myBurbank Talks
myBurbank Talks
SPECIAL: Ensuring Burbank's Safety and Preparedness with Eric Baumgardner
What does it take to keep a city like Burbank safe and prepared for emergencies? Join us as we highlight insights from Eric Baumgardner, the Emergency Management Coordinator for the Burbank Fire Department, who shares his extensive expertise in handling the intricacies of emergency management. Discover the essential role of collaboration in emergency management and how Burbank’s community-focused strategies cover all bases—from mitigation and preparedness to response and coordination. Eric’s unique position involves working with local, state, and neighboring city agencies, ensuring that Burbank remains resilient in the face of potential hazards.
We unravel the complexities of mutual aid systems, spotlighting how fire services across the Verdugo area come together to efficiently tackle large-scale incidents. Learn about the seamless deployment of resources, such as air utility vehicles, which bolster response capabilities without taxing any single department. The cooperation extends beyond fire services, with Area C playing a pivotal role in coordinating law enforcement and disaster management across Burbank and its surrounding regions. Eric provides a fascinating look at the assembly of strike teams and task forces, highlighting the robust frameworks that ensure a coordinated response to emergencies like wildfires.
As we face the challenges of 2025, from potential storms to earthquake readiness, Eric emphasizes the importance of proactive community engagement. Reflecting on past incidents like the La Tuna Fire, we discuss how infrastructure improvements and regular public awareness initiatives have enhanced the city's resilience. We underscore the necessity of individual preparedness with resources such as ReadyBurbank.org and Alert Burbank, encouraging listeners to actively participate in building a safer community. Eric’s passion for emergency management is evident throughout our conversation, offering listeners valuable insights into the often unseen yet vital preparations that keep Burbank ready for any disaster.
From deep in the Burbank Media District. It's time for another edition of my Burbank Talks, presented by the staff of my Burbank. Now let's see what's on today's agenda as we join our program. Hello Burbank, craig Sherwood here with you once again. A very interesting show in interesting times. I've got Eric Baumgardner with me today from the Burbank Fire Department and let me give you a little background on Eric.
Speaker 1:Eric Baumgardner serves as the Emergency Management Coordinator for the City of Burbank Fire Department. He has responded to numerous state and national incidents of significance, including multiple governor-proclaimed emergencies and presidentially declared disasters across multiple states emergencies and presidentially declared disasters across multiple states. Eric has been deployed by the California Office of Emergency Services on Emergency Management Mutual Aid Requests to assist other agencies in their emergency operations, centers in various roles and is also deployed as part of an incident management team for field response. He serves or has served on numerous technical committees with the County of Los Angeles or the State of California, including the State EOC Credentialing Program Steering Committee and the State Standardized Emergency Management System Technical Committee. Eric has been a public safety professional for over 20 years, specializing in emergency management.
Speaker 1:Prior to his career with the City of Burbank, eric served as the emergency coordinator with the County of Los Angeles and then with the city of Los Angeles. Eric has served as an expert witness for emergency planning for the United States District Court and has testified for the state assembly as an emergency management subject matter expert. A lot of stuff going on. So, eric, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me A pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this is really interesting because the times we're in right now. So let's start off. We heard your professional side. Let's hear a little about your professional side. I mean your personal side, if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually have ties to the community. So I was actually born here in the city of Burbank back when there was a Burbank community hospital a long, long, long time ago, grew up in the area. I grew up in Glendale and when my parents bought a house we moved back to Burbank. I've been a longtime Burbank residence ever since then when I moved out. I've stayed local to Burbank. Since then when I moved out, I've stayed local to Burbank since then. So not only do I work in the city of Burbank and serve the community of Burbank, I have ties to the city with my friends and family being here. So I have skin in the game when it comes to what I do with the city.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, I think you know I've seen every time something goes on that's big. There you are at city council meetings briefing the council and the public Briefing the public because the council already knows in advance. I'm sure you send them updates immediately when things go on. Let's start off by asking what the emergency management coordinator does, and what does emergency management mean for the city of Burbank?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great thing. So emergency management is unique. Everybody always Burbank yeah, that's a great thing. So emergency management is unique. Everybody always sees fire trucks going down the street, police cars going down the street, even water and power, public works, parks and recreation. Pretty much they know what these different agencies do day to day. Emergency management is more of a behind the scenes thing. In the city of Burbank it resides within the fire department. With most cities here in Los Angeles County If they've got an incorporated city with a fire department, with most cities here in Los Angeles County If they've got an incorporated city with a fire department, the emergency management role lies within the fire department. Larger cities, like the city of Los Angeles, have a dedicated department just for emergency management. Emergency management really is the behind the scenes coordination for everything.
