under this concept, several
units traveled and worked together as a team or "module", and were led by a "task force commander."
For example, the Division's "firetruck task force" was usually a team of five firetruck crews led and
coordinated by an Assistant State Forest Ranger who traveled in his own vehicle.
Such massive movements of firefighting resources over long distances and for many days required close
control and coordination. During the fire disaster, staging areas and vehicle pools were established at
several locations throughout the state - some specifically for Division of Forestry forces, some in
cooperation with other agencies. One staging area was set up at the Don Lugo Conservation Camp at
Chino in San Bernardino County. Another staging area was established at the California Department of
Youth Authority's DeWitt Nelson School for Boys in Stockton in central California. This latter facility
served over 1,000 personnel and 200 pieces of equipment from September 26 through October 4. During
demobilization, all northern California crews of the Division were directed en route to the DeWitt Nelson
School for final check-out and servicing of vehicles and other equipment prior to continuing to their home
bases.
All Division of Forestry firetruck and bulldozer crews and overhead in southern California were
demobilized at the Division's Southern California District Headquarters in Riverside. Here, the crews'
vehicles were completely checked by automotive engineers who arranged for necessary repairs and
servicing while the crew members gained needed sleep at nearby motels before proceeding to their
distant stations. A similar eff ort took place at the Don Lugo Conservation Camp for Conservation Camp
crews.
During the statewide disaster, more than half of all wildland fires started on land under the direct
protection of the Division of Forestry (Appendix A). Of the 434 fires that started on Division-protected
land, only 14 escaped to large size. This good record (considering the fire situation) was due in very
large part to cooperative efforts of many local, state, federal and private agencies which provided
assistance to the Division.
At the heart of the planning for such mutual and outside aid for emergency operations involving local
governments is the State Fire Disaster Plan, coordinated by the California Office of Emergency
Services.
37
California office of Emergency Services and Local Governments
The fire departments of local governments (counties, cities, legal fire districts and volunteer groups) and
private companies are generally restricted by charter, ordinance, or policy to operating within specified
geographic boundaries. Fire chiefs and political heads recognized many years ago, however, that
regardless of size, any one fire department can experience a fire situation beyond its capability to
handle. On such occasions a fire department must depend on assistance from its immediate neighbors.
As a practical matter, any fire department may infrequently face a major disaster which demands
extraordinary help that cannot be supplied adequately even from its neighbors. The 1970 fire disaster
was a prime example of this kind of situation.
Recognizing the possibility of such major disasters, California has a State Fire Disaster Plan to carry out
the State's responsibility to assist local communities on these occasions (5). Coordinated by the Division
of Fire and Rescue of the State Office of Emergency Services, the Plan is intended to provide the most
effective mobilizing and dispatching of all available firefighting resources. It gives a flexible pattern for:
Day-to-day mutual aid on a voluntary basis among adjacent city and county fire departments
and local fire districts.
Integration of state-owned firefighting apparatus into the day-to-day voluntary mutual aid
pattern.
Mutual aid operations on a mandatory basis during a "State of Emergency" proclaimed by
the Governor, usually upon request by local government authorities.
For ease in executing the plan, California's approximately 1,000 fire departments, districts, and agencies
are organized into 63 "Operational Areas" and six "Regions". Each Operational Area and Region has an
elected Fire Coordinator and a designated Dispatch Center which is operational 24-hours a day. The
Plan therefore provides for an orderly expansion of assistance from (1) adjacent neighbors, to (2)
Operational Area, to (3) Region, to (4) State level (i.e., the Division of Fire and Rescue whose
headquarters are in the state capitol City of Sacramento).
The State also recognizes its responsibility to assist in fire disasters by providing 100 firetrucks, 29
rescue trucks, five communication vans or trailers, four mobile radio relays, and about 100,000 feet of
six-inch quick-coupling aluminum pipe with seven trailers for hauling the pipe. This equipment is
assigned by the Office of Emergency Services to local fire departments and state agencies who can use
it on any day-to-day emergency within their jurisdictional area. In return for this privileged use, the local
department is obligated to respond to other jurisdictions with the equipment whenever requested by the
Operational Area Dispatch Center.
38
39
The State Fire Disaster Plan was therefore the basis for most responses by fire departments of local
political subdivisions during California's 1970 fire disaster.
The Fire and Rescue Division of the California Office of Emergency Services (OES) was committed to
the fire disaster early on September 22 when assistance was requested on the Fish Fire in the Oakland
Hills (6). Under provisions of the State Fire Disaster Plan, OES quickly responded with 21 firetrucks and
supplementary support apparatus and personnel.
The second request came from the Operational Area Fire Coordinator in Humboldt County for five OES
pumpers. These units were used to help protect hippie communes and a few ranch buildings in the
vicinity of the Clarks Butte Fire.
On September 24, the Office of Emergency Services, notified of critical fire weather statewide and
especially in southern California, established close contact with the Division of Forestry, the U. S. Forest
Service, and several county fire departments in the south. Soon after the outbreak of fires in southern
California on the 25th, the Sacramento office of OES went on 24-hour duty.
The initial request for 30 OES firetrucks from Mutual Aid Region I was filled with apparatus from Regions
I and VI (Fig. 21). As the fires grew in size and involved thousands of structures, further requests for help
had to be filled from northern California. Regions. By the morning of the 26th, 78 OES firetrucks and
other support apparatus were committed to fires just in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Such a
multitude of equipment moving fluidly from one fire to another required the establishment of motor pools
for coordinated use. One pool was established at the Malibu Fire Camp on the Wright Fire and another at
the Newhall Fire Camp to serve fires burning in both Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. An OES
communications van at each pool helped maintain radio contact with all OES units and assured their
coordinated and most effective use.
Early in the afternoon of September 25, it became apparent to OES officials and to the Region I Fire
Coordinator that the fire magnitude required the establishment of a General Headquarters (GHQ) for
overall control of the firefighting forces. The Los Angeles County Fire Department, whose Chief is the
elected Region I Fire Coordinator and whose dispatching facility is also the Region I Dispatch Center,
had been phasing gradually into a major disaster structure, and therefore it was relatively simple to
expand into the State Fire Disaster Plan GHQ operation. Within a short time the following agencies had
sent top level representatives to form the Board of Strategy of Region I GHQ: U. S. Forest Service,
California Division of Forestry, California Office of Emergency Services, California Highway Patrol, Los
Angeles County Fire Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Los Angeles County Administrative
Services, and Los Angeles City Fire Department. The Ventura and Kern County Fire Departments were
also invited to send representatives to GHQ. This liaison group became the focal point for all fire
intelligence and acted to coordinate results and assign priorities to the regionwide dispatching of
firefighting forces. In practicality, GHQ extended its decisions
40
beyond Region I into Kern County (Region V) and into the southern counties of Region VI. Because of
the unprecedented magnitude of the fire disaster, GHQ did not operate smoothly at all times.
Nevertheless, the coordinating center was instrumental in pulling together the efforts of a large number
of agencies working toward a common goal.
By September 28 the greatest needs for assisting firefighting forces had shifted principally to San Diego
and San Bernardino Counties in Region VI. Therefore GHQ was shifted to the Division of Forestry's
district office at Riverside. About the same time OES also decided to move the assisting apparatus pools
from Newhall and Malibu to the El Toro Marine Air Station in Orange County to serve all of southern
California. As many firetrucks as were available were released from Ventura and Los Angeles Counties
and shifted to the Laguna Fire in San Diego County and the Meyers Fire in San Bernardino County.
The fire situation slackened on the 28th. All Region I and Region VI OES units were released to their
home stations. On the 30th the Red Mountain Fire in Kern County was the only active operation
involving OES apparatus.
