Cedar Fire

Problems

• Highly-destructive wildfire

  A cedar fire has started in the Cuyamaca Mountains at Cleveland National Forest. It was first reported at 5:37 p.m. PDT on October 25, 2003, south of Ramona in central San Diego County. At the time it began, at least eleven other wildfires were actively burning in Southern California. Within ten minutes of the initial U.S. Forest Service report, 10 fire trucks, two water trucks, two crews, and two senior officers were engaged. Within 30 minutes, 320 firefighters and six firefighters were on the road. The San Diego County Sheriff's Department ASTREA helicopter, which rescued the hunter, spotted the fire about the same time as the first phone call was received and called in an aerial response. Another sheriff's helicopter equipped with a Bambi bucket was dispatched to spill water on the fire. When the helicopter was only minutes away from the fire, the Forest Service fire chief canceled the water dump because the policy required that the fire be stopped being extinguished from the air 30 minutes before sunset. 
  Between the time the fire started and midnight, Santa Ana's strong easterly winds were expected to pick up, and the fire burned about 5,319 acres. By 3 a.m. 62,000 acres (250 km) had burned. Overnight the rapid fire killed 12 people living in Wildcat Canyon and Moot Valley in north Lakeside, who had little or no warning of the approaching fire. The fire destroyed 39 homes on the Barona Indian Reservation. In just a few hours, Cedar Fire 20033 advanced more than 30 miles (48.3 km) southwest and burned more than 100,000 acres (400 km) at a rate of up to 6,000 acres (24 km) per hour. The fire also crossed several major highways, including Interstate 15, and by noon on October 26, the fire had engulfed hundreds of homes in the Scripps Ranch area of San Diego and threatened many more.
  On Oct. 26, the fire spilled over into Alpine, Harbison Canyon, Lake Jennings, and Crest, burning hundreds of homes in areas that had been destroyed by the Lagoon Fire 33 years earlier. By October 28, Santa Ana's strong easterly winds had subsided and the fire turned eastward, consuming another 114,000 acres (460 km). The entire community of Cuyamaca, much of the nearby Rancho Cuyamaca State Park, and more than 500 homes surrounding the town of Julian were destroyed.
  On October 29, a group of firefighters trying to protect a home in Riverwood Estates, near Santa Ysabel, were overrun and overrun by fire. One firefighter was killed. Another firefighter was seriously injured and two others were injured. On December 3, firefighters were finally able to fully contain Cedar Fire, and on December 5, Cedar Fire was fully under control.

• Hits

  After the 2003 firestorm, including the Cedar Fire, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (Gray Davis was still governor) declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to assist in the disaster relief process. President George W. Bush declared Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura counties as major disaster zones. Air traffic in and around the region was also disrupted by the impact on air traffic control radar.
  San Diego Qualcomm Stadium was used as an evacuation site, forcing the NFL to move the Oct. 27 Monday Night Football game between the San Diego Chargers and Miami Dolphins to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. The decision to move the game to Arizona was made less than 24 hours before kickoff, and admission was free.
  

• Investigation

  Investigators determined that the fire was started by Sergio Martinez of West Covina, California, an aspiring hunter who was hunting in the area and got lost. Martinez initially told investigators that he fired his rifle to attract attention and that the shot caused the fire, but he later denied and admitted that he started the fire deliberately to signal rescuers. After putting sticks and brush together, Martinez lit the brush and quickly lost control of the fire due to the heat, low humidity, and low moisture content of the surrounding vegetation.
  On October 7, 2004, a federal court charged Martinez with arson and lying about it. In November 2005, a federal judge sentenced Martinez to six months of work with time off and ordered him to serve 960 hours (40 days) of community service. He was also sentenced to five years probation and $9,000 in restitution. As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors dropped the charge of lying to investigators.

• Outdated policy

  There have been several controversies surrounding the Cedar Fire, resulting in an investigation that lasted several years. The 2003 San Diego County Fire Siege Fire Safety Review report, prepared after the fire and presented to the Governor's Blue Ribbon Fire Commission, criticized the overall response. The report said that while the conditions and severity of the fire were expected, the responsible agencies were not adequately prepared at the time of the fire, and radio communication problems exacerbated the problem. The report said that "disorganization, inconsistent or outdated policies among agencies that landed planes or caused other problems, and disarray in planning or logistics also marked the preliminary stages of difficult and dangerous firefighting." With several fires already burning in the state, many local crews had already headed north to put out other fires and could not be recalled to help with the Cedar fire.

• Forest Service problems

  Sheriff's helicopters by the U.S. Forest Service in the early stages of the fire have been heavily criticized by the public, the media, and elected officials who believe that an opportunity to prevent the fire from getting out of control was missed. The federal government has a policy of "shutting down" aviation assets, which states that "aircraft (planes or helicopters) cannot be dispatched to arrive at the scene no later than 30 minutes before sunset." The helicopter pilot later claimed that he could have made a few water drops in the time before dark. However, a Forest Service study concluded that even if the helicopter had been able to drop several batches of water with direct hits to the flames, the impact on the fire would have been minimal.
  The shutdown also prevented two aerial refuelers and a helicopter at Ramona Airport from entering the fire zone, although the tankers probably could not have been used anyway, since the pilots had just spent seven hours fighting another fire, and FAA regulations stipulated that they could not continue flying.

• California Department of Forestry problems

  A contributing factor to the initial lack of aviation resources to fight the fire was the California Department of Forestry's "no diversion" policy, which allows incident commanders to allocate certain resources to a particular fire; the policy applied to both aircraft and those on the ground awaiting dispatch. At the time the Cedar Fire started, 11 other fires were already burning in the region. Air resources in the area are currently being held on the ground under a no-diversion statement so they can be used to protect structures from another fire. However, weather conditions and visibility on the other fire prevented their use, so the aircraft were idle even though conditions were acceptable for their use on the Cedar Fire.
  Both the media and local elected officials were also critical of the lack of use of military aviation assets nearby at Camp Pendleton and Miramar. The U.S. Marine Corps uses CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters, which can carry water drop buckets, but the existing policy has prohibited their use until all other civilian resources are in place. In addition, military aircraft radios were incompatible with those used by most state and local fire departments, and military pilots had no training in fire operations, making them a potential safety hazard to both ground firefighters and other aircraft over the fire.

• Casualties

  Fifteen people, including one firefighter, died. The survivor, Rudy Reyes, suffered burns to about 70 percent of his body. Many of those killed were trapped in the flames, caused by 97 km/h winds that dispersed the flames faster than residents could escape. Of the dead, 13 people died in the first 24 hours of the fire. At least 10 people were trapped in their cars trying to escape the flames. Some of those killed were so badly burned that their remains were identified by the tokens of dead pets lying beside them. On Oct. 29, a fire engulfed an engine crew from the Novato Fire District near Julian. Engineer Steven Rucker was fatally injured, while three other crew members were able to take shelter in the house.