On June 26 at 1:00 pm, a tree fell across a power line twelve miles Southwest of Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory. Within the next 24 hours, the Las Conchas fire consumed 48,000 acres. Within a week 139,000 acres had vanished.
The SouthWest Incident Management Team was called in to battle the blaze. Their tents spread out in the empty lot next to my office almost as quickly as the fire roared through the forest. The SWIM team is a marvel of human engineering; proof that Government works, and works well.
More on this amazing team of first responders after the jump.
What astonished me most about the SWIM team was their ability to move into a community as complex as northern New Mexico with its tribes, its Hispanic Counties and land grants, and its federal laboratories, parks and preserves, and not piss anyone off.
A few years ago, when the Kerry campaign arrived, a bunch of lawyers wearing day-glo swat vests labeled "LEGAL AID" zoomed into Española in expensive convertible BMWs. To a town populated by guys with cowshit on their boots, driving rusty 1958 Chevy pickups, Kerry's crack legal aid team looked like a keystone ATF squad on crack. Some of the lawyers set about harassing the county clerk and his workers at the polling places, whereas others issued culturally inappropriate orders to campaign volunteers. What passes for competence in New York goes over like a lead balloon in Rio Arriba. Nobody listened to locals who suggested a different approach. Unsurprisingly, Kerry flubbed in New Mexico.
"I wonder why a bunch of firefighters are experts in cultural sensitivity, but a politician, who has to rely on votes, isn't?" asked my husband. "Don't you think it should be the other way around?"
I asked Mike Bradley, the Deputy Director of the SWIM team camped in my parking lot. In his regular life, Mike's the Highlands fire chief in Flagstaff, AZ. He's the good-looking genial fellow pictured above.
"We get some pretty intensive training," he answered. "We do this over and over, week after week," he said. "It's what we do."
I asked the Public Information Officer, Bob Summerfield, who, during his down time lives in Montana. He's a retiree, celebrating his golden years managing disasters, and he seems to relish talking to the locals. "We have to work with the community," he said. Bob described the team's zero tolerance policy towards drugs and alcohol. If one member of a crew is caught with either, the entire crew is sent packing. Nobody gets paid. There is tremendous peer pressure to toe the line.
"Sometimes we get so attached to the communities we work in that I cry when I leave," he added.
Maybe politicians should tag along with these guys and learn how to run a campaign!
There are 16 Type 1 incident management teams in the US. They respond only to the most complex incidents meaning those that threaten population, involve multiple jurisdictions, or cannot be handled by local or regional teams. They must be invited in by the local team who works out a delegation of authority to the SWIM team with each of the jurisdictions involved.
When the Las Conchas fire broke out, it grew an unprecedented 48,000 acres in 24 hours, threatening the city of Los Alamos and its nuclear laboratory. The fire involved 25 jurisdictions including at least two tribes, three counties (several of which are primarily Hispanic), one city, the Department of Energy, the US Forest Service, and state and national parks. Nobody doubted the need to call in the guys with copters, dozers and planes.
"In forty years of firefighting, I've never seen a season like this," Mike told me.
"I don't think I've ever seen a fire expand as rapidly as this one," agreed Paul.
Type 1 teams are made up of the best local firefighters and responders in the nation. They must be nominated by their supervisors before submitting an application. They are paid at the same rate of pay they earn in their current jobs. They don't get extraordinary bonuses or gilded toilets (although they are frequently honored with Porta-Potties). Nor are local fire departments incentivized for contributing staff.
"What do you get out of it?" I asked Bob.
"A lot of training and experience, camaraderie and the satisfaction of a job well done."
The fire in New Mexico has required the presence of three Type 1 teams. Once here, they divided the fire into three branches, setting up Incident Command Centers in three communities to battle the blaze on multiple fronts. Local firefighters establish the teams' objectives. An area command is called in to coordinate.
The logistics involved in fighting a huge local fire with men and women from all over the country are astonishing. The 2,340 firefighters need 6,000 calories a day. Meals must be transported to the front lines, which are rarely easy to reach, at temperatures assuring food safety. Add to that the difficulties involved in transporting potable water, removing waste, procuring rental cars, and managing planes, helicopters and other equipment and you have a potential incident just waiting to be managed!
The first objective of an incident management team is safety. A team will not move into terrain that endangers the lives of firefighters. They establish fire lines on the perimeter or, in cases of swiftly moving fire, fall back to a contingency line, and then systematically work towards containment. A team seeks out an anchor (a site where they know they can get a foothold) and then spreads out in opposite directions to flank the fire. The first crew on the scene establishes a hand-dug fire line a few feet wide. Another team follows behind them "mopping up;" i.e. removing stumps, fallen trees and other potential fuel at a width that will prevent the fire from spreading.
Incident Management teams are remarkably flexible. They are able to assess a specific emergency and to expand or contract according to specific needs. All local regional and national incident management teams share the same basic paramilitary structure. An incident commander directly oversees a public information officer who gets accurate information out to the press. (You wouldn't believe how wildly inaccurate stories can be!) The commander also oversees a liaison who interacts with the local jurisdictions involved, and a safety officer. Each operation is broken into four branches: 1) operations; 2); planning; 3) logistics; and 4) finance.
I learned most of what I know about emergency response from our local EMS director, Mateo de Vargas, who includes me in our local Emergency Operations Centers when they're needed. In down time, when Mateo's not busy, he and I bicker over scheduling of mobile units, occasionally causing the County Manager to kick us out of his office. But when Mateo is busy, he's my personal superman. Emergency shelters pop up at a moment's notice and the EOC is suddenly filled with personnel. Public information is distributed. Animals are rescued. Senior citizens are driven to the doctor. The road is cleared, the fire is put out or the gas is turned on. He does on a small scale what Mike does on a large scale.
Get to know your local EMS director. It's worth it.
Oh yeah...be sure to call your US Congressional delegation to tell them that firefighters deserve their pensions. And funding for their Porta-potties. And respect.