With the return of east winds on October 1 and the break-out of the Meyers and Boulder Fires, more
OES units were called into action in southern California. In addition, a request suddenly came again from
the far north in Humboldt County where the Camp Grant Fire threatened structures along the Redwood
Highway. The continuing extreme fire conditions prompted OES to activate on a stand-by basis a 15-unit
task force at Bakersfield in Kern County.
Finally, on October 3, the statewide fire situation had been brought under sufficient control to permit the
release of all state-owned OES mutual aid apparatus to their home bases. Altogether 92 OES firetrucks,
four communications vans, 11 other vehicles, and 320 people had been involved in the Office of
Emergency Services' planning, directing, and vehicle operations during the fire disaster.
Contract County Fire Departments
Three of the five "Contract County" fire departments were heavily involved in the 1970 fire disaster:
Kern, Los Angeles, and Ventura 6/. Despite the extreme potential existing in their areas of protection
responsibility, the Marin County Fire Department experienced only a rash of 21 small grass fires that
burned a total of seven acres, and the Santa Barbara County Fire Department made runs to 15 wildland
fires that consumed 48 acres of brush and grass. The three other Contract Counties did not fare so well.
6/ The State of California has defined by law those watershed lands for which It has assumed the financial responsibility of protecting from fire. Most of this area is
protected by the California Division of Forestry. However, under the law, individual counties may elect to provide fire protection to the defined areas within their
political boundaries by contract to the State, for which services they are reimbursed by the State. The five "Contract Counties" which have elected this alternative
are Kern, Los Angeles, Marin, Santa Barbara, and Ventura.
41
Los Angeles County
The Los Angeles County Fire Department provides fire protection to all the unincorporated residential
and industrial areas of Los Angeles County, to 30 incorporated cities (under contract), and to 648,187
acres of wildland under contract to the State of California.
Los Angeles County was the first of the Contract Counties to feel the fury of fire when the Wright and
then the Clampitt sprang to life within 20 minutes of each other on September 25 (7). They were closely
followed by the Bailey and the Agua Dulce Fires. Within just a little more than four hours the Los Angeles
County Fire Department found itself faced with trying to control these four major blazes.
The potential of the extreme fire danger had been recognized by the Department earlier in the week. On
the 20th the watershed areas of Los Angeles County had been placed on "Fire Hazard Alert" (2).
Precautions included stepped-up fire prevention patrols in the wildland areas; all personnel being alerted
to the possibility of emergency fire procedures; an increased program of fire prevention messages to the
general public through the news media; and closer communications and coordination with other wildland
fire control agencies.
When the Wright Fire broke at 10:31 a.m. on the 25th, the Department immediately recognized the
threat of disaster. Within 45 minutes the Department had shifted gears to Plan III of its "Emergency
Operations Procedure" (Fig. 22). Under this plan, the Chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors declared a "State of Local Disaster" and requested Governor Reagan to declare a "State of
Emergency" and to provide all possible state assistance. The State Fire Disaster Plan and its provisions
for outside aid went into effect.
Within minutes help was converging on Los Angeles County from all directions, including assistance
from the Ventura and Kern County Fire Departments. Later that day firetrucks of those two departments
would scurry back home as first the Foothill Fire (Ventura City) and then the Rankin Ranch Fire ignited.
During the next five days the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to 1,024 fires of all kinds,
an increase of 83 percent over the same period in the previous year. Forty-two of these fires started in
wildland vegetation, with most of the acreage being burned by six major holocausts (Appendix A).
To help combat these blazes, the Department received assistance from a total of 65 communities and
agencies, including all other municipal departments in Los Angeles County, United States Forest
Service, California Division of Forestry, and the California Office of Emergency Services. Altogether
some 305 fire engines, 361 other pieces of ground equipment, and nearly 5,000 men were brought to
bear against the county's catastrophe. In addition, three County Fire Department helicopters dropped a
total of 207,505 gallons of fire retarding chemical slurry during the five days, and as many as 10
fixed-wing air tankers delivered 347,400 gallons of chemical in helping to control the spread of the fires.
Since fast spreading wildland fires have no respect for political boundaries, some of the fires that started
in Los Angeles County soon spread westerly into neighboring Ventura County as strong desert winds
continued to blow from the east.
Ventura County
The Ventura County Fire Department provides fire protection to all the unincorporated rural area of the
county, to five cities (under contract), and to 385,190 acres of wildland under contract to the State of
California. To make its mutual aid efforts more effective, the Department shares a common radio net
with three of the largest city fire departments in the county. It also has Los Angeles County Fire
Department radio nets in those firetrucks stationed adjacent to Los Angeles County and in four of its
Chief Officer vehicles.
Early on September 25, the Department became committed to fires which started in areas protected by
other agencies. First, the Department responded with eight firetrucks to requests for mutual aid on the
Clampitt and Wright Fires in Los Angeles County. Early that same afternoon the Foothill Fire (Ventura
City) exploded among hundreds of homes. The Ventura City Fire Department requested immediate
assistance from the County Department, which then had to recall its firetrucks from Los Angeles County.
Later that day both the Clampitt Fire and the Foothill Fire spread into wildland areas under the direct
protection responsibility of the County Department. In addition to those two conflagrations, the
Department later came to grips with other major fires: The Guiberson, the Val Verde, and the Camarillo
(Appendices B and C).
43
During the thirteen-day disaster period, Ventura County was hit with 41 wildland fires which destroyed
86,745 acres of watershed vegetation. All but 320 acres of this area were burned by four large fires:
Clampitt, Foothill, Guiberson, and Val Verde. Because of widespread destruction and the need for
outside assistance, the county was included in Governor Reagan's proclamation of a "State of
Emergency." As a consequence of the proclamation and of its local mutual aid agreements, the Ventura
County Fire Department received aid from several city fire departments in Ventura County, from the
Rocketdyne Facility and several oil companies whose wells and other facilities were located within or
threatened by spreading fires, from Navy units stationed at Port Hueneme and Point Mugu, from the
California Division of Forestry, United States Forest Service, Los Angeles County Fire Department, and
Los Angeles City Fire Department. Altogether some 124 firetrucks, eight bulldozers, 11 Conservation
Camp crews, several air tankers, and a total of 585 men operated on the County's fires.
Kern County
The Kern County Fire Department provides fire protection to all the unincorporated rural area of the
county, including a large number of major oil-producing fields. It also serves eight cities (under contract)
and 2,170,491 acres of wildland under contract to the State of California.
The Kern County Fire Department sent two firetrucks to assist Los Angeles County when the Clampitt
and Wright Fires were ignited in the morning of September 25. These vehicles were recalled when the
Rankin Ranch Fire was discovered along the Lions Trail, a steep, tortuous road that winds from Caliente
into the Walker Basin country (9). Under the influence of dry north and east winds that whirled in many
directions because of the rugged topography, the fire at first burned south and west away from the higher
mountains of the Sequoia National Forest.
On the 26th, the Rankin Ranch Fire decided to play games: one head continued to move almost due
south, but a new and larger head took off uphill to the north toward Breckenridge Mountain located inside
the National Forest. Just as the Forest Service prepared to meet this threat to their territory, the Red
Mountain Fire was ignited on the Sequoia National Forest a few miles due north of the Rankin Ranch
(10). The Forest Service threw all its forces into this new battle in an effort to stop the fire at a few acres.
Air tankers, badly needed on the Rankin Ranch Fire, were diverted to the Red Mountain Fire - but to no
avail. Within hours, the Red Mountain spread downslope to the west under the influence of strong east
winds and swept into the protection area of the Kern County Fire Department. Kern County requested
state aid and was included in the Governor's "State of Emergency" proclamation.
On September 26 and 27 both fires were burning in rugged wildlands where few roads existed. Firetrucks
generally could not be used except to provide protection to vacation homes around Breckenridge
Mountain on the Rankin Ranch Fire and to subdivisions around Alta Sierra and Greenhorn on the Red
Mountain Fire. The County Fire Department's main needs were men, bulldozers, and air tankers.