Speaker 2:We have four phases technically five, but I'll go into the four phases that we're responsible for. First thing that we do is we're responsible for everything. We have four phases technically five, but I'll go into the four phases that we're responsible for. First thing that we do is we're responsible for mitigation looking at different hazards that might impact our jurisdiction and how can we lessen the impacts of those hazards Prior to an incident, of course, yes, prior to an incident. So we know that it's Southern California, we have earthquakes, wildfires, things like that. So we look at all of the possible hazards and it's our job to look at how do we mitigate those effects to the city. After we look at what we can do to mitigate, well, we can't remove the threat altogether.
Speaker 2:So then we go into our preparedness phase, where we prepare both the community as well as the city departments or the jurisdiction to respond to such an incident.
Speaker 2:So we want to make sure that we're doing both our internal preparedness making sure our departments are well aware of what their roles and responsibilities are in emergency as well as that external preparedness. So you'll see me out at different fire prevention things or disaster preparedness events where we're really trying to educate the public that they need to take some responsibility and be prepared, make a plan, have a kit. Next we move into our response phase. So when the incident does happen, we go into that response mode and while you see fire department responding to the fires law, responding to criminal offense, emergency management is really the orchestrator behind everything. We're kind of like that orchestra conductor. I don't make the music and I don't play the instruments. My job is really to look at what would best sound right in this orchestra and what they should actually be playing in that tempo. So my job is really to coordinate our internal agencies, so our city agencies, as well as coordinating with neighboring cities and state and local officials, and coordinate those things that we might need for mutual aid or things like that.
Speaker 1:Right. So you're not at the scene saying, okay, you know, and engine 11, go over there and hit, you know, hit that exposure. You're, you're, you're big picture Correct. And you're not. You're at the scene directing personnel. You're, you're looking at, assessing the entire situation.
Speaker 2:Correct. I might be at the scene, but my job is not to handle tactical response. My job is to be there as an advisor. So our incident commander maybe from the fire department or whoever is leading this, they'll be responsible for all the tactical operations. If it's a wildland fire, they're responsible for it. I'm there really listening to what they're doing and trying to think ahead. If we're starting to do evacuations, it's my job to start thinking about shelter operations and making sure that we have a shelter and a place for people to go. It's my job, when we have that wildfire, to also start thinking about the future with recovery efforts and, depending on when we have it like the Eaton Fire is a great example Late in the year like this, where we're in winter and there's rain right around the corner making sure that we're taking those efforts immediately to make sure that we're prepared for that next tragedy that we might have. So I'm looking at the strategic level stuff while the incident commander is looking at the tactical level stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, it's a lot of responsibility actually. So in August of 1979, burbank Fire Department went on to Glendale, pasadena, formed Verdugo Fire Communications and merged the three cities together to dispatch, and by 2000, there were six more cities who joined and now there are up to 14 agencies that Verdugo dispatches for. So I remember the old days of, you know, we just had single, a single number on our engine, except for we had old engine 11A, yes, but you know now Burbank can all have are the 10s, glendale's in the 20s, pasadena 30s and so on and so on. Each city they have their first two numbers that are identified, or their first number, depending on how many numbers there are. Numbers are identified, or the first number, depending on how many numbers there are. Why is Verdugo and not having it centrally located only like it used to be, and our police still are? But why is Verdugo a good thing for Burbank?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a lot of people, as to your point, when they see our fire engines they think we have way more fire stations than we actually have because of our numbering system. They might see engine 16 going down the street thinking we have 16 fire engines. But yes, verdugo Fire Communication Center is our central point. It's got 14 agencies, 13 cities and one joint powers authority being the airport.
