Wildfire Today

It should come as no surprise, but it turns out that an administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency that has extensive experience in emergency management can be far more effective in that role than a lawyer with experience supervising horse show judges.

Craig Fugate was the head of the Florida Division of Emergency Management for eight years, battling floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires before he became the Administor of FEMA. He began his emergency management career as a volunteer firefighter, Emergency Paramedic, and kept working his way up the chain of command.  In his new job he is looking at the agency in a different light than his predecessors and appears to shaking things up — in a good way.

I like the fact that in an article in The Hill, from which the excerpt below is taken, he describes himself as having the “patience of a knat“.

…“It really kind of hit me and became apparent to me that every time we had big, complex disasters that we identified a group that had been marginalized and we’d write an annex to the main plan to address their concerns,” [Fugate] said. “I think it’s how emergency management had evolved over time.”

He found separate emergency plans for pets, for the frail and elderly, for those in poverty and for children. Fugate wondered, “If every one of these distinct groups is not being addressed in our plan, who do we cover?”

“We were planning for easy and putting everyone else in the too-hard-to-do box,” he said.

So he ripped up the agency’s plan, making so-called marginalized populations the primary focus of the response. The new message was that FEMA needed to “plan for who we serve, not who fits our plans,” Fugate said.

FEMA’s response plans had been built around able-bodied adults who have the financial means to meet basic needs and take care of themselves in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, he said.

That led Fugate to press his team to change the federal government’s food delivery response, adding in packages for infants and children that included formula, baby food and diapers. That was a big change from the previous policy of only sending out Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) without any consideration for what groups of people were most affected.

“I do try to be very clear about the outcome I want and give people the leeway to figure out how to get there,” he said. “The more I push people, the more I get them out of their comfort zones, the better they get at solving these problems.”

Fugate, who professes to have the “patience of a gnat,” ensured that his team solved their differences and moved forward, making the plan operational this spring.

Two weeks ago I ventured out of the Black Hills and drove across the plains of eastern South Dakota and Iowa to attend the IndyCar race at the Iowa Speedway, the new race track east of Des Moines designed by NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace. Some fun facts about Iowa — the state has 3 million people, 13 million acres of corn, and 15 million hogs.

I had a great time and saw an exciting race that some have described as the best IndyCar race in years. The lead changed hands five times in the last 62 laps with Marco Andretti (grandson of the great Mario Andretti) and Tony Kanaan battling it out. Marco showed exceptional skill and made some great passes, while winning his first race since 2006.

I splurged and paid $30 for a Paddock Pass that allowed access behind the pits to the garage area where the racing teams work on their cars. With that magic Pass I was able to walk around almost anywhere, except for inside the garages and buildings. All of the garage doors were open and cars and drivers were constantly passing by.

But for a firefighter there was another aspect of the race that was very interesting, and that was the Holmatro Safety Team that is responsible for suppressing fires on the track and rescuing drivers who are involved in crashes. The team consists of approximately 24 safety personnel with a minimum of 14 attending each event–two trauma physicians, three paramedics and nine firefighters/EMTs. Team personnel have an average of 20 years of experience in their respective areas.

Continue reading “IndyCar’s fire and rescue team”