Unfortunately, each of these items was in short supply because of the statewide fire situation. Air tankers
were diverted from Kern County to southern California on the 27th to assist in protecting lives and the
thousa nds of structures threatened by the many major fires in that area. The manpower situation was
helped by 28 Conservation Camp crews and other prison inmates from the penal institutions sent by the
California Division of Forestry and the California Department of Corrections. National Guard vehicles
sent from Bakersfield and Fresno were used to transport many of the inmates,
Nevertheless, the some 600 men available to the Kern County Fire Department were spread thinly on the
many miles of fire perimeter. As a result, on one occasion about 20 ranchers and 14 Kern County
firemen fired out 16 miles of line constructed by three bulldozers, with no follow-up action (Fig. 23).
Fortunately, the line held. On another occasion, when the Rankin Ranch Fire threatened vacation
homes, valuable timber, and two television
45
broadcasting installations. on Breckenridge Mountain, the fire was held back by "double-shifting" the
firefighters. At that stage in the battle some men were on the line as long as 33 hours. As the Chief of the
Fire Department acknowledged later, "No single fire has taxed the County of Kern as much as the
Rankin Ranch."
When it was all over, the Kern County Fire Department counted the score. During the thirteen-day
disaster the Department had answered only 14 wildland fire calls. But two of these fires - Rankin Ranch
and Red Mountain - had blackened a total of 44,152 acres in the Department's area of protection
responsibility (Appendix A).
Military Forces
When all public and private sources of wildland firefighting forces have been committed to a fire or fires
and have been found to be inadequate to cope with the emergency, then assistance may be requested
from state and federal military forces. Such requests were made early during the 1970 fire disaster;
assistance received was of greater magnitude than ever previously experienced in California.
Generally, State Military Forces (National Guard) are made available through a request by the California
Division of Forestry to the Governor's office. National Guard assistance most often is in the form of
vehicles and drivers to transport hand crews, such as the Indian crews that were recruited throughout the
western states during the 1970 fires. In addition, the National Guard has a large variety of specialized
equipment and operators to perform particular jobs. At the peak of the 1970 activity this agency had
committed to the Division of Forestry, the U. S. Forest. Service, and the Contract Counties a total of 227
vehicles and 425 men. The vehicles included bulldozers, helicopters, 2 1/2-ton trucks, 1/4-ton jeeps,
45-passenger buses, fuel trucks, communications equipment, a wrecker, water trailers, and a bath
company. The latter rig was especially welcome to the tired, grimy firefighters who more often had to rely
on the nearest cattle trough, irrigation ditch, or trickling stream to remove one or more layers of dirt.
Federal military forces are available for assistance at some locations through local mutual aid
agreements. For example, under these agreements the Marine Corps from Camp Pendleton supplied
bulldozers and other equipment to the California Division of Forestry in San Diego County. The Navy
provided hand crews, bulldozers, and other equipment from its installation at Port Hueneme and Point
Mugu to the Ventura County Fire Department.
46
Whenever a local or statewide catastrophe is beyond the capability of state resources to combat, the
Governor requests the President of the United States to declare a major disaster, thereby making federal
forces available for physical assistance throughout the state. The President's declaration in 1970 resulted
in assistance being obtained from all major branches of the federal military services. About 500 men, 26
firetrucks, 7 buses, 17 water tank trucks, 19 bulldozers with transports, 3 fuel tankers, and 20 helicopters
gave assistance to the California Division of Forestry and the Contract Counties. Additional assistance
went to the U. S. Forest Service.
Military helicopters were especially helpful in one unique air operation. Despite continuing critical fire
weather in northern California, many initial attack units had to be sent from the north to assist
beleaguered forces in southern California. To help strengthen the weakened initial attack capability in the
north, the California Division of Forestry requested large helicopters from the National Guard and from
the federal military services. The military was highly cooperative in promptly supplying aircraft of both
10-man and 23-man capacity. On September 30 the Air National Guard provided four helicopters; three
of these aircraft were released to other missions in the state on the following day. On September 30 and
October 1 the 12th Naval District responded with 12 Navy and Marine Corps helicopters, mostly from the
Alameda Naval Air Station, and the 6th Army provided three large helicopters.
At the peak of operations on October 1, 13 helicopters were located at eight bases in northern California.
Conservation Camp crews of five to seven men, plus two leaders, were assigned to each aircraft for
initial attack on newly reported fires. These crews were used on 15 fires, plus one temporary move-up,
between September 30 and October 3. Six of the actions were initial attack with fair to excellent success.
One fire action illustrated the potential value in future statewide fire disasters of such helicopter-borne
crews supplementing weakened initial attack forces. The fire had started along a road and was moving
upslope in a steep canyon. Two firetruck crews, both short-handed, had arrived and were having
difficulty in making a hoselay up each flank of the fire. The two Marine Corps helicopters at the Columbia
Air Attack Base sped to the scene and deposited their crews on a flat lava cap ahead of the spreading
fire. The two hand crews immediately started constructing a line around the fire's head and down the
flanks while the firetruck crews continued their hoselay from the bottom. With this dual attack, the fire
was controlled at four acres, and the operation was judged a complete success, considering the
topography and extreme burning conditions.
Elsewhere in the state, other air attack operations had also played a key role in helping to control many
fires during the thirteen days.
47
Air Attack
Over the past several years aircraft have played an increasingly important role in wildland fire control
operations. Fixed-wing aircraft have been used commonly for fire detection and reconnaissance; for
transporting crews and their equipment long distances; for parachuting supplies to isolated spike camps;
for carrying smokejumpers to their designated targets; and, when converted to air tankers, for dropping
fire retardant chemicals on fires. Helicopters have been especially versatile tools: carrying men over
clogged highways and rugged mountainous terrain directly to the fire line; dropping fire retardants in
close support of ground crews; laying hose over difficult terrain; and performing a variety of other unique
tasks.
Air tankers and helicopter crews are especially valuable in initial attack on small fires, often being
credited with stopping or significantly slowing a fire's spread before the arrival of other firefighting
resources. On large fires these aircraft have also played important roles in supporting efforts of ground
crews and equipment.
Recognizing these values, wildland firefighting agencies in California have had a cooperative contract air
attack program since 1956. In 1970 the U. S. Forest Service and the California Division of Forestry had
35 fixed-wing air tankers located at 18 bases to provide air attack to almost all areas of the state within
20 minutes travel time during the fire season. Seven of these bases were operated jointly by the Forest
Service and the Division, five by the Forest Service only, and six by the Division only. All air tankers,
although under contract to one or the other of the two agencies, were used cooperatively by either
agency according to fire control needs of the moment. Air tankers were also available to the Contract
Counties, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and to military reservations. In addition
to air tankers, each base also had an Air Coordinator (in the case of the Division of Forestry) or a Lead
Plane Pilot (in the case of the Forest Service) who flew in separate fixed-wing aircraft, directed air tanker
activity on all fires, and coordinated air attack activity with the needs of the Fire Boss on the ground.
Helicopters with specially trained firefighting crews also were spotted strategically throughout the state. In
1970 the Forest Service contracted for 18 helicopters, the Division of Forestry had two, and the National
Park Service had two. In addition, the Los Angeles County Fire Department had five county-owned
helicopters available for fire control use, and the Los Angeles City Fire Department had four city-owned
ships.
Despite their recognized value as unique fire control tools, air tankers and helicopters have important
limitations. Both types of aircraft must operate at low altitude to execute their fire control missions.