Speaker 2:With that, the way we number our resources is, for example, burbank, we're Battalion 1. So our Battalion Chief is called Battalion 1 on the radio and then all of our apparatus or everything else is Engine 11, engine 12, engine 13. And you can think of that first digit as the Battalion number. So Battalion 1, engine one is engine 11. We move over into Glendale, that's battalion two. That's why all their stuff starts with a two and so forth. It's a good thing because we actually run what we call an automatic aid system. So we've kind of run like a borderless fire department, even though we're each autonomous fire departments with our own administration, even though we're each autonomous fire departments with our own administration, our own budget and we are responsible to our city and our constituents when it comes to response, to improve that response and make sure we have better response times and we can serve the public with specialized equipment that might not be available in each of the cities. We run a borderless fire system, so the closest appropriate apparatus may be what responds.
Speaker 1:Let me get into that a little bit. So you're talking about an air utility, you're talking about a rescue cushion. Different cities have these things, so they would only like one city has it for all the cities and they dispatch to any city that needs it.
Speaker 2:Correct. So for us we don't have our own full USAR component. We do have personnel who are trained in USAR and we do have USAR tools and equipment on our ladder trucks. But to actually have a full USAR component, we either have a city of Glendale responding into the city of Burbank or city of Pasadena responding in. They have full USAR components for the Verdugo system. As such, we provide a full complement for a hazardous materials response. So if something's going on in another city that needs a hazardous materials response, although they might have personnel that have gone through hazardous materials training, our team is the one that would actually respond, along with possibly Glendale's hazmat team. So we would respond on that hazmat capability.
Speaker 2:You had mentioned air. So we have air utility vehicles as well. We have a large structure fire or something of a hazmat that requires us to change out air bottles frequently. Each of our rigs carry spare air bottles. Our ladder trucks, our engine companies, ambulances, they can change out air bottles, but at some point we're going to need more than what we even carry on the rigs. So we do have air utility vehicles also spread out throughout the uh, throughout the Verdugo system, and air utility can be assigned as well to refill bottles on site.
Speaker 2:So it's instead of each department having to invest the money into all the specialized equipment that may sit around and not be used.
Speaker 2:Um, all the time the equipment is spread out through the different agencies and when needed it responds from that agency to a neighboring city. But it's not just our specialized equipment. You might be like on the border near Burbank and Glendale and there might be a traffic collision and you might actually see a Burbank fire engine and a Glendale ladder truck because they were the two closest appropriate apparatus to respond to that call. So it's not uncommon, even for non big events where we need specialized equipment, for our units to cross borders just because they are the closest unit to that scene. For example, we're over here in District 12's area. For truck 12 to get all the way up on the hill for something is going to take a little bit longer than possibly something coming from Glendale if it happens to be over in 27's area. So we want to make sure that we can get the closest equipment there quickly. It's really for the benefit of the community.
Speaker 1:It basically streamlines everything and response times go down for everything. So it makes it a good thing. It's mutually beneficial to everybody. Okay, let's expand it a little and now talk about Area C, which now you know Verdugo, burbank, of course, is part of. Area C, is now a larger area, so talk about what they call Area C. Yeah, so Area.
Speaker 2:C is what we call a mutual aid area. Now Area C is broken up slightly differently depending on the discipline. So we have three different Area Cs. We've got law enforcement mutual aid Area C, we've got disaster management Area C and then we've got fire Area C.
Speaker 2:And the reason why the borders are slightly different for example, emergency management Area C incorporates the city of San Fernando as well as law enforcement mutual aid incorporates the city of San Fernando as well as law enforcement mutual aid incorporates the city of San Fernando into it, but fire area c does not, because the city of San Fernando contracts to LA city fire department. So there's slight differences in the borders. But area c pretty much is for the most part Burbank to the far west and then along the foothill communities going east along the 210 corridor. So within that, any one of those three disciplines that I just talked about either emergency management, fire or law we have mutual aid plans already in place or automatic aid in the case of Verdugo. The nice thing about Verdugo is Area C lines up with our Verdugo cities, so it makes it more of an automatic aid versus a mutual aid type situation where they're already being dispatched by one centralized dispatch entity.
