Gene Darling (inset) of Emergency Management and Response (S-8) explains why potential fire danger this year is extremely high. Darling made his comments during a recent briefing for Jim Holt, associate Laboratory director for Operations (at right in the photo above). Lee McAtee, Health, Safety and Radiation Protection (HSR) Division, attended the presentation. Dry conditions, a forecast for a delayed monsoon season and a high percentage of "standing red and dead" trees killed by drought and bark beetle have combined to make this year's fire season potentially serious. If a catastrophic wildfire were to occur this year, some residents might be asked to "shelter-in-place" instead of evacuating on dangerous, fiery roads. The shelter-in-place concept also could be used to protect people in the event of other emergencies. Photos by James E. Rickman, Public Affairs
Due to unique forest conditions, this fire season has Los Alamos County, Los Alamos Public Schools and Laboratory emergency managers recommending that evacuation as a protective action during a wildfire may not be the way to go. Instead, they are advocating "shelter-in-place" as a way to safely ride out this year's potential fires, which are anticipated to be small, hot and fast.
A 60-to-90-percent bark beetle kill, combined with limited thinning in the canyon areas, has Los Alamos area officials concerned that the beetle-ravaged trees, known as "dead and red," will burn faster and hotter than green timber, creating a scenario that makes mass-evacuation difficult, even unsafe.
"The flats and mesa tops in the county and on Laboratory property are in pretty good shape from thinning operations," said Gene Darling of Emergency Management and Response (S-8). "But most of the canyons have had nothing done to them, and combined with the bark beetle kill, I don't see us getting out of extreme fire danger conditions all season without significant rainfall."
Officials describe this fire scenario as a "different kind of danger" that calls for a different kind of planning and response. The fires are expected to be significantly smaller than the thousands of acres that are usually affected -- as small as 200-300 acres -- and much shorter in duration, prompting the call for a shelter-in-place which would typically last for only a few hours.
"What we mean by shelter in place is that most people would be asked to simply stay home or in their offices during the fire situation. The Laboratory or the Los Alamos Fire Department would only move people directly affected by a localized fire, and would typically move those folks to a location nearby, but out of harm's way," said Darling.
At Los Alamos Public Schools, students would be sheltered at their school or moved to a safe location at another school. School officials are asking parents to resist the natural inclination to come to the schools during a fire situation to pick up their kids.
"We have an excellent shelter-in-place plan, and we do not believe any of our schools are seriously vulnerable to fire under these current conditions," said Hugh Miller, emergency manager for Los Alamos Public Schools. "We will take care of the children as if they were our own, but we're worried that many parents will want to get their children home or try to evacuate, and that could lead to an even more dangerous situation than the localized fire."
As the school system enters the summer break, parents will no doubt be wondering how shelter-in-place will work with the many varied summer programs and day-care centers in the area. "The county will begin a coordination effort, to make sure as many of the private, public and religious summer programs and day-care providers as possible know what we mean by shelter-in-place and communicate to their parents what procedures they will undertake should we experience a fire this season," said Phil Taylor, Los Alamos County emergency management coordinator. "Again we want residents to resist the impulse to quickly try and pick up their kids and begin evacuating."
The Los Alamos Fire Department warns that people clogging the roadways trying to evacuate could delay fire fighters and expose drivers to large numbers of emergency vehicles as they try to quickly respond, as well as putting motorists in direct danger. "During the fires in Oakland, Calif., a few years ago, many lives were lost in attempted self-evacuations -- people dying in their cars as they tried to get away," said Taylor. "This fire season we do not foresee the need for a mass evacuation with the volatile fire conditions being somewhat restricted to the canyon areas."
Los Alamos County has more information on wildfire, shelter-in-place and evacuation on their Web site at http://www.lac-nm.us online under the link for Emergency Management.
The Laboratory also has a Web site with information on wildfire protective actions at http://emr.lanl.gov online, and links to information from the Red Cross at http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/beprepared/shelterinplace.pdf online and the Federal Emergency Management Agency at http://www.fema.gov/rrr/csepp4.shtm online.
For additional information, contact EM&R at 7-6211, Los Alamos County Emergency Management at 663-0883 or the Los Alamos school system at 663-2222.
To take the shelter-in-place training, click here.