One of the major problems experienced in the Florida fires was the time it took for needed resources to be delivered. Under routine circumstances, structural fire departments usually think in terms of minutes for assistance to arrive. The wildland fire fighters in Florida generally anticipate that it will take hours for their resources to arrive. These times became considerably longer as the increasing number of fire demanded more and more resources.
During the first part of June, the delay in delivering structural resources was usually measured in hours, as task forces and strike teams had to be assembled in counties that had resources available and dispatched by highway to the fires. The lag time for obtaining wildland resources was generally measured in days, as all of Florida’s resources were committed and assistance had to come from other states. As the demands increased, both of these times lengthened, as structural units had to respond longer distances within Florida and the wildland resources were dispatched from more distant states.
Wildland fire fighting agencies across the nation are networked and fully prepared to respond to distant states on short notice, however, there is no equivalent system in place for structural fire fighting resources. When the critical situation developed around Daytona Beach and in Flagler County on July 1st, the EOC in Tallahassee began to contact emergency management agencies in other state to determine if structural firefighters were available. Several states responded back to Florida within hours that they could provide personnel from fire departments in their states.
The official requests from the Governor’s Office to these states, under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, were transmitted on July 2nd. At that time the state emergency management agencies began to authorize the local fire departments to prepare to respond to Florida, while the state agencies worked with FEMA to arrange transportation for the personnel and their equipment. All of this was occurring over the July 4th holiday weekend.
It took 24 to 28 hours for most of these units to be assembled and for air transportation to be arranged. The first out-of-state fire fighters began to arrive on July 4th and were quickly deployed. More help arrived on July 5th and subsequent days, after the critical period had passed. The additional fire fighters were still very valuable, particularly to relieve exhausted crews, however, most of them did not arrive in time for the major battle.
Many of the structural fire fighters were not trained in wildland fire fighting and those who were qualified were unfamiliar with the characteristics of Florida’s natural fuels. Also, most of them came with protective clothing designed for interior structural fire fighting, which was not suitable for outdoor operations in the 100 degree temperatures they encountered in Florida. In some cases it took several days to provide an orientation and to procure and issue wildland protective equipment to these fire fighters, before they could be utilized effectively. The logistics functions also had to feed and house these fire fighters and provide ground transportation.
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