A mock “tabletop” scenario involving multiple Orange County fire and law enforcement agencies gave emergency responders an advantage in fighting the Rancho fire that broke out in Laguna Beach this week, officials said.
Recently held in Aliso Viejo, the inter-agency simulation organized by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department gamed out the scenario of a blaze in the fire-prone wildland and canyons that stretch between Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel, Laguna Hills and other neighboring South County cities. Lessons learned from wildfires that scorched local canyon communities in the recent past — the Coastal fire, the Aliso fire and the Bond fire — were pulled in and law enforcement personnel from Pasadena spoke about their experiences in the Eaton fire in January.
“Getting all parties into these rooms are critical,” said OCFA Division 5 Chief Mike Summers. “Wildfires impact all our communities differently and potentially very negatively. So, I think we all go in with the same mission in mind, that we all have a different role to play in that mission, whether it’s evacuation, care and shelter, fire suppression, traffic control, perimeter security, investigation or how we can support the city and the county.
“We’re all looking at it from different lenses.”
While individual departments and mutual aid partners routinely communicate and host trainings, these joint operation briefings organized by the Sheriff’s Department offer a focused examination of the coordination and collaboration needed to beat a wildfire that is spreading fast and threatening life and property. Within minutes, Monday’s fire in Bluebird Canyon, which officials believe was sparked by fireworks, had grown from a small 50-by-50-foot fire to 30-foot flames climbing the steep canyon walls toward homes. Within hours, combined multi-agency resources, including several strike teams, 186 personnel and six aircraft dumping more than 100,000 gallons of water and fire retardant, had stopped the blaze’s progress. Officials announced Wednesday that the 4.6-acre fire was completely contained and extinguished.
Resources outside Laguna Beach fire and police came from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the Orange County Fire Authority, CalFire, Los Angeles County Fire and city fire departments from Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and Orange. Irvine and Tustin police and CHP also assisted, as did Laguna Beach County Water District and the Community Emergency Response Team.
The recent training created a unified process for carrying out that response involving so many agencies, Laguna Beach Fire Chief Niko King said. Instead of making plans on the fly as the fire burned, agencies had already planned out specifics for the smooth handling of communications, evacuation plans and resources that would need to be called in. With the recent training, Laguna Beach Police Capt. Mike Peters said, all the protocols were fresh in everybody’s mind on Monday when the fire started.
“It put quick communication and reaction at the forefront,” Peters said.
“The timing was perfect,” he added. “We had just discussed wildfires in the canyons between us and our jurisdictional partners. And just as we prescribed in that meeting how they would flow in with assistance, that’s exactly how it happened. Within 20 minutes, we had units from several agencies, and within an hour, we had more units.
“If this had gone on longer, we would have had more personnel to throw at this,” he said. “We had the best outcome possible because of the quickness of the response.”
Summers, who was running operations on Monday, said he has participated in prior tabletop exercises and that relationship building with the people on the other side of the badges is a vital component gained from the meetings.
“When we have the joint exercises, it gives us the opportunity to network and get to know each other, exchange numbers and emails, so that when we go to the incidents, it’s not, ‘Who are you, but how are you,’” he said. “That corridor where the fire occurred, we routinely run multiple resources in those areas for remote rescues, and coordinate helicopters to find lost or missing hikers. Having those relationships in place prior to these incidents, along with the joint tabletop exercise, really helped foster trust and communication.
“We understood the resources that would be needed to quickly suppress that incident,” he said.
The next tabletop session is planned in Yorba Linda this month and will include city managers, elected officials and other notable partners, officials said.
On Wednesday, after the fire was declared out, Laguna Beach Mayor Alex Rounaghi praised the teamwork of those who responded and said he’d received a lot of feedback from thankful and relieved residents.
Manager Dave Kiff, watch the fire in Bluebird Canyon on Monday, July 7. (Photo courtesy of Alex Rounaghi)
“Wildfire preparedness is truly a team sport,” he said. “Monday’s fire proved that. I’m proud of the seamless coordination between our city departments, local water districts, OCFA, mutual aid partners and most of all our courageous firefighters and first responders. Fires don’t respect our city limits, water district boundaries or layers of government, so our response can’t either.”
Coincidentally, hours after the fire was declared out, King on Wednesday was meeting with consultants who are assessing Laguna Beach’s threats and putting together a fire protection plan and another tabletop exercise. The review is courtesy of a grant from the International Fire Association of Chiefs recognizing the area’s high fire risk. The grant is helping the city develop a community wildfire protection plan.
While King said he is pleased with the success battling Monday’s fire, he warns that the community needs to remain vigilant.
“The fire went well and everybody is grateful,” he said. “It was good to test the system and the system worked.”
But King emphasized that the conditions also played a huge role in the positive outcome.
“It’s not fire season, these weren’t Santa Ana winds. The conditions are going to get worse, we’re going to face wind events and it would have been so tremendously different if that fire was backed by Santa Ana winds,” he said. “Everything was truly working in our favor. It was 3 mph to 5 mph winds on shore, all the resources were available. Like the tabletop, this was putting some reality to it and testing it. But conditions can be so much worse and the resources can be strained.
“The challenge is still there, the risk is still there.”