By Ian S. Port
Assistant Editor
What could have improved about the Rancho Santa Fe community’s response to last year’s Witch Fire?
Communication, communication and communication.
The RSF Association’s long-awaited Fire Aftermath Report offers mainly minor tweaks for what to do the next time a wildfire sweeps through the area. After speaking with nearly every important local authority from the RSF Community Services District to the California Highway Patrol — and consulting residents — the report committee issued a list of 11 recommendations, starting with the need for a better way to spread information.
“The issue that we had was fine tuning,” said Association Manager Pete Smith. ”When the fire hit … there weren’t any significant gaps we had to fill in.”
The report’s core recommendation is to use the Internet to keep residents informed during an emergency. Smith said that task would likely fall to an organization such as the Rancho Santa Fe Review, which during the Witch Fire published multiple news updates every day to a blog on its Web site, becoming a primary source of information for many.
“The biggest concern that most people expressed was their inability to get information about what was going on,” Smith said. “And I think to establish a reliable source … where they can go to get that information [would be] very helpful.”
Smith told the Association’s board of directors June 5 that employees of the homeowner’s association should not be saddled with the responsibility of spreading information about an emergency situation. And he warned that no matter how instantaneous the Internet age may seem, there will always be a delay in communicating accurate information.
“There’s still going to be a time delay before that information gets out. There’s never going to be an instantaneous response,” Smith said.
Another key recommendation of the report was to test the county’s reverse-911 system every year, and keep residents informed of its features. The system was key in making residents aware of the calls for evacuation last October.
Residents who evacuated from the fires last year will remember perhaps the largest hiccup encountered in the four-day evacuation: the arduous process of getting back into the Ranch. Improving that through a fire safe council of local authorities was another recommendation in the aftermath report.
“You were getting sign-off from local authorities to get people back in. But to go up the chain to get the final sign-off became problematic, because every local community was trying to do the same thing at the same time,” Smith said.
In compiling their report, members of the committee spoke with law enforcement, emergency responders, infrastructure organizations and local residents.
It also recommended distributing emergency contact information and evacuation procedures to all residents; evaluating fuel reduction programs; updating the local fire hydrant network and re-vegetating the Arroyo property so as to provide maximum safety during a wildfire.
Board members said June 5 that the next step was seeing the plan be implemented.
“I fear this report in all its value will end up on a shelf somewhere, gathering dust,’ Director Bill Beckman said.
To avoid that, the board of directors is expected to hear an update on the progress of carrying out the board’s recommendations at its August retreat.
