Normal Heights: A Year Later : Tragedy Lit a Fire Under Authorities to Find Ways Not to Repeat Mistakes

A year ago, a fire roared up the steep canyons of Mission Valley, an inferno fed by acres of thick chaparral and range grasses made into kindling by a record-breaking heat wave.

Like a horse at full gallop, the blaze raced through Normal Heights, destroying home after home after home; not just homes but also the accumulations of a lifetime--family photographs, heirlooms, keepsakes.

The fire raged for hours, battled by more than 400 firefighters from as far as Riverside County, aircraft and 97 fire engines.

Finally, eight hours after it began at 11:53 a.m., after it had climbed the canyon to devastate the flat heights above, the conflagration was controlled. By then, the blaze had burned through 64 homes and had damaged 20 others, as well as 18 vehicles, 3 businesses and 18 outbuildings. Remarkably, although a few thousand people were forced to flee, no one was killed or severely injured.

Left behind on that long, hot day on June 30, 1985, when it seemed the flames would never die, was the haunting image of a World War II bombing scene: fireplaces and brick chimneys standing amid smoldering rubble, naked trees seared black, people crying openly at their losses.

The Normal Heights fire, which was touched off by a person still unknown behind Lehr’s Greenhouse Restaurant & Florist near the junction of Interstates 8 and 805, will be remembered as San Diego’s most destructive.

As often happens in the aftermath of such tragedy, questions were raised about city policies and procedures, and the government bureaucracy began a months-long effort to find ways to prevent a repetition.

A special city task force was formed, led by Councilwoman Gloria McColl, who two weeks before the fire had gone door-to-door in the canyon areas of her Normal Heights district, urging residents to trim overgrown brush as a precaution against fire.

Questions were asked, particularly about why state-dispatched aerial tankers that drop fire-retardant chemicals took so long to arrive.

Most of that effort is complete. Several important changes and additions to policies and programs have been made, among them a new multimillion-dollar program for clearing brush on public property approved by the City Council on June 20 and an aggressive public awareness campaign.

But other proposals, such as a full-scale project to clear chaparral and brush on private property, have either languished or been approved only in pieces.

Overall, however, it appears clear the city is better prepared to react to and fight another major canyon fire than it was last year.

But, given the vagaries of nature and geography, there is no guarantee, despite the improvements, against another Normal Heights fire happening again.

Like earthquakes, devastating fires in brush-carpeted canyons and hills of Southern California are part of living here. The best that can be done, authorities say, is to minimize the risk.

“We will try to do what we’ve always done, get ahead of the fire and stop it as soon as possible. But when Mother Nature starts kicking up her heels, as happened in Normal Heights, there are no guarantees,” says Deputy Fire Chief Gary Easton.

Of the city’s approximately 220 miles of canyon ridges on which are perched homes and other structures, about 74 to 83 miles have been identified as being the most potentially dangerous. This represents roughly 5,300 private lots, according to city reports.

Although the city has long had a weed abatement program, it has been focused almost exclusively on vacant flatland. Under this program, property owners who ignore city demands to cut down their weeds are billed by the city for having a city-hired private contractor do the job.

The problem with the weed abatement program, however, is that it doesn’t apply to property on slopes steeper than 25%, which eliminates almost all canyon property.

McColl has wanted that changed, but so far she hasn’t had much success. McColl and the special task force recommended creation of a brush management plan for private property at a cost of $2.2 million.

Instead, the City Council, at the urging of the city manager, who called the program too costly, opted for a $200,000 program. That money, approved for expenditure nine days ago, will be used to hire inspectors to survey privately owned canyon land and determine which lots are the most hazardous.

Once those properties have been identified, land owners will be told to remove brush and trees within 30 feet of their homes and to severely trim vegetation for another 70 feet--a standing recommendation for all canyon residents. People who don’t comply with the order will be taken to court for violating the city’s fire hazard ordinance.

The problem with that, according to McColl’s office, is it takes too long to go through the courts and that in the meantime, the fire hazard still sits there, a time-bomb endangering the neighborhood.

“There is a (fire hazards) ordinance on the books to force people to clean their property or face civil action, but essentially, Gloria doesn’t think that’s enough,” said Jeff Marston, McColl’s aide who has specialized on the Normal Heights fire. McColl was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

A major brush clearing project, however, is scheduled. The main focus of this endeavor is the brush and chaparral concentrated on public property.

Of the 12,000 to 14,000 acres owned by the city, 2,200 acres have been identified as in need of clearing over a period of eight years.

The recently approved city budget contains $900,000 for removal on 915 acres identified as the most hazardous, typified by places such as Tecolote Canyon and canyons around Lake Hodges.

The program is based on information provided by the California Division of Forestry (CDF), which has estimated the average brush growth cycle in Southern California at eight years.

Under the new revolving program, once brush is cleared from a canyon, the city won’t return again for eight years, when it starts the cycle over again.

While $900,000 has been budgeted for the most hazardous areas, the cost in later years for clearing less dangerous areas is estimated at $645,000 a year.

