The spark from the faulty transmission line ignited the fire. Soon after, a strong wind whipped the flames into a powerful fire that torn apart in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, at the speed of a football field for a second.
By 8 am on November 8, 2018, most residents were not evacuated when Embers started raining in Paradise Town – even though an hour and a half had passed since the first fire was reported in remote woodlands. Seven miles away at the hour.
Many people flee before they get a formal evacuation warning or alarm. The roads in heaven become stiff when smoke and orange sparks fill the air. Hundreds of people gave up their cars and tried to walk beyond the fire.
Finally, 85 people died, causing the camp to open fire The deadliest wildfire in California history.
Six years later, how the Northern California community responded to the evacuation of the outbreak, providing courses for Los Angeles County, wireless evacuation alerts to the western Altardna nine hours after the Eaton fire broke out. one Times Investigation It was found in January that of 17 confirmed deaths, all occurred in the West Side.
As the sheriff of Bit County, Kory L. Honea is responsible for evacuating people from safety. He was strongly criticized for not reminding residents earlier.
“We absolutely have no evacuation orders,” Magalia resident Leigh Bailey is just north of heaven Tell the Times In 2018. “No phone, no urgent text, nothing – neither do I know.”
Less than a quarter of Paradise’s 27,000 residents received formal evacuation orders by phone. 2020 Post-action report Found that only one trained employee was managing the alarms within the first 16 hours of the fire, the county struggled with the latest wireless emergency alert technology and undertested its new system in the worst-case scenario.
Since then, Honea has overhauled his county’s alarm and warning system. In an interview with The Times, Honea described the lessons he learned from the camp fire and provided Los Angeles officials with 29 people killed in Palisades and Eaton Fires. Have suggestions.
“I do feel PTSD when I see these things happening.” Evacuation failed exist Pacific Fence and altadena.
“The task of reminding people of threats and providing information to them is a very complex process,” Honea said. “Unfortunately, many citizens don’t understand how complicated it is – and I think many government entities are really ready.”
The outline of the mobile home remains in Ridgewood Mobile Home Park in California Paradise after the camp fire in 2018.
(Caroline Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Evacuate early
Most people think that wildfires move in linear form, and the rapidly moving head of the fire consumes the community. But Honea said the camp fire told him that strong winds would cause the fire to jump and jump a community, bringing burning embers to more than a mile.
On the morning of November 8, a fire chief called via radio and evacuated the east side of heaven at 7:46 a.m. when the fire was first reported in heaven at 8 a.m., and most residents escaped before receiving any official alerts. .
Now, Honea says, he tends to issue an alert earlier.
“The ideal is to remind them before the embers really start to fall, before they really start to fall, because once that happens, you know you’re already behind eight balls.”
Honea isn’t the only local California official, who is slow to remind residents of a large number of wireless alerts. When the 2017 Tubbus Fire swept the wine nation of Northern California Sonoma and Napa County officials decide not to send large-scale wireless alertsworrying that they will cause impasse and panic throughout the county. 22 people died.
This practice — and subsequent loss of life — led to the establishment of the California Governor Emergency Services Office across the state in 2019 Alerts and warning guide. They urged local officials to issue alerts and warnings when “imminent threats to life, health or property.” Even if the threat may not be imminent, the guidelines suggest that warnings can help “communicate this threat to the public so that they can be better prepared.”
“Worrying to trigger a ‘panic’ is not a legitimate reason to delay or avoid issuing a warning,” the guide notes. “Massive panic’ is rarely the result of a warning message.”
Honea said he focused on population density, road infrastructure and terrain when weighing how long it took to remind the area. Paradise, a small town built on a volcanic ridge The maze of the dead end Several ways to get in and out are provided, and it is difficult to evacuate.
Bit County has also taken steps to retain and update lists of vulnerable residents (people with mobility issues or unwelcome), so first responders can try to notify them before disasters and arrange transportation.
Paradise Primary School after the camp fire in 2018.
(Gina Ferazzi /Los Angeles Times)
Create a team with well-defined roles
Before the camp fire, Bit County relied on its dispatch center to launch an alarm. But the county’s small teams were quickly flooded as they tried to make and push messages in a timely manner while answering 911 calls and talking to the response units via the broadcast, Horner said.
