CHP investigating 911 dispatcher response to Tahoe wildfire

Thursday, July 5, 2007

CHP investigating 911 dispatcher response to Tahoe wildfire

CHP investigating 911 dispatcher response to Tahoe wildfire:

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The California Highway Patrol is investigating whether some of its 9-1-1 dispatchers failed to alert emergency responders to early reports about last week's wildfire near Lake Tahoe.

A CHP spokesman told The Sacramento Bee that there's no indication that fire units' response to the blaze was delayed, but dispatchers initially may have told 9-1-1 callers that what they were seeing June 24th was a controlled burn instead of an out-of-control fire.

The blaze was fully contained Monday, after destroying more than 250 homes and burning about 3,100 acres.

The CHP's Truckee dispatch center was flooded with calls about the fire starting around 2 pm on the Sunday it began. Fire officials say there were no controlled burns in the South Lake Tahoe area that day.

No comments:

Post a Comment

CAL FIRE NEWS LOVES COMMENTS...
- Due to rampant abuse, we are no longer posting anonymous comments. Please use your real OpenID, Google, Yahoo, AIM, Twitter, Flickr name.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

****REMINDER**** Every fire has the ability to be catastrophic. The wildland fire management environment has profoundly changed. Growing numbers of communities, across the nation, are experiencing longer fire seasons; more frequent, bigger, and more severe, fires are a real threat. Be careful with all campfires and equipment.

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer." --Abraham Lincoln

View blog top tags
---------------------

CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO TOP OF CALIFORNIA FIRE NEWS HOME PAGE

How fires get their names

Every year in California thousands of wildfires start throughout the state. In most cases, the dispatch center sending the initial resources to a wildland fire will designate a name for the fire, but the first on scene engine or fire official can also name the incident. Fires are usually named for the area in which they start – a geographical location, local landmark, street, lake, mountain, peak, etc. Quickly naming the fire provides responding fire resources with an additional locater, and allows fire officials to track and prioritize incidents by name. For example during the Southern California Fire Siege of 2003, the largest wildland fire in California history, the Cedar Fire in San Diego County, was named after the Cedar Creek Falls area where it started. The destructive Old Fire, which burned during the same time period in San Bernardino County, was named after the road along which it started - Old Waterman Canyon Road.

CAL FIRE is the largest fire department in California and the second largest fire department in the United States. CDF - CAL FIRE Firefighters answer the call more than 300,000 times a year. CAL FIRE Firefighters make up the fire department for 30 of our 58 counties in California and more than 100 local communities. We serve as the incident command during many of California’s most serious disasters. CAL FIRE Firefighters respond to many various types and forms of calls ranging from structural fires, to auto accidents, to earthquakes, to floods, to the spilling of hazardous materials, to every conceivable disaster; CAL FIRE answer's the calls. CAL FIRE is the largest fire department in California and the second largest fire department in the United States . CAL FIRE firefighters protect 33 million acres of State Responsibility Area (SRA). We have over 4,000 members within CAL FIRE and CAL FIRE is associated with the California Professional Firefighters (CPF) and the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF).

CFN - CALIFORNIA FIRE NEWS - CAL FIRE NEWS

Thursday, July 5, 2007