Speaker 1:Many times when there's a large brush fire somewhere in Santa Barbara, somewhere else, they always will they will contact Verdugo and they want a task force. So I guess that would be an Area C task force. Is that correct? Is that how they term it? Slightly, and sometimes you have two and even three. They can have one engine out of each city that goes up for the situation and a battalion chief.
Speaker 2:So we have a robust mutual aid component within the state of California.
Speaker 2:So when things like that a wildfire is a great example because those happen every year, when that out-of-count a wildfire is a great example because those happen every year, when that out of county wildfire happens, that county will put in a request for resources. They may request any kind, any type, which when things are really going bad. It doesn't matter what kind of resource and when I talk about kind of resource we're talking fire engine thing like that and then type we have different typings so type one, type two, type three, type fire engine, which is the different sizes of our fire engines, the ones that you typically see driving around the city of Burbank. That's a type one fire engine or our heaviest, our highest ability fire engine. So when they put that request in as any type, any kind, they're going to get whatever's the closest and they're going to report directly there. But a lot of times, like what you're talking about, they'll put in a request for two strike teams or possibly a task force and that request will go through that mutual aid process. It'll go to LA County fire first. La County fire then looks at the availability within the region of Los Angeles County.
Speaker 2:And, yes, we would send out a strike team and, for example, we might send out strike team 1201 alpha, 1201 being our designation for a Verdugo strike team. So we have 1201, 1202, 1203. That alpha at the end of it means it's a type one strike team. So type 1201, charlie, would be a type three type strike team. Um, typically things, typically we only do alphas because that's predominantly what we have. So, yes, you would see a strike team that's made up of multiple agencies, so that 1201 alpha basically ends up being a conglomerate of different fire resources from area C or Verdugo. So you might see, with 1201 alpha, for example, a Glendale or, excuse me, a Burbank battalion chief, one engine from Burbank, two engines from Glendale and two engines from Pasadena making up that strike team.
Speaker 1:It'll be six pieces of equipment altogether, One of them being a battalion chief, five being fire engines, and they will go out representing us as mutual aid to that jurisdiction and they can be gone, sometimes for as long as is there a maximum amount of time they're allowed to be gone, but I know sometimes they're gone for a week, in 10 or even 10 days.
Speaker 2:So the general rule of thumb is about 14 usually is what they try to cut people off at um as the maximum, but that can always be extended based on the needs of the incident. So there are ways that those can be extended. In an emergency they could be gone for just a couple hours on something local, where they're released as soon as there's no longer a threat to property and the locals will now continue the effort on their own. They might be there for a couple of days, or it might be a large campaign fire where we're sending resources to Northern California and they are there for two or more weeks and it's the same crew also.
Speaker 1:It's not. You don't rotate it out every two days like you do in the regular department. It's. That crew stays with that engine the entire time, Correct.
Speaker 2:There are some examples of exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, yes, if we send a crew out for one of these strike team deployments, it will be the same crew. When we have seen some of these extensions on deployments, we have made arrangements when they've been out for several weeks that we will use our van and we will take personnel up the day before a shift change and we'll swap the personnel out at that incident with their equipment and bring that other crew back to get some rest because they have been gone for several weeks. So there are some exceptions to that but for the most part, yes, that crew will be with those engines.
Speaker 1:The duration of the incident I want to touch on one point too. I've had a lot of complaints being in the media and people want to complain about everything. Oh, firemen make so much money. Look how much they make on the state of California. Look at how much money they make. We don't. Burbank does not pay for a task force when they're gone for two weeks. That money comes from the state. The state then pays Burbank and Burbank pays the firefighters. They're not making that much money in Burbank. They're making it because of how they go on task forces or outside things they do for agencies. So that's where the huge salaries come from. It's not because they're making $400,000 a year just being a fire fighter in Burbank.
Speaker 2:Correct when they deploy on something like that, um and they're gone, they are making overtime. And then there's also backfill, because to make sure that we have the appropriate coverage in the city of Burbank, we want to make sure that we still have coverage and we backfill our fire engines.
