New Report Cites Problems in Battle Against 1993 Fire : Probe: Effort to put out Calabasas / Malibu blaze was hampered by communications failures, undertrained staff, coordination woes.

Communications failures, undertrained firefighters and lack of coordination may have contributed to the devastation of the 1993 Calabasas/Malibu fire, which killed three people, injured hundreds, charred 16,000 acres and destroyed almost 400 homes, according to a new report.

But the lengthy document prepared by the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the independent Rand Corp. defended the response of 7,000 firefighters from 485 agencies who battled whipping winds, 200-foot flames and inaccessible terrain spread out over thousands of acres of dense vegetation.

“I for one would never take away from the job done by the firefighters; they gave it their all,” said county Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman. “There are things in terms of the systems that support the firefighters that need to be improved.”

The report rejected allegations that resources were unfairly concentrated in wealthy or influential areas. Although those complaints pointed to heavy deployment in exclusive Malibu Colony and along Pacific Coast Highway, the report found the tactics justified.

In addition to the three deaths, 21 civilians and 565 firefighters were injured in the firestorms, which began Nov. 2 and raged for nearly a week. Damage to private property was $208 million. Public property losses totaled more than $10.8 million.

The 166-page glossy, bound book with color photos and extensive diagrams and maps was developed from interviews, internal Fire Department documents, commander and general staff memos and the separate Rand report.

Perhaps the biggest problems stemmed from poor communication and coordination, which hampered operations, interfered with command, endangered firefighters and might have contributed to the staggering losses, according to the report.

In some cases, firefighters in areas where injuries and significant losses occurred were surprised by the direction of the flames, in part because of difficulty in receiving radio transmissions and because of delays in broadcasts, Freeman said.

In addition, out-of-town firefighters sent to Rambla Pacifico and Upper Tuna Canyon in the Malibu area worked from maps with erroneous escape routes that trapped them in their positions, according to the report.

Analysts also found that deployment information “was not always available and accurate” and that information about water availability was either not known or not shared. By 5 p.m. on Nov. 2, large fires were burning in about 15 areas and keeping track of the volume of information was nearly impossible, according to the report.

The analysts noted a pressing need to update information and communications systems--ideas Freeman endorses.

The report recommended that for all brushy areas, the county gather and distribute basic information about roads, escape routes, private and public water sources, building locations and the condition of the vegetation. Freeman said the department has prepared color-coded maps of county brushy areas to correct the problem.

The department is exploring satellite and other new technology as well to help upgrade communications, he said.

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Smoothly integrating the massive assistance provided by outside agencies during an emergency, he added, will always cause some problems and missteps.

“There are brush fires and then there is a fire like this,” Freeman said. “I’m not sure you can train someone to be comfortable in something like this--we had veteran firefighters who said they had never seen anything like it.”

In terms of deployment, the Rand report found the initial dispatch to have been “appropriately massive.”

“This early, massive deployment frequently worked and allowed aggressive firefighting, which saved a substantial number of homes without incurring substantial injuries to firefighters,” the Rand report said.

That type of deployment was not as successful in the mid-Rambla Pacifico and La Costa areas, where low water availability, wind, narrow roads with significant brush canopies and inexperienced firefighters hampered operations.

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Some of the more dramatic criticisms from the overall report:

* Requests for water drops either went unheard or unheeded. One team protecting the Serra Retreat reported no way to communicate the need for water drops when area hydrants failed. In the mid-Rambla Pacifico area, firefighters first requested water at 4:09 p.m. Nov. 2, 1 1/2 hours after some of the team had been overrun. A county fire pilot later recounted hearing requests for water, but without enough data for him to determine where the drops were needed.

* The mid-Rambla Pacifico area, in which 63% of the single-family residences were destroyed and several men were injured, was being guarded by firefighters inexperienced in battling brush fires. Many firefighters who responded from outside Los Angeles were also unfamiliar with the area and lost contact with their division supervisor.

* One division chief believed he had sent a strike team into the La Costa neighborhood, but the team reported to PCH. The strike team leader went to La Costa about 7 p.m. Nov. 2, after the firefight, for mop-up operations. “The devastation in La Costa was enormous,” the report states, “with 87 structures destroyed.”

* The division chief in Sweetwater Canyon, where four single-family homes were lost, said he was unable to communicate with his commander or with nearby teams from other agencies. While dismissing reports of uncooperative firefighters, the report concluded that it is probable that a few firefighters acted improperly “whether due to exhaustion, lack of commitment to their profession or due to lack of training in wildfires.”