Therefore, they are often exposed to the dual hazards of violent air turbulence and rugged mountain
terrain. Because of these hazards, air tanker and helicopter sorties on fires are restricted to daylight
hours. Also, when wind speed exceeds 30 to 35 miles per hour at the fire site, aircraft do not operate
because of increased air turbulence and because in such high speed wind fire retardant solutions drift
over so wide an area that they are not effective in slowing fire spread.
48
The unusual number, size, and concentration of wildfires in the southern half of the state in 1970 added
several other problems and limitations to the use of air tankers and helicopters. First, the extensive
smoke covering most of southern California made flying hazardous, target designation and sighting
difficult, and coordination of air activities sometimes very complex. On the afternoon of October 1, the
Burbank air tanker base had to be closed due to smoke from the Meyers Fire. The chronological record
that read, "Airco 42 tried to recon the Chatsworth area but encountered heavy smoke and wind
turbulence near Granada Hills and had to return to base," was a typical situation.
Second, since air tankers were needed on so many fires, they were kept flying as much as possible.
Soon, pilots reached their maximum allowable flying hours: 8 hours the first day, 6 hours per day for the
next five days, then a day of rest. Air tankers were grounded simply because pilots experienced in such
hazardous, low-level flying were no longer available.
Third, the number of air tankers under contract in California proved inadequate to handle the
extraordinary job load during the intermittent periods of favorable flying weather. Whenever the wind
slackened speed somewhat, requests for air tankers came from anxious Fire Bosses everywhere - each
of whom was certain he had the most important fire problem. To help ease the logistical problem, five air
tankers were brought into California from adjoining states by the Forest Service. Also, the Division of
Forestry sent three Air Coordinators from the northern part of the state to the south. Even these additions
did not adequately meet the needs.
The problems were recognized early on September 25 when southern California erupted in a sea of
flame. By mid-afternoon an interagency air tanker coordinating center was established at Ryan Field (the
joint Forest Service-Division of Forestry air tanker base located near Hemet in Riverside County) to
coordinate air tanker activity in the southern part of the state. On subsequent days satellite coordinating
centers, subordinate to the main center at Ryan Field, were set up at Ramona in San Diego County,
Burbank in Los Angeles County, Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County, and Porterville in Tulare
County. About the same time a Division of Forestry coordinating center was activated at the Division's
Statewide Dispatching and Communications Center in Sacramento to handle air tanker activities in all of
northern California. On September 27 the Porterville satellite coordinating center became the third
primary center in recognition of the growing fire problem in Kern County. All centers were deactivated on
October 3 when fire activity returned more or less to normal status.
During their activation the air tanker coordinating centers received all requests for air tanker use,
determined priorities, dispatched aircraft, and diverted them from one fire to another as priorities
changed. Thus, the coordinating centers relieved the administrative unit Dispatching Centers of a
tremendous job load, leaving them free to handle the dispatching and logistics of ground units - a large
order in itself. The regular Dispatching Centers were kept informed of all air activity, however.
49
From September 25 through October 2 the air tankers working out of Ramona, Ryan Field, Porterville,
and Burbank responded on initial attack to 33 fires. Twenty of these fires were contained by the air
tankers, with 14 of the 20 judged as having had the potential of becoming major fires. Numerous sorties
were also made to larger fires where the air tankers dropped fire retardant on spot fires and hot spots and
along the fires' flanks, all in support of ground units. On the Wright Fire in the Malibu area on September
28, a series of retardant drops helped complete a critical section of fireline in Las Flores Canyon. Without
the completed line, fire strategists had fully expected the fire to spread into the densely populated
Fernwood area of Topanga Canyon, creating even more destruction.
At the peak of activity, 28 air tankers pressed their assault against fires in southern California. But almost
always there were never enough air tankers available to satisfy the requests of Fire Bosses or of Air
Coordinators circling over the fires. On frequent occasions retardant lines being constructed by air
tankers were never quite completed, and the fires were able to make end runs around the chemically
treated fuel and devastate still more acres of valuable watershed and threaten more homes. On other
occasions new fires, which ordinarily would be caught at small acreage by fast air tanker attack, spread
quickly because no aircraft were available at the moment of need.
During the period September 25-October 2, a total of 1,346,700 gallons of fire retardant chemicals were
dropped from five southern California bases, as follows:
The highest fire retardant use on any one day was at Ryan Field where 110,000 gallons were pumped
into air tankers. Despite the large quantities of fire retardant dropped, no base ran out of mixed retardant
during daylight flight hours, although storage tanks at Ramona were reduced to 1,120 gallons at one
time. Much of the credit for maintaining the constant supply must go to the manufacturers of the two
retardants used. The production plants were hard pressed to keep up with the unprecedented demand
but managed to do so by adding additional workers and using overtime.
50
Helicopters were a bit more plentiful than air tankers, and generally the needs of Fire Bosses were met,
including the use of military helicopters to transport firefighting crews in northern California and on the
Laguna Fire in San Diego County.
Just as important was the use of helicopters to deliver fire retardants to the many fires in Los Angeles
County. The County's five helicopters dropped a total of 207,505 gallons of retardants in close support of
ground crews during five days from September 25 through 29. Portable mixing equipment enabled the
helicopters to be loaded at heliports located adjacent to fire lines so that round-trip time was reduced to
three to five minutes. This ability of the "helitanker" to operate close to the fire gave it important
advantages over the air tankers in gallons of retardant delivered, accuracy of drops, and delivery cost
per gallon. For example, the Los Angeles County Fire Department compared the peak performance of its
large helicopter (a Bell 204-B with a 350 gallon tank) to that of the largest air tanker (a B-17 with a 2,000
gallon tank) on the Wright Fire:
While the helicopter had some advantages in comparison to the air tanker, the larger aircraft had the
important characteristics of faster travel time to more distant targets (especially important on initial
attack) and larger load volume, which was needed to lay a long continuous chemical line or a series of
shorter lines or to snuff out a threatening hot spot. The two aircraft types therefore complemented each
other, and each played an important role in fire control operations.
Helicopters were used by the California Division of Forestry in a unique way on the 175,000 acre Laguna
Fire. Erratic fire behavior on September 27 had left a large number of randomly located "islands" - areas
that had been remarkably untouched by the destroying fingers of flame. Each island had to be checked
for smoldering embers to be certain that the unburned fuel would not flare up at a later date. To expedite
the job, "Operation Mop-up" was organized, composed of the leader who flew over the fire area in a fast
fixed-wing plane and four three-man crews who were transported by helicopter. Each time the leader
spotted a smoke floating up from one of the islands, he would radio for one of the helicopter crews to fly
to the area and extinguish the hot spot. The leader coordinated the operation as the
51
helicopter mop-up crews hedge-hopped from hot spot to hot spot. Within a day and a half all visible
smokes had been extinguished within the gross area of the Laguna Fire.
Air tanker pilots encountered many problems during the 1970 fires, most of which had been met before
and were therefore expected. But, overall, they accomplished considerable good work and were praised
by Fire Bosses and other observers on a number of occasions. In one instance the Air Coordinator
directing air activities over the rampaging Clampitt Fire as it burned in Simi Valley suddenly radioed for
all available air tankers - some firemen laying hose had been surrounded by the erratically spreading
holocaust. Air tankers were immediately diverted from the Fork Fire on the Angeles National Forest and
arrived over the trapped firemen in time to provide an escape route though the flames. On the Fish Fire
in Oakland, local residents credited the 11 air tankers working on that fire with saving many of their
homes (Fig. 24): "The men were on the roof, wetting it down, but they were just at the verge of jumping
off as the flames came toward them. Suddenly a TBM zoomed in, incredibly low, and bombed the fire
and the house with chemicals. It saved all -those homes. Those pilots did incredible jobs, constantly
risking their lives."
52
As described above, wind was an important limiting factor in the use of aircraft on the 1970 fires.
