Visiting my niece’s youngest daughter’s one-year birthday, my family stayed in Yorba Linda for the weekend.  As I looked out our hotel windows the next morning, I realized I missed something in the news in the past year.  It was my first face-to-face encounter with the effects of the Freeway Complex Fire of November 15, 2008.

I didn’t understand how I could have missed the news.  Usually I am up on this sort of thing.  Looking further into the event, the chronology finally made sense.  It was only a few days after the Tea Fire in Santa Barbara and the evacuation of my Alma Mater in the hills there.  We were all absorbed in that event and incredible as it may seem, did not recognize the subsequent fire from Corona to Diamond Bar.

So, reading the Orange County Fire Authority’s report (http://www.ocfamedia.org/_uploads/PDF/fcfaar.pdf)  brought tears to my eyes.  Here is the account of their preparation and execution.  I am impressed not only with their professionalism but their sensitivity to the situation.  Three weeks before the fire, they had called for and participated in an joint training exercise which prepared them for the actual event.  That kind of forethought is rare in other branches of public service.

The other dimention of this discussion was the appearance of alternate ideas for citizen/professional cooperation.  It is still in the table-top phase but the idea of a paradigm shift appealed to me and I wondered again, “Who do you hire when you want to change a culture?”