The Southern California wildfire that took place between 21 st October and November 4 th, 2003 is a historical blaze which had 14 separate fires burning more than 200,000 acres of land in the five counties of Ventura, San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Bernardino (Townsell, 2016) . This fire is seen as the worst in the history of California. The multiple wildfires were whipped and spread by the Santa Ana winds which blew the fire to the southern region from the interior deserts. One of the fires consumed 10,000 acres within 6 hours. The fire caused massive losses estimated to be worth more than 2 billion dollars and the second deadliest in the history of California claiming 24 lives (Townsell, 2016) . The fire began at the head of Waterman Canyon in the morning. The local residents were already wary of the strong Santa Ana winds which blew through the valleys and mountains of Southern California. The notorious winds were similar to the one which had initially fuelled the worst fire in the region. In a short while, the fire blew down the canyon burning everything along the way.
Thousands of residents from Del Rosa and San Bernardino were evacuated from their homes. The Grand Prix fire had twenty miles to the east had already gotten out of control in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The fire had started on the 21st of October and after two days, 13 more fires had joined the conflagration. The fire stretched to Ventura from San Diego. The Cedar fire, on the other hand, lasted for more than a week, scorching more than two hundred thousand acres of San Diego County, destroying thousands of homes and claiming 15 lives (Mayberry, 2011) . Some of the damage could not be measured through statistics or numbers.
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One of the issues which emerged during the firefighting process was the lack of qualified personnel to help in staffing the EOC's. The main challenge seemed to be in the County EOC which was still dealing with the problem of understaffing. Because of the problem of understaffing, there was no proper coordination amongst the several operation centers. While the coordination was later effected, it entirely relied on manual communication. There was no EOC network which would enable the main EOC's to get vital information in time.
Another issue which came up was on agency and public notification systems. These systems failed to work as had been advertised particularly in the SDPD. The County Alert Service System was also not activated for the fire disaster since it was not foreseen as an option that would support the rescue process (Mayberry, 2011) . Similarly, civilian evacuation warning system was either ineffective or nonexistent. Some of the evacuations in the Cedar fire were made possible by the deputies of Sheriffs in the SD County who acted out of their own capabilities and initiatives. Some of the reasons why the Emergency Alert System in the county was not activated were lack of information on evacuation routine and the fast-changing situations (Langford, Pierce & Schultz, 2015) . The quick spreading Cedar fire worsened the situation and made it difficult to contain the fire.
The incident command system of the cedar fire transformed fast to a unified command combining efforts with the Incident Command team. On 27th October, the Cedar fire was divided into an East Command which was managed by the Federal National Incident Command team and the West Command which remained with the state authority. A unified Area command was established on October 28th and it adjoined the fire at San Diego County. The activation of the multiagency coordination system was also witnessed in the fires of San Bernadino enabling the agencies to allocate resources effectively amongst the incidences.
Resource management was another major issue since the fires tasked firefighter personnel, fire engines, and even the air resources. Another challenge was the lack of knowledge with regards to the transportation resources at the EOC. San Diego had a transportation center which was jointly operated at California Highway Patrol and Transportation Management Center.
The fire rage had both technical and political challenges. One of the political challenges that manifested during the rescue process was the mismanagement of resources. There were not enough resources to help in managing a disaster of such magnitude. The insufficient resources made it difficult for proper coordination between fire centers since the fire was raging simultaneously from different areas and needed a simultaneous response (Langford, Pierce & Schultz, 2015) . Additionally, the issue of understaffing and lack of enough qualified personnel to deal with the fire made it difficult to contain the spreading fire in time. Issues to deal with an emergency response should be properly coordinated by the federal governments to ensure that in case of emergency fires of huge magnitude like that of Southern California fires occur, they are able to contain it quickly. The fact that the fire continued destroying property two weeks after it started shows a failure on the part of the government.
The technical issues include the failure of agency and public notification systems as well as the failure to activate the County Alert Service System (Morgan & Mosser, 2011) . These technical challenges made it difficult for smooth operations during the rescue process. For example, communication and information sharing became difficult because of the failure of the public notification system. The alerts on evacuation could not be delivered in all areas that were affected by the fire at the same time because some centers had notification systems which were not operational.
In terms of fire management, the interactions between the political leaders and the firefighters were not so effective letting the disaster run for as long as two weeks. Information on the progress of the fire was scarce making it difficult for proper coordination and disaster management. This can be attributed to the insufficient resources at the incident command bases to enable information flow. Even so, at some point, the government came in and pulled things together with whatever resources that were available. For example, the formation of Damage Assessment Team, as well as the deployment of sheltering and supporting the evacuated residents, was enabled through a proper coordination between the policymakers and the rescue team (Morgan& Mosser, 2011) . In terms of logistics, the firefighters and the rescue team effectively interacted with the government and their response in the allocation of resources was helpful during the rescue process.
There were also joint information centers which were put in place to help disseminate crucial information to the general public. Also, the damage assessment teams were quickly formed and sent to the affected areas to help quantify the levels of damage as well as give assistance to the affected people. The raging fire had destroyed electrical power in many areas, particularly in Los Angeles County. Through the interactions with policymakers and their presence on the ground, they were able to coordinate the electrical crew to restore power. The water management ensured that there was enough supply of water in case needed. Because of the communication barrier already pointed out, the water supply team did not have clear information on where the fire boundaries were and the strategies that were being used with the firefighters.
There are several measures which could have been taken to ensure effective interactions between the political leaders and the firefighters. Generally, there were failures in terms of untimely population warning. There was a need to effect interoperation communications to ensure that there is the timely dissemination of information. This would help in preventing chaotic evacuations on the already frustrated populace. Also, the military support and air resources should have been fully utilized to enable quick evacuations and dissemination of resources required in the rescue process.
References
Langford, A. O., Pierce, R. B., & Schultz, P. J. (2015). Stratospheric intrusions, the Santa Ana winds, and wildland fires in Southern California. Geophysical Research Letters , 42 (14), 6091-6097.
Mayberry, J. A. (2011). Community wildfire preparedness: balancing community safety and ecosystem sustainability in southern California chaparral (Doctoral dissertation, Humboldt State University).
Morgan, S., & Mosser, M. (2011). Wildfires in California Analysis of the Incident Command System and FIRESCOPE. Cambridge Business and Economics Conference.
Townsell, J. (2016). A case study analysis of California wildland fire response and management models: The 2003 Cedar Fire and 2013 Rim Fire . California State University, Long Beach.
