Advisor's Experience in San Diego Firestorm 2007

Boomer Advisor is published by Advisor Media from our home office in the heart of San Diego. For the past three day we've been living the nightmare known as Firestorm 2007. So far, so good. Our office hasn't been threatened (unlike the Cedar Fire of 2003, which burned just a block from us). None of our San Diego-area staff was harmed and their homes all survived.

But I must add, "so far", because fires still rage in various areas of the county, and if new fires start, there's still plenty left to burn.

We can give huge praise to many people in local public agencies who reacted quickly and effectively to face the fire and help the people of San Diego County.

However, some public agencies -- their leaders, specifically -- deserve scorn, and a bit later, investigation. If several big shots don't get fired, it will literally add insult to injury.

Top of the list of problems is CalFire, the California agency formerly known as California Division of Forestry. From several reports, it seems they actually BLOCKED fire fighting efforts. Using self-imposed rules -- political maneuvering, actually -- CalFire prevented many military and other aircraft from fighting the fire. The rules require that "trained" CalFire people be on every aircraft. Whether that's necessary is the first question, since the fire-fighting aircraft are flown by VERY experienced people. But, CalFire couldn't supply enough of their people for all the available aircraft, so they sat on the ground while fires destroyed homes and land. Unbelievable!

The next notable problem is how slowly the serious fire-fighting started. On the Sunday it all began, I was driving home from my granddaughter's birthday party, and saw smoke blowing out of east-county, a lovely area of mountains and meadows. The radio said it was a relatively small wildfire, and experience has proven that this type of fire needs to be attacked and extinguished immediately. If only that had happened... which leads to the third problem.

Apparently, there aren't enough local fire-fighting resources ("assets" as they are called) to jump on back-country fires. Even though Southern California has had serious brush fires forever, it seems there aren't enough aircraft capable of fighting them. Or, if there are, the aircraft are based several states away, or require various government agencies -- all controlled by political hacks, it seems -- to send requests and sign agreements and most ridiculous, make speeches on TV. I wonder why there isn't a major base -- decommissioned March Air Base could be ideal -- packed with fire-fighting aircraft, vehicles, and the setup to load them with everything they need.

As I type this I'm watching TV, where local Congressman and U.S. presidential canidate Duncan Hunter is claiming lots of credit for getting military planes to fight the fire. He's been bragging about this for three days, yet the planes are just now arriving! Mr. Hunter is blaming CalFire and various others. And he's describing a bunch of fire-fighting assets that are still not here yet, but "coming", important because one of the major fires is now at Marine Camp Pendelton at the north end of San Diego County, where the fire has periodically shut down major freeway I-5, and threatens the power lines that bring electricity from San Onofre power plant to San Diego County. So, it's not over -- some experts say it will take another week or two.

Personally, my wife Jeanne, our dog Bailey, and I evacuated our home in Poway early Monday morning. Our house's backyard touches the City of San Diego neighborhood known as Rancho Bernardo, and the fire and destruction you saw on TV got to within a few blocks of us. We stayed with friends in La Jolla. This morning we were allowed back into our neighborhood, where our home is undamaged by fire, though such a mess due to smoke and ash and horrible stuff in the air that we can't live there yet.

Meanwhile, I'm working in our air-conditioned office and in the motor home we set up as a mobile office. Fortunately, our servers are all running, our key office staff is able to come in, and Boomer Advisor Senior Managing Editor Christa Ayer is coordinating all of our expert contributers from her home in Washington State (her family in San Diego was evacutated too). So we're still in business. But only by luck. However, this experience has already triggered planning and actions to make us even less vulnerable next time. Because there WILL be a next time.