Speaker 1:Reserve rigs.
Speaker 2:Correct. We'll put our reserve rig in service. Just because we're sending personnel to help in another jurisdiction does not mean that Burbank is vulnerable. So I want to touch on that first to make sure that residents understand that just because we've sent equipment somewhere else doesn't mean we're deficient here. There might be a little period when we first send that rig out that we're back filling and calling in off-duty personnel, but we do make up that staffing level. Now, as you put, when they're out, yes, they are getting paid overtime. If they're going to be gone for multiple days beyond their normal shift and, yes, when that happens. Basically it is all through the reimbursement process. So if they're responding to a fire in a national forest up in Northern California, the U S forest service is responsible for that fire and they will be reimbursing the state of California, who in turn will be reimbursing the departments that responded to that incident. So, yes, we do get our salary reimbursed for an incident like that, and and deservedly so.
Speaker 1:Let's move on to the night of the fires. We recently had the tragic fires. I was actually listening to the radios. I heard the initial dispatch for the Eden fire, you know, and the first Purdue dispatch and the first size of it a hundred by 100 fire, starting small fire in the beginning but with those winds they exploded and you could hear how within 20 minutes it was already more than they could handle and the county. In fact we did a video, we have a video on our YouTube channel, the first 90 minutes of the Eden response, with just all the radio traffic. It's horrendous and, in all honesty, that could have happened in the city of Burbank very easily. If those winds were coming on a westward at that velocity and they started in the Burbank Hills, you could literally take out everything between the hills and the five freeway without, I mean, there's no way to stop that.
Speaker 2:It really isn't yeah, wind driven fire is a unique situation, yeah um, now verdugo got really overwhelmed with calls.
Speaker 1:It was, you know, 14 jurisdictions, everything else they're trying to, they're trying to, you know, deal with. So they actually went and each city had, each city dispatched their own calls. So you were involved in that entire process and we have, like an emergency center here in Burbank. So talk about that night a little bit and what went on, because I think you guys did a great job. I was listening the whole time and you guys were on Red 3 and doing amazing work with all the wires going down, the trees going down and, of course, first aid calls. So talk a little about that night and, when you decided to go to the emergency center, how that whole situation worked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in that situation we didn't activate our full emergency operations center, but we did activate a component of that. So we brought in key departments like I talked about. So we quickly realized we were being overwhelmed with calls just within our own jurisdiction. Even when they switched to that, our fire units were going out and handling wires down calls, trees down calls, and that takes time for those units to be tied up. Many of your listeners and viewers may not realize that out of our normal staffing, we have six fire engines. We have six stations. We actually up staff. That day we staffed an extra engine and some additional apparatus, including a fire patrol, which is a type six fire engine for us. So we did staff additional equipment. We did have additional resources, but even that was overwhelming those additional resources and going out and chasing every single wires down call and every single tree down call was tying up our resources for things that might not have really been a hazard and that public works or parks and recreation could handle. The tree down issue and we don't need to stay on scene for that. We can go investigate, make sure nobody's injured and then move on to the next call. And same thing for wires down. We could go out and make sure that there's no actual threat to property, there's no fire danger, nobody's injured or hurt from that, and then we can move on to the next call. If we can be working with water and power more directly, now there are ways for us to get a hold of them. But we were having to play telephone tag just like anybody else. They were also being inundated with calls from the public and everything else. So what we decided to do was stand up a component of our emergency operations center. We brought in representatives from those three key departments to sit basically across the table from our fire personnel. We were all in the same room. So that way when a call came in, we could make sure that A those departments were aware and could start sending resources at the same time, instead of having to take the time to then delay making phone calls to those departments and get those resources started. They could hear the radio dispatch simultaneously and they could also get their resources started together. We could have close communication and contact with those departments so we could find out etas. We could find out if this was something that we could even leave unmanned, where we didn't need to leave a fire engine there, they could confirm yes, wires are at that area but they're not energized. They're low voltage in that particular area and they're not energized so they're not a threat. So, yeah, our crew is about five minutes out, you can leave, type of thing. So it really enhanced that communication for all of that. So it really enhanced our capabilities as a city to perform more efficiently and more effectively.
