Learning a Lesson About Firefighting and Taxes

As I rode up Turnbull Canyon Road in a Los Angeles County firetruck, winding through the dry, brush-covered Whittier Hills, I could see the threat facing the intricate firefighting network that permits us to live in this arid, combustible Southland.

Until that moment, I hadn’t fully understood our situation, not even after attending a rally staged by county firefighters urging a yes vote June 3 on Proposition E, a tax to raise more than $50 million for the county Fire Department.

The money is needed to replace funds lost last year when Californians passed a ballot initiative requiring a two-thirds majority for all new tax increases in special assessment districts. The Fire Department had been partially supported by a special assessment, levied by the supervisors without a popular vote.

The county supervisors pounded out the usual political rhetoric at the rally on the steps of the County Hall of Administration. But amid the talk, something one of them said caught my attention. Supervisor Don Knabe told how a potentially dangerous brush fire in Turnbull Canyon in his district had been halted by firefighters May 6.

That’s why I decided to go to Whittier, visit with the firefighters who fought the blaze and find out why Proposition E was so urgently needed.

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Capt. Dale Parker, Engineer Bill Lenzen and Firefighter Ruben Ramos welcomed me to the firehouse. They suggested we ride the firetruck through Turnbull Canyon so I could understand the resources it took to stop even a small blaze.

Great, I thought. There’s nothing like riding a firetruck.

I took the seat on the left side of the truck, facing backward. I buckled up and put on earphones and microphone so I could talk to Parker, Lenzen and Ramos above the engine’s roar. We pulled out of the firehouse and headed toward the canyon, passing businesses and the frame bungalows of old Whittier, and then moving up into the hills past newer homes, some of them with dangerous, dry wood shake roofs.

As we stopped by a hillside, Capt. Parker pointed to a clump of blackened weeds by a fence. Traces of rags and a matchbook had been found there. That’s where an arsonist set the fire, he said.

He recalled the day it happened:

When the crew arrived, flames moving about 15 mph were headed toward six homes under construction. The situation was dangerous. Heavy rains in December had resulted in an unusual amount of vegetation that was now dried into flammable brush. Strong winds, always a possibility, threatened to push the fire through the partially built homes or eastward, toward Hacienda Heights subdivisions a mile away.

Capt. Parker sounded a second alarm, summoning more crews, and asked for a water-dumping helicopter.

That wasn’t a simple request in this county where, during the fire season, slender resources must be deployed over a vast area of mountains and brushy hills. The county’s Whittier-area helicopter was dumping its mixture of water and fire retardant on a fire several miles away in Griffith Park, in the city of Los Angeles. The county Fire Department provides protection to unincorporated areas and to 52 small cities. Los Angeles and other larger cities have their own departments. But when disaster strikes, they work together in a spirit of mutual aid.

The county helicopter was recalled from Griffith Park, where the fire was under control. Meanwhile, another county firetruck headed to the helicopter launching pad to pump water from a huge tank to refill the chopper’s own water tanks.

Fire lines and hoses circled the fire and it was contained.

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Parker’s firehouse is one of six in a five-mile area. It’s unknown how many of them will close if Proposition E fails to win a two-thirds majority June 3, but the department expects some will.

Parker said that could mean a delay of at least two to three minutes in sending additional units to a brush fire, or to getting a truck up to the helipad to pump water into the helicopter.

Even that could have permitted the Turnbull Canyon fire to run away, he said. I could see that. As we stood by the charred hillside, the rolling hills extending toward Hacienda Heights formed a perfect pathway for what could have been one of the Southland’s killer Santa Ana fires.

The May 6 fire in Turnbull Canyon covered just 60 acres. But before the flames were stopped, 100 feet from the unfinished homes, it took five hours and required the planning and organization needed for a substantial military operation.

Take away one part of the organization and you risk collapse of the delicate network that protects us from disaster.