Nice to see this links return and the new info. I have worked as a forestry and city firefighter and have seen alot of mismanaged fire situations. Control burns runnning amok and destroying homes. I do not miss forestry firefighting since I found my self put into several dangerous positions when foolish management decisions were made. On one fire ( a control burn that was out of control ) we were ordered up a highway in the mountains that was presently being overrun by the fire in a very heavy fuel area with large trees lining the roadside. The flames were literally flying over the road and it was getting hot in the fire cab from the radiant heat and I remember thinking who made the idiotic decision to send us up this road. We would drive through thick smoke so dense that all you could do was go very slow then suddenly you'd hit areas where the flames were flying across the road. We had to keep going since the main portion of the fire was just hitting this area and it was going to get worst. On this same fire alot of rigs grouped together at a main intersection and the big boys were doing stratagey. I went over to where they were doing there planning and listened in. It was clear from the discusion that at that time they were aware that the fire was heading for a small community of homes. There we all sat for another hour before suddenly we were ordered to head quickly for this community since the fire had in the meantime reached it. When we arrived homes were already on fire. Why weren't we ordered here an hour ago when the threat was known? We were just sitting around waiting! When we got there the person running our rig did something incredibly stupid. We stopped at a house that wasn't burning but a wood pile off to the side of it was burning. It was far enough away from the house that it realistically would have never threatened this house. We spent a good 25 minutes there ripping apart this wood pile to put this fire out while in sight down the street homes were burning. I remember just standing there leaning on my shovel in total frustration at how stupid what were doing was. That was a real turning point for me in deciding I wasn't going to fill my lungs with smoke to do stupid things like we were doing. So I became an electrician. Now I run my own show on custom homes and don't have to pollute my lungs with smoke :-) In the Willow fire where all the rigs were sitting around in Apple Valley while the homes were burning is exactly the same situation. You have fire crews waiting for orders from the biggies whos strategy is inept and way behind the progress of the fire. In all of this I don't mean to propose that all firefighting that is done is done in chaos. Fire fighters are involved with very extreme situations and much of the time they do an outstanding job of protecting lands and property from fires. The situation of the burnt homes in apple valley while rigs sit is a problem that occures more regularly than people know. Fire departments are not going to encourage information that shows that they have mismanaged a fire. Another thing that I find suspicious about the Willow Fire is the fires origin being attributed to a camp fire for the first 2 weeks. I saw photos of this point of origin and it was completely obvious that this was not a campfire but it was a burnt bush. There were no rocks in a ring like a campfire and you could see the white marks from the burnt branches on the ground going out from the center of this bush. Why would they claim a burnt bush as a campfire for 2 weeks. Special arson investigators I'm sure were at the site of origin shortly after the fire began and it took them two weeks to finally decide that this was no campfire. I don't think this picture even shows the point of origin. Could have been a tactic to divert attention until the traces of the true cause were cleaned up. This whole bit smells really fishy to me. I've spoken to some differant sources that indicate that wrongdoing by the forestry is behind this fires inception and that measures were taken to cover thier tracks. Unless some kind of solid proof comes to light this situation of how this fire started and how it was mismanaged will fade into distant memory and be forgotten. Such a shame since it affected so much, wildlife, vegetation, homes and peoples lives.