Speaker 2:Like you said, with what happened with Verdugo communications, they were overwhelmed with all the calls from all the jurisdictions they're serving, plus the Eaton fire going on, plus the Eaton fire going on. So the way it worked is they were still dispatching out major emergency calls on red one, because we were still monitoring that, but routine calls were coming out on red two and it was up to each jurisdiction to hear those calls on red two. And then for us in Burbank we then would put it back out to our own equipment. Who's monitoring red three, which is another uh channel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we actually had two battalion chiefs sitting side by side. One was monitoring the incoming traffic from verdugo and the other was on the radio to our resources in the field. This way we could go ahead and actually communicate both directions field to the eoc, eoc back to verdugo if necessary. We eventually brought in the police department as well, as things really started to get a little more hectic in the evening and we needed some more traffic control issues solved and things like that. So we did bring in the police department at one point as well to spend the rest of the evening or night into the next day in there with us as well.
Speaker 1:I know you had our city manager, justin Hess, in there with you guys too. How long were you guys there for what time did you finally break it down? So?
Speaker 2:we kept the full component of everybody there, including the city manager, who was there as our director of emergency services. When we have a proclaimed emergency or the EOC stand up, he serves as our director of emergency services, so he was there the entire time with us. And I also want to make sure that we also give a shout out to our public information officer. Although they weren't there, we were in close contact because I'm sure you saw all the messaging we were getting out. Jonathan Jones, we now call JJ yeah, so we were on the phone with him constantly. I think, uh, jonathan and I were on the phone more times in that 24 hour period than we have been in the last year. But, yeah, we uh worked overnight through the night with the same people. Uh, keep in mind, most of the people who were there working overnight had been up and working their normal shift that day, and so, for most people, by the time they actually got out of there and went home to go to sleep, they were up well over 24 hours doing this.
Speaker 2:We started to stand down our emergency operations center component about 730 in the morning, 8 am the next morning, when the winds had died down and we were getting caught up on stuff. Basically we didn't shut down fully. We kept the Verdugo dispatching component there. We kept a couple of our personnel from the fire department. There are support personnel. The three people from the different departments got relieved by a new staff during the day. They came in, got a briefing and then from there. Since they were going to be at work already, we just had them go back to their offices and we were in contact with them at their office. Since it wasn't as hectic at that point we didn't have a need to keep them sitting directly across the table for us. So we officially started demobilizing the eoc probably around 8 am the next morning, but we didn't officially close it until the next evening because we still were managing through that all the way through that day in the EOC still.
Speaker 1:Was that a result of? I remember I want to say four or five, six years ago we had another wind event like this that was very serious and Verdugo was just dispatching one actually single engine responses for structure fires. Yeah, because there were so many things going on. Is this now system now a result of? They thought about that and said, hey, you know what, we need to do something different because there's just too much going on at once?
Speaker 2:It's not necessarily just because of the wind, so the one that you're referencing is actually back from 2011. It was the ones that happened that long ago, huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, back in San Gabriel.
Speaker 2:I know it doesn't seem like that, but that was the historic I remember that night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the historic wind event that we had was back in 2011 and that really, uh, took a toll on the san gabriel valley, especially in the pasadena area and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And, um, the dispatching, the way we do it for that catastrophic dispatching model, isn't necessarily just because the winds, it's for anything that we have. If we go into an earthquake mode or anything like that, um, we already default into going into our own jurisdictional dispatching. It's for anything that would overwhelm a the resources of Verdugo, so they can now manage the incoming calls and then take the outgoing dispatch off of their plate and give it to the local jurisdiction, as well as allowing the local jurisdiction to then control their resources, because there might be communications failures as a part of it, and so, by controlling your own resources, we have fallback communication and line of sight radio channels that we can fall back on. That might not necessarily make it back to Verdugo and we would lose all that communication altogether. So it's a plan not just for the winds, it's a plan for any true catastrophic situation or any emerging situation where it overwhelms our dispatch capabilities.
