College buys water tender for "shelter-in-place" fire plans

Westmont purchases water-pumper truck

When flames roared down the hillside and across the Westmont College campus in mid-November, eucalyptus trees lit up like kindling and cut off dozens of faculty, staff and neighbors from the safety of Murchison Gym.

And while Westmont officials certainly aren’t hoping for a repeat of the Tea Fire, they have already started preparing for one with the purchase of a 350-gallon water truck.

“We’re not planning on being a firefighting force and will not be involved in battling structural fires,” Troy Harris, Westmont’s director of risk management, explained in a news release. “But the Tea Fire showed us that we need to have the ability to deliver water from a safe distance. Our ambitions are understandably narrow.”

Officials hope the truck will offer the ability to put out spot fires and protect those on campus who participate in the college’s “shelter-in-place” program.

During the Tea Fire, approximately 800 students, faculty, staff and neighbors waited out the flames overnight by sheltering in the fire-resistive, cinder-block gymnasium.

“That’s one of the things that Westmont has tried to do from the beginning, to have the shelter-in-place program so students don’t get in their cars and drive down the narrow, winding roadways,” Westmont Spokesman Scott Craig said. “It worked well and that’s the plan we want to keep.”

But improvements are necessary, officials acknowledged, pointing out that flames not only cut off access to the shelter for some, but also threatened the gym’s generator.

Tom Beveridge, the director of physical plant at Westmont, said workers had to use garden hoses and fire extinguishers to keep the fire from reaching the generator.

“Our physical plant workers were heroes,” he said in a prepared statement. “They protected the shelter-in-place by keeping the flames at bay with what little they had, but we don’t want to be in that position again.”

The Dodge pumper truck, which cost the college $28,000, is equipped with an infrared camera and a large hose. Craig said officials made the purchase last week and have yet to determine who will be trained to operate the vehicle.

Safety officials from Pepperdine University, which operates its own fire department, will provide basic training to Westmont officials.

Flames from the Tea Fire destroyed eight structures on the campus, including three residence halls. A total of 15 faculty homes and a retired professor’s home were also lost, officials said.

“Regardless of how often we use the pump truck, every piece of fire equipment is an asset to the community,” Tom Bauer, the college’s director of public safety, said in the news release. “We’re still determining how to deploy the truck, but we had a lot of willing participants on campus during the Tea Fire and we could have been more effective in containing spot fires.”

Editor comment: "Stay and defend" "shelter-in-place" "Limited firefighting" these phrases and pro-active fire plans will probably irk Schaitberger
- Harold A. Schaitberger is the General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, representing professional fire fighters and has come out against the stay and defend policy being studied for wildland urban interface areas in California.
The fact that this college was proactive in purchasing firefighting equipment for civilian use will probably get him going...

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