fire weather :Coordinated, quick response vital to fighting fires

With fires weather erupting throughout Southern California like a metastasizing disease, fire authorities quickly launched an expansive, highly coordinated response to get firefighters where they were needed Sunday, from coastal canyons in Malibu to the sun-scorched exurbs of Agua Dulce.

As more than a dozen fires burned from San Diego to Santa Barbara counties, officials relied on a system of mutual aid, tried and tested every year by Santa Ana winds. But they struggled on a day when fires popped up on every front like some guerrilla force.

"We are stretched very thin and we are in regular contact with fire weather authorities across the state, moving resources as necessary," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman said. "We are a long way from being out of the woods."

Grappling with so many conflagrations at one time is much like commanding an army. There is the macro-view: The broad strategy of deploying regional resources and hundreds of firefighters. And there's the micro- view: The harrowing work of a lone crew cutting a fire line on a ridge.

By late Sunday afternoon, at least 2,000 firefighters had been mobilized throughout Southern California. The needs were so intense that the Governor's Office of Emergency Services put out calls throughout the state asking departments to contribute crews.

"We've sent three strike teams to Malibu, five engines in each," said Glenn Patterson, division chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in Riverside.

Although the state relays calls for help, there is no statewide command center.

In Los Angeles County, for instance, incident commanders at each fire weather call headquarters, where dispatchers and chiefs track available resources. If the department needs assistance, it first turns to fire departments within the county, as well as Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Under the state agreement, departments must come to each other's aid -- if they can.

At the mouth of Malibu Canyon some 300 Orange County firefighters had the micro-view of the blaze and converged with orders to protect the city's commercial strip.

"We can't go up into the brush, it's too dangerous," Orange County Battalion Chief Frank Frasz said. His teams scanned roofs and roadsides to track flying embers. They stayed mobile, unattached to hydrants, ready to douse flare-ups with the water from their tanks.

"We get to the smaller fires before they get bigger," he said. "We kind of hang out and watch and see what it does because embers are flying around. There is a lot of standing around and waiting, and a couple of minutes of terror."

L.A. County Fire Weather Inspector Edward Osorio calls incident command at a major brush fire "almost organized chaos."

"It's as if the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, but at the end of the day, the fire's out, and it works," he said at the scene in Malibu.

Los Angeles County Fire Battalion Chief Terry DeJournett chafed at being inside the command post on the Pepperdine University campus. But, he said, "I'm good at it, so I'm stuck . . . You have to be able to listen to three radios at once and take phone calls at the same time."

DeJournett was the center of the firefighting juggernaut, keeping and relaying information, assigning crews to certain tasks, handing out no-nonsense directives. "We are going to have some fun problems tonight," he told crews of deploying firefighters.

"Narrow roads, and a lot of debris. We need to make sure we keep our speed down, and we need to keep everyone hydrated BEFORE they go to their assignments. . . ."

As he spoke, cell phones rang frequently and fire commanders stepped outside to take calls.

Once in the field, decisions can be made instantly if fire crews find that orders from above no longer make sense, Osorio said. "Even the best-laid plans," he said, "change moment to moment."

jill.leovy@latimes.com  joe.mozingo@latimes.com