On Thursday Wildfire Today covered the transition away from the “prepare, stay and defend, or leave early” program in Southern California to a new program called “Ready, Set, Go“. The Orange County Register reported that ten agencies were at the news conference where the program was introduced, including the U. S. Forest Service. Here is a screen grab from a video report on MyFoxLA.com about the new program.
It’s hard to tell, but could that be a U.S. Forest Service person on the extreme right hiding behind the poster? One of the photos at the Orange County Register site shows what appears to be a USFS engine at the news conference.
Here is the full video.
(THE VIDEO IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE)
I talked with an official from one of the Southern California national forests to ask if the USFS was officially adopting the Ready, Set, Go program instead of the “prepare, stay and defend, or leave early” concept. He said he had heard about the newspaper report mentioning the USFS, but had to make a couple of calls to the regional office to find out what their involvement was. He was told that the USFS has “no official position” on Ready, Set, Go, but they “are in support of it as a member of FIRESCOPE”.
Well, at least we got that cleared up.
The Ready, Set, Go brochure published by the Ventura County Fire Department lists 11 agencies that “support” the program, but the USFS is not one of them.
