On the 8th of Sept 2016, the pilot fire in the mountains of San Bernardino County spread to 6300 acres, forcing the evacuation of residents within the radius. The evacuation notice was preceded by the U.S Forest Service together with the Sheriff’s Department in San Bernardino County. The wildfire extended to 7000 acres of coverage on the following date, 9/08/2016. This, prompted the mandatory evacuation in summit valley, the shutting down of schools, and thousands of homes in Hesperia and other communities nearby, this was confirmed by the sheriff’s department spokeswoman (Leitch, 2016). Also, all local schools were shut down. The first fire outbreak report was on 7/08/2016, in the afternoon, the fire spread fast in dry timber, and brush. 6% blaze was contained on Monday, this was confirmed to us by the U.S Forest Service. The firefighters positioned themselves in the ground and in the air to build fire lines with the aim of snuffing out the flames. Since the vegetation is incredibly dry, then it would only require a little spark to chew. There were more than eight hundred and forty firefighters assigned to tame the blaze, additional aid from air tankers, a fleet of helicopters, and five bulldozers. Some homes were protected, considering the incredible and dedicated commitment of the firefighters. Also, there was a mandatory order to evacuate residents from highway 138 to 173 arrowhead road and from Hesperia Lake to highway 173. The fire officials gave the order on the evacuation extended from Santa Fe to Arrowhead road, and Ranchero homes (Austin & Pinkleton, 2016). The evacuation that was voluntary included those of the north of deep creek spillway, east and west of Mojave rover and Kiowa road respectively, as highlighted by the U.S Forest Service. The Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District was the first to prompt a smoke advisory for the Victor Valley plus the communities who lived nearby. They gave warning to victims who had health complications, and those with heart and lung diseases, and they persuaded the residents, older adults, and children to spend less amount of time outside the house (Blaikie, 2016). The South Coast issued the smoke advisory to residents in the San Bernardino Mountains mainly the center. The pilot fire commenced on August 7 and spread to 1500 acres within one night, thus, prompting a firefighting response that was massive both from regional and local agencies. The impact was severe to the height of evacuating residents from their homes, with 5300 evacuation orders in Hesperia, Crestline, Gregory, and Lake Arrowhead (Wisner, 2017). The estimation indicated that the figure given by the San Bernardino National Forest Service was $ 16 million (Brachman, 2016). The cost was $18 million more than the cost involved in fighting the Bluecut Fire. The above-indicated cost figure was not final since the fire managers continued charging fires in the event of monitoring them for hotspots which are occasionally detected. There were also costs incurred when incident management teams transferred command of the fire to the Forest Service. 312000 gallons of fire retardant was applied the first day alone; the San Bernardino Air tanker pumped 3,425,469 gallons of fire retardant which is projected to aid in putting out fires Locally in Southern California. When a disaster such as a pilot fire occurs the first responders are the local police, medical, fire, and emergency personnel, their function is to rescue and attend to the injured. They also suppress the fires and police the disaster area while restoring order. Local emergency management personnel together with government officials (Austin & Pinkleton, 2016). The pilot fire was severe (Austin & Pinkleton, 2016). Hence, the Governor had to consult the state emergency recovery team since they could not put off the fire. After the Governor consulted the president, who in turn declared the disaster as major. Preparation by the state officials in cooperation with the staff from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The pilot fire disaster had the following agencies cooperate, FEMA, American Red Cross, the local police, and medics. Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District. Several offices and schools located in the Apple Valley were closed since the quality of the air was poor (Blaikie, 2016). The extreme spread of fire forced the evacuation of the American Red Cross shelter and moved to Oak Hills high school in Hesperia. Another shelter was opened at World High School Rim in the Twin peaks about 274000 Highway. Also, animals were moved to Victorville Fairgrounds about 14800 Seventh St; this included both large and small animals. The pilot fire had 843 firefighting personnel at hand; there was a mandatory order to evacuate residents from highway 138 to 173 arrowhead road and from Hesperia Lake to highway 173 (Wisner, 2017). The order given by the fire officials covered evacuation extended from Santa Fe to Arrowhead road, and Ranchero homes. The evacuation that was voluntary included those of the north of deep creek spillway, east and west of Mojave rover and Kiowa road respectively. The Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District was the first to prompt a smoke advisory for the Victor Valley plus the communities who lived nearby. They gave warning to victims who had health complications, especially those with heart and lung diseases, then they persuaded the residents, older adults, and children to spend less amount of time outside the houses. The South Coast issued a smoke advisory to residents in the San Bernardino Mountains particularly the center. The Pilot brush fire spread to more than 7 square miles on Monday; the spread exceeded triple the distance range overnight, at Silverwood Lake in San Bernardino National forest. The officials ordered an evacuation from areas that included, Old Mill Road, and Highway 138, other areas that were ordered to evacuate, Cedar spring dam, State Route 173, and Highway 138 at 5 p.m (Brachman, 2016). Firefighters of more than 300 battled the blaze, and from Sunday, they applied several air tankers. The fire containment reached 5%. The challenge was that the firefighters worked with dry vegetation which had not burned for a long time. California was in the fifth year of drought, hence, the hillsides and other areas were primed for fire. Firefighters had the worst fire to deal with on record. The smoke plumes from ridges roiled their way down from San Bernardino Mountains and when reaching the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas blew. Fire officials ordered evacuation since the air quality was poor and dangerous. The evacuation radius was about 200 miles away.
References
Austin, E. W., & Pinkleton, B. E. (2016). Strategic public relations management: Planning and managing effective communication campaigns (Vol. 10). Routledge.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., Davis, I., & Wisner, B. (2017). At risk: natural hazards, people's vulnerability and disasters . Routledge.
Brachman, M. L., & Church, R. L. (2016). Planning for a disaster: a review of the literature with a focus on transportation related issues. Technical Report (FiRST report), Geotrans Laboratory.
Covello, V. T., McCallum, D. B., & Pavlova, M. T. (Eds.). (2017). Effective risk communication: the role and responsibility of government and nongovernment organizations (Vol. 4). Springer Science & Business Media.
C Elliott, R. W. (2016). Measuring disaster preparedness of local emergency medical services agencies (Doctoral dissertation, Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School).
Chan, E. Y. Y. (2017). Public health humanitarian responses to natural disasters . Taylor & Francis.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (2017). Status passage. Transaction Publishers.
Leitch, J. (2016). The Need for Collaboration in Planning Efforts during Natural Disasters: An Evaluation of the City of Richmond , Virginia (Doctoral dissertation)
