Los Angeles, CA, May 8, 2007
Firefighters in Southern California are in a constant state of readiness and action, contending with wildfires resulting from a weather pattern that has seen barely two inches of precipitation in more than a year. In the first week of May, the entire region experienced days of strong winds and record-high temperatures.
At 1:20 P.M., the LAFD Operations Control Division (OCD) dispatched a full brush response to a fire reported near the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Hillcrest in the Los Feliz area of Hollywood. The first companies arrived to find seven acres of medium to heavy fuels being pushed by moderate winds through steep rolling hills. The area surrounding the fire is a heavily populated intermix area adjacent to Griffith Park, one of the largest urban parks in North America. Griffith Park covers 4,200 acres of vegetation, the Los Angeles Zoo, Travel Town, the Griffith Observatory and hiking trails. Within minutes, the incident commander ordered additional resources bringing the incident quickly beyond the "Major Emergency" threshold (15 companies working), as it is common practice of the LAFD to aggressively deploy adequate resources to limit the damage caused by a wildfire.
For the next two to three hours, the fire raced across heavy fuels as hundreds of firefighters on the ground attempted to hold the fireline and nine water-dropping helicopters from the Los Angeles city and county fire departments picked up spot fires and directed flames away from structures and attractions. As afternoon winds shifted, command recognized that the potential for the fire to move into populated areas as a real threat and ordered four fixed-wing air tankers to join the firefighting force that had grown to 76 LAFD fire companies and 30 mutual aid engines. Handcrew strike teams and bulldozers also helped to keep the fire away from populated areas. The aggressive and unrelenting efforts of more than 600 firefighters through the day and into the night limited structural damage to just one home as the fire burned through 13 canyons before being contained.
