1030 AM EDT Sunday June 16 2013 NPR News Radio NPR Reporter Kurt Ziegler spent 1 week in Colorado - this is what he came up with - (was approx 4 minute report)
1/4 of area residents live in forested areas - homeoener says ' we accept fire as a risk ' - Colorado Springs banned wood shake roofs in ? 1993 - in 2012 Colorado Springs tightened up home building requirements after Waldo Canyon Fire - no more wooden porches - fire resistant materials required - this was hard to pass in an anti (big) governemnt city - "a lot of neighborhoods still are at severe risk" from wildfires - wildfires are a big logistical problem for a FD that has "only 20 engines" - it is hard to get fire engines into areas when all of the residents are trying to flee - neighborhoods had drills - fires start in National Forests and move into suburban areas (Black Forest Fire did not start in NF area AFAIK) 1. no mention of problems in Waldo Canyon Fire (911 call booted - slow air tankers - slow evac orders - confusion - etc) 2. no mention of turnout times, response times, travel times, CAFS, helicopters, airtankers, dispatch times, mobilization times, etc 3. "only 20 engines" - plus 600,000 mutual aid engines I guess the bottom line was - this is a anti government town - they got what they deserved I am sure the report will be online for a while - you can listen for yourself, and see what the report said -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "massfire" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massfire. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
