Legacy of Santana Row inferno- Improved communications

Birds fly past the burned skeletal remains of a high-density apartment complex under construction in Santa Clara.

Legacy of Santana Row inferno helped speed response to Tuesday blaze.

By John Woolfolk
From the Mercury News:

When part of San Jose's Santana Row shopping center burst into an 11-alarm inferno in August 2002, firefighters from neighboring cities took up to half an hour to arrive.

But subsequent changes in the way local fire departments work together may have helped speed the response to Tuesday's 5-alarm fire in Santa Clara that consumed an apartment building under construction.

The countywide ``mutual aid'' response system in place at the time of Santana Row forced San Jose to summon help from as far away as San Mateo County, contributing to a delayed response. Changes since then allow more firefighters from cities nearest the blaze to lend assistance, with assurance that their own fire stations will be covered by firefighters arriving from cities farther away.

``That was a significant change,'' said San Jose Assistant Fire Chief Nicolas Thomas. ``Post Santana Row, cities that are experiencing a major emergency now have a greater confidence level that when they send all the resources they have to the incident, the rest of their community is going to continue to be protected.''

How much that and other post-Santana Row changes may have affected the outcome of Tuesday's fire is hard to say, acknowledged Dave Parker, spokesman for the Santa Clara Fire Department. But he added that ``every little bit helps.''

Local departments are still working on other improvements promised in the wake of the Santa Row fire, such as a radio system that lets officers and firefighters from departments with different radio frequencies talk to each other. A test begins this year, but for now, San Jose, Santa Clara and other cities keep spare radios to give to firefighters arriving from other cities.

With flames shooting high into the air from an unfinished luxury apartment complex, Tuesday's fire evoked memories of Santana Row from witnesses and firefighters alike. Yet in many ways, Santana Row was vastly different. San Jose's biggest fire consumed multiple buildings on a hot, dry, breezy August afternoon, requiring a massive response and causing more than $100 million in damage.

Tuesday's Santa Clara fire on a chilly, damp afternoon burned just one unoccupied building and demanded only a five-alarm response, similar to other recent fires in the city. The destroyed building would have been worth $25 million when completed, Parker said.

The plume of flame and smoke from Santana Row sent embers raining down on the Moorpark neighborhood half a mile away, destroying an apartment building with a wood-shake roof and leaving dozens homeless.

That certainly was on firefighters' minds Tuesday as they scanned surrounding neighborhoods where charcoal briquette-sized embers were spotted. But firefighters were aided in keeping Tuesday's fire from spreading by the weather and by the tile roofs on neighboring buildings.

Santa Clara firefighters are still investigating the cause of the blaze. They planned to stay overnight Wednesday at the scene making sure smoldering debris did not reignite.

The 42 Santa Clara firefighters who responded to the blaze were joined by a total of 48 firefighters from San Jose, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Milpitas, Palo Alto, Gilroy and Santa Clara County.

Santa Clara County was able to dispatch firefighters under the updated mutual aid protocol so they would be available either to help the city firefighters with the blaze or to be available for other local emergencies, said Steven Staump, Santa Clara County Fire's deputy chief of operations who oversees mutual aid.

At the time of Santana Row, each fire department pledged fewer firefighters for mutual aid out of concern that they would be leaving their own cities unprotected.

Local officials still are working on improving radio communication among public safety officials from different jurisdictions so that police, firefighters and city officials can communicate with one another. That became a national concern after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

San Jose, Santa Clara County and Milpitas fire departments are testing a radio interoperability system this year that will let officers from different cities communicate, said Staump.

Coincidentally, a report released Wednesday by the Federal Department of Homeland Security gave San Jose and surrounding cities, including Santa Clara, high marks for the ability of their emergency agencies to communicate during a disaster.

While the San Jose area won praise for having regional procedures in place and for communicating across a wide swath of agencies, the area's grade was lowered because it has yet to put fully interoperational systems in place.

For now, cities like Santa Clara have taken advantage of federal grants to buy extra radios to hand out to firefighters from other cities so they can all talk on the same frequency. That was put into effect during Tuesday's fire.

``I think it worked out very well,'' Parker said.