Fire chiefs in tinder-dry Southern California, faced with lean budgets while more people squeeze into the region, are starting to rethink long-standing policies on ordering mass evacuations in a wildfire, debating whether it may be wiser in some situations to let residents stay and defend their homes.
"We don't have enough resources to put an engine at every house in harm's way," said Ventura County Fire Chief Bob Roper. "We figure, if people are going to stay, maybe they can become part of the solution."
Borrowing from tactics used in Australia for nearly two decades, top officials from fire agencies in seven Southern California counties started last fall to discuss moving toward an evacuation policy that makes allowances for people who want to try to save their homes. They will take the matter up again Wednesday at a meeting of Firescope, an advisory panel representing fire services statewide, said Roper, vice chairman of Firescope and a member of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2005 blue-ribbon fire commission.
The new approach recognizes that residents who have made their homes fire resistant, have cleared the brush around the house and have learned how to extinguish spot fires might be able to save property that would otherwise go up in flames because firefighters are overwhelmed.
Roper and Orange County Fire Chief Chip Prather are working to produce instructional materials -- including a video that explains the Leave Early or Stay and Defend tactic -- to educate the public and firefighters statewide.
It will be up to individual fire agencies to decide if they want to adopt stay-and-defend, Roper said. Ventura and Orange counties have begun building the strategy into their firefighting plans, and the unincorporated community of Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego County has had a similar program for a few years.
Fire chiefs who haven't yet bought into the concept say they are waiting for more information, including research showing whether it saves lives. That includes Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman, chairman of Firescope.
Roper acknowledges that building consensus for the program will be difficult and could take several years. But he hopes that eventually the entire state will follow stay-and-defend guidelines.
"This is a paradigm shift," he said. "We can't do it overnight."
