Mayor Steve Bach June 26, 2012/Photo by Daniel J. Chacón
Whether mandatory evacuations for Mountain Shadows during the Waldo Canyon fire were issued early enough will be the subject of an “after-action review” to be made public in a few weeks.
That’s according to Mayor Steve Bach, who issued a statement about the timing of evacuations following reports by The Gazette and The Denver Post.
(The photo shows Bach minutes before the 4 p.m. June 26 press conference at Coronado High School. Also in the picture are Bret Waters, manager of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, and Chief Communications Officer Cindy Aubrey. CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR A CLOSER LOOK.)
The city issued the following press release Friday:
“In response to a few media reports about the management of the Waldo Canyon fire, Mayor Steve Bach reaffirms his strong belief that, based on all current information available, the Colorado Springs Fire and Police Departments did everything humanly possible, as soon as possible, to aid and assist all of our citizens.”
That statement included the following statement — and Quote of the Day — from Mayor Steve Bach.
“We will complete, as planned, a thorough after-action review and will make those results available in a few weeks. We want to learn all we can from an event like this. Our dedicated first responders performed superbly. We will continue to look at improving where necessary and building on our strengths,” Bach said.
Mr. Chacon, -with all due respect- get real.
The quote of THE DECADE:
“Fight a dirty war, PAY the dirty COST. No excuses, no exceptions, NO DEFENSES!”
The Waldo Canyon fire was declared a Type I incident June 23. There was a 50-person command team in place on the 26th. That command team and in particular the Incident Commander, not the Mayor decide which neighborhoods to evacuate. It is not open to discussion, it is a command, not a request.
Being a arm chair quarterback and criticizing the players that were not even in the game, on the team or even in the loop is disingenuous.
The government stakeholders involved in wildfires and other disasters review every fire. http://www.wildfirelessons.net/Home.aspx
It is much better to have the team’s actions reviewed by their piers, rather than people not familiar with Type 1 national emergency responses.
The local FD can review it’s response and tactics, the Mayor can review the local FD and other services the city is responsible for. But the call for evacuations falls squarely on the shoulders of the Incident Management Team.
Review of the Mayor for the evacuation call when he was not even in the decision making process is unfortunate. Review of the Mayor for this event by politicians and citizens with a political ax to grind is at best disgraceful, even for liberals and progressives.
Where has all common sense gone to.When you have a fire at your door step I don’t think you have to get permisson or be told to evacute.
Seems like the Amercian sheeple can’t make decisions without being told to.
lilithia
“Just as Incident Command can’t tell local fire departments what to do, it can’t order evacuations within local jurisdictions. Tim Johnson, public information officer with the federal incident management team, has said that inside city limits, “ultimately its the mayor” who makes an evacuation call.” – Independent July 25-31, 2012
Colorado Springs city code allows the Fire Chief (Chief Brown) to make the call also. Chief Brown has also been quoted as saying he was the one to order evacuations in Colorado Springs, however, he can’t speak to why it took until nearly 4:15 to issue that order.
I just want to know why, when the fire getting into Queens Canyon (2:27 pm on Jun 26) was supposed to be a trigger point to evacuate the remainder of Mountain Shadows did it take nearly 2 hrs from the time fire was reported in the canyon to issue the evacuation order?
I don’t live in Mountain Shadows, but I know that when the pre evac order came out at 1:40, I’d have started packing (if I wasn’t already packed!) and not needed to be told to leave.
Nobody seems to know why it took so long (nearly 2 hrs) to issue the orders.