Responsibility for predicting the occurrence, location, and velocity of these winds, as well as the other
elements of fire weather, lay in the hands of the National Weather Service.
National Weather Service
By the summer of 1970 the National Weather Service had expanded its fire weather service to six offices
in California in consideration of the state's perennial wildland fire problem. These six offices, plus a
seventh office in Reno, Nevada, provide daily fire weather information to wildland fire protection
agencies during the fire season. Fifteen fire weather meteorologists, plus other Weather Service
meteorologists given special training in fire weather forecasting, inventory fire weather daily from 250
weather sampling stations scattered throughout the state and issue daily forecasts which the protection
agencies use to plan firefighter manning patterns, to manage the issuance of burning permits, etc. In
addition, the Weather Service has several mobile forecasting units which can be requested by protection
agencies to travel to large fires and provide on-the-spot fire weather forecasts several times a day.
These spot forecasts are useful for predicting fire behavior and for allocating fire control resources to
different parts of the fire.
The mobile forecasting units are basically camper units carried on 3/4-ton pickups. In addition to weather
sampling instruments, the units have communications equipment for maintaining close liaison with the
Weather Service's main offices and for receiving the latest national weather maps, charts, and forecasts.
The units also provide living facilities for the meteorologists while in the field.
Nine mobile units served Fire Bosses on some of the largest fires during the disaster period. Two other
units were moved up for standby in the event of further requests. Four of the 11 units were dispatched
into California from out-of-state by the Weather Service. Table 1 summarizes the activity of these units.
When the Weather Service in Los Angeles received an unprecedented demand for mobile units on
September 27, it came up short one unit and was unable to satisfy immediately the request from the
Plans Boss on the Meyers Fire. Told that a unit was on the way from Sacramento but would not arrive
until the following day, the Plans Boss said, "That's o.k. Everything else we've asked for will be at least a
day late also." Trying to scrounge firefighting resources for the last large fire presented problems!
In addition to providing spot forecasts to individual fires from the mobile units, the Weather Service
continued to give broad area fire weather forecasts from each of its seven base stations in California and
Reno. Each morning the Los Angeles fire weather office, which was on 24-hour duty from September 26
through October 4, gave a special weather briefing to Mayor Samuel Yorty of Los Angeles and several
times a day provided forecasts to the GHQ set up at Los Angeles County Fire Department headquarters
and to the Ventura County Fire
53
Department. Also much time was devoted by all base offices to numerous interviews by the various news
media.
The mobile weather units faced several problems on the fires. Many of the fires were so large and
burning in such inaccessible terrain that the meterologists were unable to travel to all parts of the fire
perimeters to gather needed fire weather data. Sometimes this problem was solved by the use of
helicopters, but usually there was so much smoke in the air and the wind was blowing so hard that the
helicopters couldn't be flown safely. For almost four days the meteorologist on the Buckeye Fire found
himself unable to move from the Forest Service fire camp established near the Pacific Ocean; his
weather data came from the moist, cool marine air while the fire burned several miles inland in hot, dry
air. He relied on weather data from a Forest Service lookout located north of the fire and from firemen on
the line. But then he ran into still another problem: a lack of adequate radio communications with the
lookout and with the firemen he was trying to serve.
The life of a fire weather forecaster is normally hectic. On the 1970 fires their frustrations were often
compounded. Nevertheless, the National Weather Service's forecasts of wind, temperature, and humidity
were invaluable to the fire control agencies. And guess who the heroes were when rain was forecast and
fell on the southern California fires on October 2!
Other fire heroes stalked the back roads and held quiet meetings as they relentlessly tracked down the
incendiarists who started so many fires during the disaster period. These were the law enforcement men,
whose jobs also included such prosaic tasks as regulating traffic flow in the fire areas.
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Law Enforcement Agencies
Incendiarists - people who deliberately and maliciously set wildland fires - come in many types. There is
the person who sets a fire because he bears a grudge, either against some individual or against one or
more of the public fire protection agencies. Another type of person views a raging fire as a chance to be
hired as a firefighter and earn extra money. Other people act on their contention that the wildlands need
to be burned off periodically: to open the woods for easier hunting; to produce more forage for domestic,
or wild animals; or to rid the woods of snakes, insects, disease,- or varmints. Then there is the
pyromaniac who sets fire to satisfy a sexual or psychopathic urge.
Whatever their reason, incendiarists of one kind or another were responsible for starting about one-fifth
of all fires that occurred during the thirteen-day disaster period. They were also responsible for one-fourth
of the 32 large fires that did so much damage to homes and watershed lands.
To seek out and apprehend the incendiarists, law enforcement specialists from the various fire protection
agencies banded together in a common, cooperative effort. Their long, patient hours of questioning
witnesses, tracking down and furtively observing suspects, and staking themselves out at likely locations
paid off in the apprehension of several incendiarists.
The man suspected of setting the Fish Fire in Oakland had been watched periodically for several
months; after the Fish Fire he was picked up at his home and charged with setting 24 wildland fires in the
OaklandBerkeley hills during the summer of 1970. Four men were arrested in the Los Angeles area on
suspicion of starting fires; one of these men was described by several citizens as setting fires in high
grass with matches as fast as they could extinguish them. Another man was arrested at his Palm Springs
residence and accused (subsequently convicted) of willfully burning forest land by illegally lighting
firecrackers in dry brush northwest of San Bernardino - and thereby starting the Meyers Fire. In San
Diego County a young man was seen by a Division of Forestry aerial observer setting a fire in dry grass;
nearby were four other small fires which the man was suspected of setting, one of them located to the
rear of his residence. Alerted by the aerial observer, a team of 16 state and federal law enforcement
investigators converged on the area and apprehended the young man within minutes. A week later the
suspect was certified to Superior Court in San Diego to determine his sanity; the Court later committed
him to a mental institution.
Law enforcement officers assisted in the fire protection effort in other valuable ways. Men from the
California Highway Patrol, county sheriff's offices, and local police departments were responsible for
evacuating people from their homes when there was danger from advancing fires (Fig. 25). They also
searched homes to be sure people had left and would not be trapped and then, soon after the fire had
passed through the area, stood by to protect the homes from looters. Yes, despite the tragedy and
damages created by the conflagrations, there were also some losses attributed to looters, many of whom
were apprehended by the law officers.
55
The law enforcement people, augmented by military police in a few instances, were also responsible for
controlling traffic and for closing and opening roads to all vehicles except firefighting and other
emergency apparatus. It is an unfortunate fact that people are attracted to disaster scenes like flies to a
picnic. They succeed only in creating traffic snarls, thereby hampering ingress of emergency crews to the
disaster and, impeding egress of citizens directly threatened by the disaster. Therefore, the prolonged
efforts of law enforcement personnel in their traffic control work made the firefighting forces more
effective and helped to save many homes, property, and lives.
While the mutual aid concept paid off in the firefighting effort, it also made the law enforcement job more
effective. In San Diego County, for example, the county sheriff was primarily responsible for evacuation
of residents and for traffic control in the Laguna Fire area. Invoking a planned mutual aid agreement, the
sheriff called for assistance from local police departments. By working all shifts overtime, the City of San
Diego Chief of Police ordered 50 officers to assist the sheriff. Coronado, National City, La Mesa, and
Imperial Beach all sent proportional numbers of policemen to work under the sheriff. In San Diego
County, as well as elsewhere in the state, the California Highway Patrol cancelled all days-off and
worked its staff on 12-hour shifts.
Recognizing the seriousness and danger of the fire disaster, the ordinary citizen generally didn't mind
being told by law enforcement officers where he should go and what he should
56
do. At the same time he was anxious and expected to be kept informed of the fire situation: Where were
the fires? Where were they spreading to? Was his property in danger? Were his relatives and friends
safe? When could he return to his home - if he still had one? He needed answers to these and other
questions frequently and accurately.