Speaker 1:I want to get back to Eden fire real fast Now. We've done that. At first happened I reached out to you I mean maybe two, three days afterward and I said, hey, I'd like to do a podcast and talk about all that. He said, hey, look, I'm really tied up. Right now. I'm in Pasadena, I'm doing things. What were you I mean you were very busy what were you doing during that entire you? You, I mean you were very busy. What were you doing during that entire you know, what were you responsible for? What were you trying to?
Speaker 2:accomplish at that time? Because it was I'm sure it was just mass chaos. Yeah, so it was a juggling multiple things.
Speaker 2:Organized chaos, though Organized chaos it's juggling multiple things, um, so that's a good point. Um, also because I talked about what I do and what I'm responsible for and in my bio you talked about I've responded to other jurisdictions. Our jurisdiction always comes first for me. So right after all the chaos in our own sitting, as we were starting to clean up that next day I wanted to get all of our paperwork in a line, started working on our recovery paperwork Once I started seeing that we were getting our stuff caught up. We had some discussions with Pasadena and also up in the unincorporated LA County area and stuff, so I offered our assistance to help in any way that we could.
Speaker 2:So for that day I kind of went over and started assisting Pasadena with troubleshooting some stuff with them. So their emergency coordinator was in their emergency operations center still dealing with a lot more than what we had going on as the fire. She utilized me for a little bit to go to their shelter site. I was kind of trying to track down some problems for her and get information back to her. It was kind of serving as some eyes and ears for her out in the field to get some of that information.
Speaker 2:But at the same time, I'm juggling what we have going on back in the city although, although the wind had died down considerably, we start to go into that next phase now for us, after the response, which is going to be our recovery phase. So at the same time, I'm working now at looking at our damage assessment and our initial damage estimates and what does that look like? So I was juggling multiple things but at the same time, that whole point and concept of mutual aid is one day we're going to need their help. So if we can offer our assistance, it's a mutually beneficial thing.
Speaker 1:We did the fires a few years ago. Yes, Well as we, as we record this podcast day, it's it's storm day 2025 in Burbank. What are your concerns right now? I mean, two weeks ago ago, it was the fires. Two weeks later, now it's it's flooding and and mudslides. What are you, what are your concerns right now, as this storm is starting to hit us?
Speaker 2:Well, first and foremost, I'd like to say that I am glad that I am not one of my colleagues right now in one of the other jurisdictions, uh, cause I've been there and we've done that here in Burbank. We have had those rains after, uh, wildland fires and it does bring secondary incidents that we have to be worried about. If you remember our 2017 latuna fire um, following the 2017 latuna fire early 2018, we had our own mud and debris flows made national news. Um, it's still. If you watch the weather channel, anytime they have these weather gone wrong type shows on. They always show the clip of the Prius going down Country Club Drive since it made national news.
Speaker 2:So for us right now, fortunately, we don't have any really recent burn scars that are of concern, at least for the rain amounts that we're looking at today.
Speaker 2:The fires that we have had in the past that are most recent have been in areas that will not really cause any harm to homes.
Speaker 2:If there is anything, our most recent one is the one that was up off Country Club Drive that actually, fortunately, actually burned right above the debris basin. So any mud and debris that we may generate from that and not from this storm, but from a heavier storm would go directly into the mud and debris basin. This storm for us, although you're hearing things going on with the news, with the Eaton fire, the Palisades fire, some of our other local fires LA County Public Works, who manages our watershed, has not issued any type of phase mudflow alerts for our city, and again, that's because our burn scars are a lot older. This, for the city of Burbank, would be considered a beneficial rain event. We're going to probably be seeing our heaviest rain here in the next few hours. It'll be this afternoon, into this evening, but even at that we're not looking at much more than a couple inches today and a few inches total over the two and a half days that we'll be getting rain.
Speaker 1:Now, what about those debris bases? I know back in 2000, you know some temperatures of fires we got them emptied immediately after a storm. Do you assess where they're at right now and if we need to get them emptied of debris before another big storm could come in two weeks? We have no way of knowing before another big storm could come in two weeks. We have no way of knowing. So do you have to monitor how much room is left in the debris basin and let the county know to clean it out or not? