Pretty horrendous last 2 weeks...

Hi there--while my buddy over at http://jdaroundorange.blogspot.com/ does a great job of giving a day to day accounting of the fires that hit southern California and Orange County in particular, even his words or any that I could come up with do it justice. Back in 2003, I was a newly promoted supervisor, and was on duty the day the 2003 Firestorm started. All of southern California, much like this year, seemingly was on fire. But the two fires that really garnered the attention of the world back then were the Old Fire up along the hills and mountains that parallel the 210 Freeway in San Bernardino and parts of LA County, and of course, the apocalyptic Cedar Fire. We were so lucky in Orange County that year. We didn't have any fires that required more than an hour to put out. No major "campaign" fires. BUT...we worked our tails off to provide strike teams and additional personnel to all of our fire brothers and sisters in neighboring counties. I remember my Activity Report one night showing that between us and our partners in Orange County through MetroNet Fire, we were able to afford to send out 10 strike teams to various locales to assist as best as we could.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago. The amount of mutual aid that we received for our major campaign fire was substantial to say the least--ONLY AFTER OUR GREAT CHIEF GOT ON LOCAL MEDIA AND SAID, "Hello!!!!!!!!! We're going to lose homes if we don't get help!!" Just as my friend Jon said on his blog, we were essentially fighting our fire alone with just our units and some much needed (and appreciated) help from MetroNet Fire (for those that have no clue what I'm talking about, MetroNet is a dispatch agency that dispatches for Anaheim, Orange, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach and is the coordinator for the independent fire departments like Laguna, Santa Ana, and Brea). In any event, all political posturing aside for a moment, once the calvary arrived, BOY did it arrive. We lost homes (24???), which is NOTHING like what happened in other areas of southern California. But we could have had some major problems if not for two things...

First, the AMAZING job of our dispatch/command center. Sometimes as a group of people we can get just about as "dysfunctional" as any family can, but I'm telling you, there were people in our center that were making some major sacrifices for the team. I can't begin to tell you the plethora of things that happened, but "team work" was the word, and we rose to the occasion. I'm VERY proud to be part of the OCFA ECC.

And secondly, and even more amazingly, the performance of our guys out in the field. There were people out there I heard yelling in their radios that I consider friends of mine, and you don't know "stress" until you hear panic in the voices of those you consider not only your friends, but HEROES in the fire service. I had to make a recording of the famous "burnover" that occurred where thankfully, none of our guys was hurt. But the Battalion Chief that was the main person in command of this and who I respect a great deal--I could it hear it in his voice, and it's tough for me NOT to put on the shoes of someone else and I could feel his frustration and fear during his radio transmissions. Everything worked out and I'm grateful--but a huge salute to the BC in charge of this emergency when it happened.

I don't know if 2007 will be worse that 2003, or 1993 for that matter, but I will tell you this. I can truthfully say in my 14 years of working, this was really my first MAJOR campaign fire. I've worked big ones before (Antonio Fire, Blackstar 1999, the December USFS screw up, the jet crash, etc), but this was bigger than I ever thought we could get.

In other news--

• I had lunch with a big name drum corps guy this past week that I'm not going to advertise WHO it was. But I will say that it's someone who knows how to produce a Top 3 drum corps, and fancy that, knows a WHOLE LOT ABOUT A LOT OF OTHER THINGS. Get this--he wanted to "pick my brain" about the southern California band and corps scene. Step right up brother--you picked the right guy.
• Wife is still sick and not doing well. Pregnancy--in a word--SUCKS.
• Announced a show last week and had a VERY nice and sort of long chat with another big name in drum corps, Frank Dorritte. Man this guy is 61 and is just AMAZING. We talked a lot about the direction of drum corps, about this whole amplification and narration business, etc, etc. And guess what? He may address something I actually told him about in his next column.

That's about it--just wanted to check in. Special thanks to Jon for doing a great job with the photos and narrative on his blog.