Firemen speak out on Poway commands During the Witch Fire

[RescueKujo 130]

By Angela Lau

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

March 24, 2008

Poway's firefighters sat outside the rural neighborhood of High Valley as it burned in last year's Witch Creek fire because they were ordered to stay out by the city manager.

The community lost 28 of 215 homes, and residents accused the Poway Fire Department of abandoning them.

After a story appeared in The San Diego Union-Tribune last week, detailing the homeowners' anger, two firefighters agreed to break their silence and speak out.

For more on the story see it at this link...

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northco...-1m24poway.html

[helicopper 1,050]

It's interesting that a NON-fire person made the tactical decisions about deployment of resources during this fire. An interesting array of opinions follow the article from local readers - read those too and you'll get a sense of how big of an issue this is in that area.

[Monty 35]

Interesting to see risk vs. reward playing out here. As one of comments said - good to see someone sticking up for his decision and accepting the responsibility. wonder if anything will change in the grand scheme of things, or if this just effects a small percentage of the community. Will the whole community pay more taxes? the High Valley residents pay more or less taxes?

My guess is that nothing will change as a result of this - and from what info I read it seems like a good decision.

[jack10562 414]

I was listening to live SanDiego scanner feeds from this fire, and the number of firefighters requiring relief due to hours worked was incredible. I did hear units being told to remain in staging areas and not to go into neighborhoods since they had been "out there" too long already.

Talk about a logistical nightmare...

[Guest FFNick]

I'm certainly no wildland interface expert, but the topography over there is interesting from looking on Live Maps, and I could see that if the winds and fire location were against them, it'd be a tough choice.

[Guest Dept 10]

As one of the statments said in the blogs dammed if you do dammed if you dont.