Fire Information Services
The job of "informing people" was an important one. The news media reporters and photographers and
the fire protection agencies' Fire Information Officers recognized the need and filled the gap the best
they could, considering the handicaps they encountered.
News media reporters did not always find it easy to report the fire news "accurately," especially during
the first day or two of the southern California holocausts. There were so many fires spreading rapidly in
several directions that even the firefighting agencies, upon whom the news media depended for much of
their information, weren't always certain where one fire left off and another began. Light observation
aircraft, commonly used by both the news media and the fire protection services 'to scout fire conditions,
often could not fly because of the high winds and widespread smoke conditions.
Communications, or the lack of them, were frequently responsible for the dearth of fire information early
in the disaster period. Telephone lines were burned down. One or two lines had to be shared by several
fire headquarters functions. Protection agency radio channels were choked by the firefighting forces as
they moved from one emergency to another. Fire Information Officers sometimes found their field
"legmen" and assistants being taken from them for what other fire officers considered were "more
important assignments." Even if the legmen were available, they often were unable to contact the
Information Centers because of the lack of communications.
Gradually, however, telephone lines were repaired, and additional lines were installed at Fire Information
Centers for the exclusive use of Information Officers. Extra radio receivers were located and installed so
Fire Information Officers could listen to the fire control traffic and get some idea of where and what the
action was. More personnel assigned as Information Officers arrived in southern California from the
north. Finally, by pooling their manpower in interagency Fire Information Centers, the fire protection
agencies were able to do the required job of informing the news media and the general public of what
was happening statewide in the fire disaster.
On September 26 one such Fire Information Center was established by the U. S. Forest Service at their
Pine Valley Ranger Station to serve the Laguna Fire. While the Laguna was still small and not too
newsworthy in comparison to the much larger fires in Los Angeles County and elsewhere, the Information
Officers found the limited communications facilities to be adequate in rural and remote Pine Valley.
When the Laguna began its advance westward toward the City of San Diego early on the 27th, however,
the Information Center suddenly
57
became overwhelmed with calls for information, and the few main telephone lines into Pine Valley were
entirely inadequate to carry the load demanded of them. To remedy this situation and to handle the
growing fire problem throughout San Diego County, an interagency Fire Information Center was
established in a conference room at Monte Vista Headquarters of the California Division of Forestry on
the eastern outskirts of the City of San Diego. A total of 36 Fire Information Officers from the Division of
Forestry and the Forest Service manned the center on a 24-hour basis. A deputy sheriff, a California
Highway Patrol Officer, and a County Civil Defense representative provided liaison information.
At the height of the fire activity there were eight temporary telephone lines installed at the Monte Vista
Information Center, including four for general public incoming calls, three for incoming calls from news
media only, and one for incoming calls from legmen operating around the fire's perimeter. Legmen were
instructed to call the Center every half hour. At mid-day on the 27th, when the Laguna Fire spread to the
eastern edge of El Cajon and virtually surrounded the Monte Vista Headquarters, the Information Center
was without telephone communications for almost four hours before burned lines were restored.
In addition to the telephones, the Monte Vista Fire Information Center also had radio receivers which
permitted monitoring fire suppression activity on the Laguna Fire. Status maps around the walls of the
conference room were regularly updated from information gleaned from legmen and from listening to the
radios.
Fire Information Centers of a similar size and nature were established to serve fires in other southern
California counties.
A Regional Fire Information Center was located at the California Division of Forestry's District
Headquarters at Riverside. This Center received and collated information from all county centers and
then transmitted summaries to the Division's headquarters in Sacramento and to news media upon
request. The Regional Center coordinated assignments of men, equipment, and transportation to the
outlying Information Centers. Also, it transmitted daily fire status reports of all fires in southern California
to various agency officers and to a number of fire headquarters. In this way the "troops" everywhere were
kept informed of the Big Picture.
While governmental agencies performed their assigned tasks of controlling the fires, evacuating people,
searching out the law breakers, and keeping the people informed, there were many private agencies and
individuals who also played important roles in responding to the 1970 fire disaster.
Public Utilities
The public utility companies, especially those supplying and servicing telephone communications and
electric power, were vital to the firefighting effort.
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Electricity supplied power to the many mountain-top radio relays, which were important links in the radio
communication systems required by the fire departments and other agencies involved in the fire action.
Electricity also powered the pumps which pressured many of the water supply systems needed to combat
the destructive fires. On many occasions electricity suddenly disappeared: power poles had burned
down, breaking the lines; or the fierce winds had whipped and broken other lines; or huge clouds of
smoke and gases had enshrouded the lines, causing them to arc and trip relays. Then, radios often
became useless and communications ceased; or water from the hydrants slowed to a trickle, and houses
were left unprotected.
Although firemen engaged in actual firefighting depended almost wholly on radio for their car-to-car and
car-to-base communications, the base stations relied heavily on telephone communications. Again,
telephone poles were burned, or lines were blown down, and telephone communications ceased or were
limited.
The public utility companies everywhere rose to the challenge. Since natural disasters of one kind or
another occur almost every year in California, the companies all had detailed plans for coping with such
emergencies, and their men were well trained in how to work with the fire departments. No sooner had
the first "outage" occurred, than the utility company service trucks were grinding up the mountain roads
to repair lines and replace poles. Throughout the thirteen day disaster period and for weeks thereafter,
the company men and their equipment replaced hundreds of utility poles and thousands of feet of
telephone and power lines, often working 24-hours a day in shifts. In line with long-term plans to help
improve the esthetics of the wildland environment, the companies buried many miles of line underground
rather than restring them on new poles.
Part of the telephone companies' disaster plans included the installation, upon request, of extra lines to
fire command centers. This service was provided quickly to many fire department base stations during
the fires. The eight telephone lines installed exclusively for the fire information center at Monte Vista
Headquarters during the Laguna Fire were a fine example of this kind of service.
Other private companies, agencies, and individuals also rose to the challenge of the disaster. People
everywhere recognized the plight of the fires' victims and pooled their talents and resources to bring help
where it was needed.
Relief Agencies and Volunteer Services
"Put this down," directed one fireman to a roving reporter on the Laguna Fire in San Diego County.
"Those people in El Cajon were absolutely fantastic. They really treated us special." He was expressing a
feeling that was felt by firemen and fire victims throughout the disaster area. "Everyone was caught up in
the idea that people needed help," said a civil defense worker. "The feeling was more intense than the
fire."
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And so it seemed to be -- everywhere.
Firefighters discovered that the people who manned the El Cajon Unified Civil Defense Unit at Gillespie
Field were typical of people throughout San Diego County, Los Angeles County, and north in Oakland,
the site of the Fish Fire (Fig.. 26). Wildland firefighters normally expect to grab a few hours of fitful
off-shift rest stretched out in or on a paper sleeping bag on a dry grassy hillside. If their rest period is
during the day, they might be lucky to find some relief from the heat under a shady tree or bush. As they
came off the fire line on the Laguna Fire in San Diego County, however, they were directed to Gillespie
Field. There, they were assigned to bunks in a large air-cooled building, given new shaving gear, and
told to drop their dirty clothes in bags as they stepped into hot showers. As they slept in clean underwear
beneath sheets, their clothes were washed, dried, ironed, replaced if too worn, and returned to their bunk
before they awoke. Many organizations, churches, schools, businesses, and individuals contributed time,
supplies, and money to this community effort in El Cajon.
