San Diego's radio hams activated for Californian wildfires

As fires raged through parts of the San Diego area and other areas in Southern California, ham radio operators did their part to ensure the safety of residents either affected or threatened by the fires.

ARES groups in San Diego were activated on Monday, October 22 and continued to assist their served agencies until early Wednesday morning. Sixty hams were called to service by the County of San Diego's Emergency Medical Service.

According to ARRL San Diego Section Emergency Coordinator James J. Cammarano II, KG6R, hams assisted at the San Diego Medical Operations Center, six trauma centers and 16 community hospitals. Hams served as a resource, Cammarano said, "to be used in case primary circuits to
hospital communications were lost due to either overload or power interruptions." In addition to these 60 amateurs, another dozen or so hams were activated by the Red Cross.

ARRL Emergency Preparedness and Response Manager Dennis Dura, K2DCD, learned that San Diego ARES volunteers were activated and now they are in standby mode. "They are ready to go at a moment's notice, but there
are currently no plans for re-activation," he said. As in any emergency situation, information can quickly change and the ARRL will continue to monitor the situation and inform members if the situation changes.

As the fires started to spread, hams started a FIRENET on the Palomar ARC 146.73 MHz repeater. Howard White, KY6LA, of La Jolla, who was among those who served as net control operator under extremely stressful conditions, disseminated a preliminary log of his experience. Excerpts
follow:

"With flames starting to engulf the county and no active single source of information, as best as I could determine Charlie NN3V stepped into the information vacuum to start the 'FIRENET' as an ad hoc operation on Sunday afternoon. Early contributors included Gayle K6GO and Gary W6GDK.
Initial operations started by collecting fire information as to fire location, wind directions, shelter locations and initial evacuations. Hams provided eyes and ears on the ground where the danger was. Soon however the fires seemed to be heading down to the Poway area so Charlie and the other Poway hams needed to evacuate....

"Day One: Is the fire near us? Where is the head of the fire? What directions are the heads going? What are the winds doing? Should we evacuate? What roads are closed? What about our animals? Where should we go? What should we take? What is the route to avoid the flames? Can you help us find missing people or pets? Can you help us get barrels of water for animals? Can you help us find food and water? Can you get the police to deal with looters?

"Unlike Katrina, the questions and answers did not abate at night. It was nonstop. Terry K3PXX needed routing around the fires to evacuate his Animal trailer. Terry reported on Fires as he drove through Poway and back to San Marcos EOC. ROARS hams had evacuated Ramona and the 147.03
repeater and were looking for help to be routed safely out of the area.

Fires broke out in Coronado Hills in San Marcos. People needed to be evacuated. Brian KF6C asked where to evacuate his 4 children. San Marcos EOC needed to be activated and FIRENET held the fort for them until they could get there and became operational to evacuate San Marcos. George KG6IDE tries to drive up to Ramona to evacuate elderly parents but we turn him back to avoid the flames...

"0130 Tuesday: N9XF reports flame proceeding down 76 from Fallbrook. Tom KI6IET, who is blind, but stays at his post as my backup net control, needs to be evacuated. Evacuation arranged ok. Rob WA3IHV calls from his office at Palomar hospital to tell us his family was evacuated OK and horses survived...

"2100 Tuesday: FIRENET hams drive to Qualcomm Stadium and load trucks with food. Dan leads ham relief convoy with food and supplies to Mira Costa College. Fire victims at shelter express gratitude for first food delivery...

"2350 Wednesday: KG6VVN signs off as net control as the 146.730 repeater runs out of fuel and goes off the air..."

Orange County update: Acting Section Emergency Coordinator Cathy Gardenias, K6VC, provided this update on the situation in the ARRL Orange Section as of October 25: "Slide Fire/Green Valley is 17% contained; Grass Fire is 70% contained. Santiago Canyon Fire was 50% but was reduced last night as it turned and headed for the Riverside County border of the Cleveland National Forest.

"Amateur Radio operators have been utilized. The San Bernardino County Fire EOC has been using ECS and ARES members in the EOC to monitor communications and other jobs needed. At the command post at the Rim of The World High School near Lake Arrowhead, ECS and ARES members who have been fully trained in all ICS and S190 (bush training) are handling communications and other needs. This is according to Jeff W6JJR DEC for ARES San Bernardino County and a Public Information Officer (Miles) from the EOC in San Bernardino. The EOC is at Level III at this time.

"SATERN [Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network] Amateur Radio operators at all the shelters have been volunteering their time as non communicators, but as helpers for those who are in need."

As of Friday afternoon, CNN reported that 14 of the nearly two dozen fires were under control. Nearly 800 square miles has burned in Southern California, and seven deaths have been blamed on the fires, with dozens of injuries.

Ron Roberts, Chairman of the San Diego Board of Supervisors estimates that 560,000 people were ordered to evacuate their homes, and thousands more were evacuated in San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Firefighters received help from Mexico, the state and federal
governments and even inmates from California's prisons. About 7000 firefighters were battling the blazes, including 2300 inmates from California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, according to Governor Schwarzenegger.

President Bush visited the area on Thursday and declared a federal emergency for seven counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura.

FEMA Administrator David Paulison said that the President's action authorizes FEMA to "coordinate all disaster relief efforts, which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety and lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe." Schwarzenegger estimated that at least $75 million in federal aid would be needed.

Some information from The Weather Channel and CNN

Source: The American Radio Relay League