Malibu Town Hall Spotlights Municipal Wildfire Preparedness

• MultiAgency Participants to Address Residents’ Concerns

BY ANNE SOBLE

In a year that public firefighting agencies say could be one of the worst in wildfire history, the City of Malibu has scheduled a community-wide town hall to assess local preparedness and discuss the lessons learned from last year’s devastating blazes.
Tempers flared at a number of small meetings for residents in areas affected by last year’s firestorms, but this is the first forum open to everyone in the community that will address general wildfire preparedness, response expectations, evacuation policies and other major public concerns.
The town hall is expected to be of special importance to residents of areas of Malibu that have not burned in decades and are viewed by wildfire pattern experts as particularly vulnerable in a drought year for which record high temperatures and frequent Santa Ana winds in the 50-70 mph range are being forecast.
The fuel load in the local hills and along the coast—chamise, sage and sumac—is described as being at an all-time high. Even areas that have burned within the last decade could find themselves engulfed in flames again because of the unparalleled flammability of the chaparral.
The thrust of the presentations will be—now that wildfire has become a year-round danger and firefighting agencies face the increased probability of simultaneous blazes—on the importance of resident preparedness.
A new openness and willingness to discuss resource limitations by firefighting and other public agencies is also likely to mean that residents will continue to be exposed to a more realistic appraisal of fire response times and equipment deployment.
The question asked at previous neighborhood gatherings by several residents who lost their homes in last year’s Corral fire—“Why wasn’t the department there for me”—will undobtedly be directed again at representatives from the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman will elaborate on policies related to access, turnaround space, protectability, probable success rate and other factors that go into determining where to allocate resources.
Representatives of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol will be asked to address thorny ingress and egress issues, movement within an impacted neighborhood, roadblock establishment and traffic flow.
Of major interest will be the probable discussion of evacuation policies during a public emergency. Questions about who is in charge, the difference between voluntary and mandatory evacuation and the legal rights of citizens are expected to arise.
A representative of Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky will address county government’s role in wildfire preparedness, including whether more firefighting equipment, such as the SuperScooper aircraft, should now become available year-round.
The city has also been urged to have representatives of local communications providers present to address issues of reliability and what has been done to reduce the possibility that residents will have limited public information options during a crisis.
The forum will take place on Wednesday, June 25, at 7 p.m. in the Malibu Performing Arts Center at 23825 Stuart Ranch Road behind Malibu City Hall.