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Unique services sprang up everywhere. In Los Angeles an answering service became a clearing house
for fire victims who had become separated from relatives and friends during the confusion of the disaster
period. In San Diego County, Pacific Southwest Airlines flew spectators over the Laguna Fire area for a
donation of five dollars each, with all funds given to relief agencies. The Humane Society in San Diego
acted as a clearing center for lost pets and treated injured animals, both domestic and wild. A number of
organizations oriented toward environmental quality jointly sponsored a campaign to gather aluminum
cans to sell to a salvage company, all proceeds going toward the reforestation of areas burned in San
Diego County's devastating fires. Statewide, people contributed more than $90,000 to the "Pennies for
Pines" program, assuring the planting of several hundred thousand pine seedlings on National Forest
land burned by the 1970 fires. In San Bernardino County residents from the Crestline area moved six
pickup loads of food and clothing to the fire area in their spontaneous "Mountains to the Ocean" relief
effort. Throughout the disaster area, "ham" radio operators filled many communications gaps with their
valuable services.
Youth played a key role in lending assistance to firemen and fire victims alike. Not only were they
instrumental in helping firemen to save several homes during the Fish Fire in Oakland, but they also
volunteered their help on fires throughout southern California. In San Bernardino County young men
from Andrew House, a private home for parolees from juvenile correctional institutions, worked through
one afternoon and evening helping to clear firebreaks around buildings threatened by the Meyers Fire
and also assisted in the removal of furniture from endangered homes. At the same time many high
school students in San Diego banded together to form Project Concern; this group gathered sandwiches
and soft drinks from San Diegans and distributed them to hungry firefighters on the Boulder Fire in a van
truck donated by a local pharmacy. Later, these same young people gathered seeds and small plants
and helped to re-beautify homes in the Laguna Fire area. In Los Angeles, students at Loyola University
established a fire relief center on their campus, solicited and gathered donations of food and clothing and
other items, and distributed these materials to the hundreds of people whose homes and belongings had
been destroyed by fire.
The American Red Cross and the Salvation Army were active everywhere: on the fireline, at fire camp
headquarters, and at fire victim relief centers located at schools, churches, hotels, and elsewhere. During
and after the Fish Fire in Oakland, the Red Cross set up four relocation centers for displaced families
and sent six disaster teams into the fire area to provide food, clothing, first aid, and refreshments. South
in San Diego County more than 150 Red Cross volunteers manned evacuation centers on a 24-hour
basis and provided direct financial aid to some fire victims to cover food and living costs until they were
able to manage for themselves. First aid stations were set up at several fire headquarters so that Red
Cross workers could minister to needs of firefighters as they came off the fire lines. Minor burns,
scratches, and irritated eyes were the principal complaints. While the volunteers worked grimly most of
the time, they also saw a spark of humor in their labors on occasions--such as the use of an enema bag
at one camp to flush out burned eyes.
The Salvation Army workers continued to follow the simple but explicit message of their founder, William
Booth: "Others." The Army's mobile canteens were found at many fires, offering cold drinks to the
firemen during the day, hot coffee at night, and sandwiches at all hours. The Army, too, opened many
doors to the homeless and collected and distributed tons of food and clothing. The response to its pleas
for material assistance from Los Angeles residents was. so great, in fact, that the Salvation Army at one
time had to ask that donations stop; temporary storage had become a real problem.
Again, there were a few opportunistic people who saw a chance to make a dishonest dollar. Passing
themselves off as Red Cross volunteers, these people sold food and drinks in the fire disaster area until
Red Cross leaders warned the public that no such charges were being made by authorized agency
workers.
Much more in evidence, however, were the good will and compassion expressed by the people. Even
wild animals and some insects benefited when residents of the burned areas recognized the plight of the
wild creatures and set out grain for deer, feeders for hummingbirds, and honey water for bees (Fig. 27).
Government relief agencies also responded to the fire disaster. Soon after President Nixon declared
California a major disaster area, representatives of the Small Business Administration, the Office of
Emergency Preparedness, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development moved into the fire
stricken communities. These federal agencies offered temporary housing and repairs or replacement of
fire damaged housing or businesses through low-interest loans. Several banks and savings and loan
companies pledged millions of dollars for emergency relief loans. County assessors reminded fire victims
that they could request immediate reassessment of their fire damaged property for tax relief purposes.
Boards of Supervisors also waived permit fees for use of house trailers on burned property.
Insurance companies augmented the number of their local agents by bringing in agents from
communities unaffected by the fires and thus provided immediate assistance to home owners. The
Insurance Information Institute and the Pacific Fire Rating Bureau also assisted fire area residents with
their insurance problems.
The fires produced much grief and much material loss. But, as one newspaper reporter stated 7/, "From
it all comes an awareness that a common bond has been welded among the people affected by the
disaster. They are learning about their neighbors and getting a deeper meaning from life."
-7/ Ernie Cowan, San Diego Evening Tribune, October 19, 1970.
THE AFTERMATH
Containment and control of the 1970 fires did not signal the end of activity in connection with the fires.
Before the ashes had cooled, suggestions were offered as to how to prevent or mitigate future
conflagrations. Also, before the last of the large fires had even started, specialists were busy mapping
the fires and determining the watershed areas that would have to be seeded to grass in an effort to
conserve soil and water and to prevent possible destructive floods and mud-slides.
Rehabilitation of Burned Wildlands
Unfortunately, the direct losses of lives, improvements, wildlife, timber, protective watershed vegetation
and other wildland values were only the beginning in the toll of damage taken by the fires. Indirect future
losses also had to be added: soil, water, recreation, esthetics, and many other tangible and intangible
benefits ordinarily derived from the wildland areas. Perhaps the worst potential damage would be what
had happened after so many other large fires in past years: winter rain could rush unimpeded down the
denuded slopes to cause destructive flooding in the populated areas below. With the flooding water could
come tons of loosened soil and rocks to demolish property and to clog reservoirs in the downstream
canyons and floodplains. In January 1969, following the 20,000 acre Canyon Fire of August 1968, a
wave of mud and debris washed downslope into the town of Glendora, destroying homes and other
property valued at some $8 million. It was necessary, therefore, to take immediate measures to cover
and protect the blackened watershed areas with fast-germinating grass seed before the first winter rains
fell.
Hopefully, the first rains that fell would be gentle and sustained, permitting the grass to germinate and
quickly send roots down into the soil to hold it in place when later, heavier rains fell. Such revegetation
projects had not always been successful in past years because of the vagaries of rainfall intensity and
distribution. Still, the effort had to be made in consideration of potential values that could be saved.
Because the 1970 fires were no respecters of political or ownership boundaries, the job of seeding the
barren mountains became a highly cooperative venture, physically and fiscally, among several public
agencies 8/. Soon, the most extensive emergency revegetation operation undertaken in the history of
California was under way (3). The California Division of Forestry, responsible by state law for conducting
emergency revegetation work on private land, assigned its range and soil specialists from all over the
state to southern California. Sharing the job of conducting the seeding projects in hard-hit Los Angeles
County was the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The City of Oakland assumed responsibility for
seeding the area burned by the Fish Fire. The United States Forest Service, the Bureau of Land
Management, and the Hunter Liggett Military Reservation took immediate steps to protect
federally-owned lands ravaged by the fires.
8/ Agencies cooperating in the emergency revegetation project Included the California Division of Forestry, City of Oakland, Los Angeles County Fire
Department, Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, San Bernardino County Flood Control District, San Diego County, San
Diego County Flood Control District, San Luis Obispo County Flood Control District, U. S. Army (Hunter Liggett Reservation), U. S. Bureau of Land
Management, U. S. Forest Service, and Ventura County Flood Control District.
64
Meeting and traveling together, employees of all these agencies soon mapped the critical areas, planned
the jobs to be done, solicited bids for ryegrass seed and for aircraft to spread the seed, and helped
conduct the actual seeding operations. Together, they were responsible for aerially sowing 1.75 million
pounds of annual ryegrass seed and some perennial grass seed over 348,382 acres desolated during the
13-day disaster period (Table 2) 9/.