At the moment, the city is leaning toward using private contractors to do the brush removal, according to Fire Marshal Jim Sewell, although a final decision is probably weeks away.

Even though the brush removal program is likely to have a positive effect over time, it will be months before the first canyon bush is cut, city and Fire Department officials acknowledge.

A Normal Heights resident, Judith Abeles, has filed a $50-million lawsuit alleging that city officials “took little or no action” to clear dry brush from public lands in and near the canyons where the fire started or to implement an effective brush abatement program on private property.

A source of controversy during and after the Normal Heights blaze was the delay in air tanker help. The fire had burned for about 6 1/2 hours before CDF planes arrived on the scene and pelted the inferno with retardant.

That air support was considered a key element in finally controlling the fire and preventing it from spreading east to other neighborhoods.

Within days of the fire, it was revealed that the problem was a case of miscommunication. The Fire Department’s request for CDF planes was informal and more of an inquiry about the status of planes. The request never stated the urgency of the Normal Heights situation nor asked for a formal order number.

But all that is worked out now, according to city fire and CDF officials.

“You could say we’re going more by the book,” said Douglas Allen, fire prevention officer at the CDF office in El Cajon. “The procedure requesting air tankers is more formalized now. The request will have to come in with a request number and a reference to the (fire scene) incident commander.”

In yet another potentially important change, federal and state authorities late last year eliminated the much-criticized procedural requirements that caused delays as long as 24 hours before California Air National Guard planes could be pressed into service to fight wildfires.

Now, Air National Guard planes equipped to fight fires can be activated quickly at the request of the governor without further time-consuming clearances from federal departments, including the National Fire Control Center in Idaho, the Pentagon and the Military Air Lift Command in Illinois.

The cumbersome bureaucracy came under scathing attack because during the Normal Heights fire, the military planes--three C-130s--sat idle in Van Nuys Airport in the San Fernando Valley, a half-hour away by air. The problem was repeated in a July 2 blaze in Los Angeles’ Baldwin Hills district that killed three people while, again, planes sat on the runway.

As part of the streamlining, the CDF is now designated as the lead agency for requests for state, U.S. Forest Service and Air National Guard planes. “We have a one-stop shopping operation in place now,” explained Tom Kelly, the CDF chief in El Cajon.

Lt. Col. Vic Rippe of the Air National Guard said, “If they need us in a hurry, now they can get us.” While the guard had three planes available last summer, one of them has since been transferred to North Carolina and hasn’t been replaced.

Another important development involving planes is a pending agreement between the San Diego Fire Department and the CDF that would automatically send planes to the city when a fire is first reported.

The two agencies are identifying high fire-hazard canyons that are safely accessible from the air for retardant drops. Once this is done, perhaps as soon as July 12, planes would be automatically dispatched on report of a fire, according to Deputy Fire Chief Easton and the CDF.

Had such a procedure been in place last year, and had the canyons rising from Mission Valley been included, it’s very likely air tankers would have been on the scene hours earlier.

The special task force also recommended that the city buy a firefighting/emergency services helicopter, similar to those used in Los Angeles. But the city manager’s office recommended against it, citing the $3 million cost of buying or leasing the helicopter.

McColl’s office says she will continue to press for the helicopter purchase in next year’s city budget.

Among other changes since the Normal Heights blaze, the Fire Department now has an internal procedure that automatically sends more fire engines to the scene of a canyon fire, depending on the area and availability of equipment, Easton said.

And the city has given the Fire Department $50,000 to either upgrade or buy a new central communications van. The lack of an adequate mobile communications center caused problems last year, particularly when outside fire departments arrived to help.

In addition to new hardware and changes in policies, the city is attempting to perk up public interest.

Any complacency that may have set in among residents living on canyon rims is sure to be shaken by a $20,000 series of radio and television commercials and the distribution of more than 50,000 brochures.

The television commercials, which have just begun airing, use slow-motion news footage that pans the eerie Normal Heights landscape, ominous music and the deep voice of Bob Walker to impart the message: “Your worst enemy could be your own backyard.”

“We want to give the audience a jolt on this . . . this is the county’s worst natural enemy,” said Walker, who along with his partner Ken Gladstone, produced the commercials. “We think the spots are very effective.”

The money for the commercials and the brochures, which also use stark pictures from the fire, was raised from private sources, including the San Diego Fire Fighters Union, the Building Industry Assn., the Assn. of Independent Insurance Agents and the Southland Corp., which will distribute some of the brochures at its 7-Eleven stores in San Diego.

The commercials will be redundant for some homeowners, who have already trimmed brushes and trees, installed backyard sprinkler systems and planted fire-retardant plants. A drive around various canyons, such as San Clemente, shows some residents took last year’s fire to heart.

Although hot summertime temperatures and strong Santa Ana winds have yet to arrive, the fire season is officially here. On paper, San Diego appears ready, if nature cooperates.

“The big question is if there is another big fire, will everything work?” says Walter Slater, an aide to Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-La Mesa), who held legislative hearings on the fire last August.

“The jury,” Slater said, “is still out.”