FEMA Sends Regional Disaster Response Teams to California Fires

“Our experiences during past disasters have taught us to assume a proactive, forward-leaning approach” - FEMA's Susan Reinertson

U.S. Navy Chief Aviation Electronics Technician Rexford Sackett looks down on miles of burnt terrain in San Diego, Calif., as he and fellow sailors prepare to drop water on the blaze from a MH-60S Seahawk helicopter on Oct. 23, 2007. Sackett is assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 85 that is providing helicopters specially equipped with a 420-gallon extinguishing trough used to dump water on San Diego's ongoing fire disaster. The blaze has already forced more than a million people from their homes. DoD photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Chris Fahey

(SEATTLE) - As wildfires continue to spread in Southern California, the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency Region 10 Administrator Susan Reinertson has called for the deployment of regional disaster response teams, to supplement state and local response efforts.

“Yesterday afternoon, Region 10 deployed 24 emergency responders to the affected Counties, and our Mobile Emergency Response System (MERS) detachment has sent a large convoy of support vehicles south toward California,” said Reinertson.

“MERS is setting up a 300 person Joint Field Office in Pasadena, and will provide communications and command and control support for additional forward operating sites located near front line fire-fighting positions.”

FEMA Region 10, headquartered in Bothell, WA, serves the states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The region is also poised to provide its resources to support disasters in other areas of the United States when necessary.

“Our experiences during past disasters have taught us to assume a proactive, forward-leaning approach,” says Reinertson, “This deployment is one example of how the new FEMA will make sure that state and local governments are getting the help that they need from the federal government." Over 510,000 people have been evacuated as a result of the California wildfires, and more than 1,600 homes have already been destroyed. 20 fires have burned more than 400,000 acres from Mexico’s border to northern Los Angeles County, causing the largest mass evacuation of residents in the State’s history.

Yesterday, President George Bush issued an Emergency Disaster declaration for California, and ordered greater federal aid to supplement state and local response activities in the affected areas of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties. As a result of the federal declaration, FEMA is authorized to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives and protect public health, safety, and property, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the affected counties.
Source: FEMA