9/ At the same time, the cooperating agencies also seeded 70,502 acres burned by fires which occurred both before and after the 13-day disaster. The
total area seeded was more than one half of all the acreage seeded In California in the past 14 years.
65
Their largest single job was the 160,000 acres seeded on the giant Laguna Fire in San Diego County. In
order to complete this huge project on schedule, at one time they had as many as nine aircraft, both
fixed-wing and helicopter, actively seeding the devastated area.
The cost - including ryegrass seed sown at the rate of eight pounds per acre, aircraft, loading and ground
control labor, and overhead -- averaged $1.10 per acre. Much of this cost was reimbursed to the state
and county agencies by the federal Office of Emergency Preparedness for seed sown on state and
private land in those counties included in the disaster declaration. In non-disaster counties the cost was
shared by the state and the counties involved. Federal agencies paid the full cost of seeding federal
lands.
At the same time that the grass seeding project was being carried out, the removal and replacement of
timber burned by the fires was being planned by the U. S. Forest Service and other agencies. Quick
removal of killed or heavily damaged coniferous trees was necessary to prevent the rapid buildup of
forest insect populations to epidemic proportions. If the insects became established in the fire-weakened
trees and grew in number, they would move out of the burned areas into adjacent living trees, resulting in
devastating damage to the forest. Such insect damage had occurred many times after past fires.
Therefore the Forest Service quickly arranged for the sale and harvest of the burned trees on National
Forest lands by local lumber companies. After the trees were removed, the Forest Service would clean
up the area and plant millions of young seedlings to start the slow process of re-growing a new forest.
The same program of harvesting and planting of trees was also being conducted by lumber companies
on privately-owned timber lands burned in the two major fires in Humboldt County..
But would the planting of a new forest be a futile gesture? Would it, in turn, be destroyed by another
conflagration sometime in the future? How could such conflagrations be prevented or at least be reduced
in number and size and in the potential damage they could create? These questions needed answering,
and action programs needed 'implementing.
Task Force on California's Wildland Fire Problem
Late in December 1970, California's Secretary for Resources Norman B. Livermore, Jr., appointed a
21-man Task Force on California's Wildland Fire Problem, formed by Director of Conservation James
Stearns. The Task Force's members came from several branches of federal, state, and local government
and included representatives from several firemens' associations, the League of California Cities, the
Pacific Fire Rating Bureau and the University of California. The Task Force's objectives were to:
1.Explore the reasons why the 1970 wildland fires caused so much damage to homes, wildland
resources, and lives.
2. As a first phase program, develop recommendations to minimize future damages from fires
burning under similar conditions.
66
3. As a second phase program, describe procedures to implement the Task Force's
recommendations.
Five subcommittees were set up, each chaired by a member of the Task Force and including other
members of the Task Force as well as additional experts recruited elsewhere. These subcommittees
considered problems and remedial action programs related to the following subjects:
a. Fuel management and hazard reduction.
b. Zoning, subdivision codes, and land-use.
c. Building codes and construction materials requirements.
d. Fire prevention.
e. Fire control.
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A LOOK BACK AND A LOOK AHEAD
Did the 1970 fire disaster in California have to happen? Possibly not, considering that almost all the fires
were started by man, either accidentally or deliberately. And yet, realistically, we must assume that man
will always be careless or revengeful or sick to some degree and that therefore he will always be
responsible for starting wildland fires. With continued efforts in fire prevention research, education, and
engineering, we can at least hope that the 773 wildland fires that occurred in the period September 22 to
October 4, 1970, will be considerably fewer in number during a like period in the future .
Accepting the occurrence of the 773 fires during the thirteen-day period, should we also accept as
inevitable the destruction of the 576,508 acres of wildland resources and the 722 homes? Perhaps we
have no choice, considering the conditions that existed:
millions of acres of wildland vegetation that had accumulated for many years and had dried through
an extended drought period to an explosive mass of highly flammable cellulose.
steep topography that made access difficult and unsafe and that gave the fires a chance to run freely
and to grow quickly in size.
a climatic period that had seen virtually no rainfall since early spring and had produced new records
of extended high temperature and low humidity.
an onslaught of high velocity, dry winds that seemed to seek out and fan every spark of flame that
came to life in California's wildlands.
homes built in hazardous areas in utter disregard of fire safety practices, in a manner that left no
doubt that they could be destroyed if a fiery holocaust approached them.
steep, narrow, winding roads that frequently became blocked by falling rocks or choked by streams
of traffic trying to move in both directions. water supply systems that ceased to exist when electric
power was interrupted.
fire protection forces that were undermanned and underequipped, inadequate to cope with the extent
of the conflagration despite mobilization of experienced firemen and their equipment and auxiliary
assistance from throughout California and other states.
Will such a fire disaster occur again in California? Under the same conditions, the answer must be, "Yes
-- absolutely!" And, unfortunately, the primary condition of homes built in a hostile wildland environment
exists today in hundreds of locations in California: subdivisions like those throughout the Sierra Nevada
Mountains and foothills, recreation and resort areas like those around Lake Tahoe and Clear Lake and
the Russian River, hilly and wooded areas completely surrounding homes in the San Francisco Bay
region, clusters of homes all around
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Monterey Bay, and communities throughout the brush and timber covered lands of southern California.
The answer to the question of another fire disaster is, "Yes!"
Where? When? Those questions must go unanswered for now. But they will be answered. Perhaps this
year, perhaps the next. Perhaps in northern California (remember Santa Rosa in 1964?), perhaps along
the coast (remember Santa Barbara in 1964 and 1966?), perhaps in the Sierra Nevada Foothills
(remember Ahwahnee and Nippinnawassee in 1961?), perhaps in southern California (take your pick of
any number of years and places!).
There is hope. The problems have been identified, and remedial action is already being taken in some
areas. Much more action is needed. Has your county adopted the Fire Safe! Program into its
ordinances?
There is also hope that people will become less careless about starting wildland fires. As one
newspaperman reported after the Fish Fire, 10/ "At nightfall, floating serenely over East Oakland, the
Goodyear blimp flashed the lighted message it has been delivering to residents on recent evenings:
'Help prevent forest fires'."'
10/ Del Lane in Oakland Tribune, September 23, 1970.
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I
LITERATURE CITED
1 . Anonymous. 1970. Devil Winds - 1970. U.S.D.A. Forest Serv., Calif. 12 pp., illus.
2. _______________. 1967. Emergency Operations Procedure of the County of Los Angeles Fire
Department. Unpublished operating manual.
3. _______________.1970. Emergency Revegetation of Burned Watersheds -- Annual Report 1970.
State of Calif., The Resources Agency, Dept. of Cons., Div. of Forestry, Sacramento, Calif. 22 pp.,
illus.
4. _________________. 1970. Report of the Fish Fire (September 22, 1970). Unpublished report of the
City of Oakland Fire Department.
5. __________________. 1950. State Fire Disaster Plan. State of Calif., Office of Emergency Serv.,
Fire and Rescue Div.
6. Barrows, Richard G. 1971. Fire Activity Report, Major Fires, September 22, 1970 to October 3, 1970.
State of Calif., Office of Emergency Serv., Fire and Rescue Div.
7. Friend, Dick. 1970. Four Days of Fire. Los Angeles County Fire Dep. "Straight Streams," Vol. LXX,
No. 11.
8. Schroeder, Mark J. 1970. Fire Weather Severity in 1970. Unpublished manuscript, U.S.D.A. Forest
Serv. Pacific SW Forest and Range Exp. Sta., Riverside, Calif.
9. Wallace, Scotty. 1970. The Rankin Ranch Fire. Kern County Fire Dep. "Embers", Spec. Fire Issue,
November.
10.__________________.1970. The Red Mountain Fire. Kern County Fire Dep. "Embers", Spec. Fire
Issue, November.
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71
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