2020 Post-action report Entering the camp fire, five people in the county were trained in a massive alarm system, but one was on vacation when the fire broke out and another was evacuating the family. This allowed two dispatchers to answer calls within the first two hours of the fire, with only one staff member providing dozens of large-scale alerts to the entire county.
After the camp fire, Honea created a separate alarm and warning team: 25 people – search and rescue team volunteers and unwilling civilian staff – were trained to roll out alarms.
Message across multiple platforms
For Honea, the most effective way to urge people to evacuate is to have a uniformed law enforcement officer enter the neighborhood and knock down the door. But in a rapidly developing disaster, there is not enough time.
“Literally, there aren’t enough law enforcement officers and firefighters in a specific area,” Honea said. “I think it’s obviously the situation in the fires in Palisades and Eaton.”
When most people are stuck to their phones, wireless cell phone alerts can be an important way to spread news quickly, Honea said. However, such technologies can also be fragile if the battery tower is out or there is a software error.
“There is no guaranteed or foolproof system,” Honea said. “But we hope that with our team, we are in a better position to make sure that all areas that need warnings or evacuation are actually warned or evacuated and then we monitor the area and we go.”
Butte County’s Warnings and Alert Team Some people send notifications via Facebook, X and Instagram, while others communicate through news releases and with traditional media partners. Alarms are sent through Codered Emergency Quality Notification System, and ipawsthe Federal Emergency Management Agency’s local alarm system, which sends wireless emergency alerts to the public through mobile phones and uses the emergency alert system to transmit information over radio and television.
Additionally, Honea said someone manages the infield response of the knocking representative.
How Jarbo Gap Wind has fueled the bonfires that destroyed most of California Paradise.
(Jon Schloss/Los Angeles Times)
Regular training and practice
After the camp fire, investigators found Butte County had not adequately tested its massive notification system to prepare for the worst.
The 2020 “Back to the Scenes Report” found that the county did not spend enough time to practice after switching to a new massive notification software system in 2017. When the fire broke out on November 8, 2018, the integration of the Codered system that allowed officials to send IPAW alerts failed, but the staff didn’t realize it until the next day.
Now, his alert and warning team meets monthly for simulation training, asking about areas where they will issue evacuation orders and practicing pre-written messages for specific areas, Honea said. They also rehearse access to various platforms to ensure that login work on their social media and IPAW accounts is running.
“They need to do everything they have to do without actually pressing the final send button,” Honea said.
Officials have been learning
Even after the camp fire, Butte County did not always issue a massive alarm quickly.
In 2020, county officials were once again criticized for issuing late evacuation warnings and orders. North Comprehensive Fire.
But since then, Honea says his latest test of his ability to react to the fire is July 2024 Park fire Lighted in Bidwell Park in Chico.
Honea decided to evacuate the small mountain Cohasset, even though the fire was still miles away.
Horner said the county issued a preliminary warning within about an hour. It then issued an evacuation order. As the fire progressed, officials updated the orders and warnings.
The fire did sweep through the comrades and destroyed dozens of structures. But no one died.
“As the sheriff who alerted and warned of evacuation, that was my main goal,” Honea said. “We were able to take everyone away.”
Still, Honea considers the danger of overscanning. He said if people don’t see the threat, they immediately start pushing back.
“This constant dynamic that you have to fight against, you’re warning people, warning them, making appropriate orders, but not doing so, that people stop paying attention to you because they lose confidence in your ability to assess risk. ”
After the camp fire in 2018, the burning mailbox was still standing along Pentz Road in California Paradise.
(Louis Sinko/Los Angeles Times)
The public should play a more active role
Honea said that no matter how many platforms the officials use to send alerts, some people will not pay attention to warnings.
But after the camp fire, Horner said he was more likely to evacuate because many residents were used to the deadly fire threat and took measures to prepare.
“It’s easier for them to listen to us,” he said.
Horner said he was not sure residents of a densely populated metropolitan area, such as Los Angeles, would listen to official calls for evacuation in the coming hours or one day. They may have assumed that the chance of fire spreading across the city is far away.
“If you’ve never experienced it, it’s hard to imagine what it feels like to experience it,” Honea said. “Now people understand. Once the fire occupies all these buildings and structures in densely populated areas, it can really take off. ”
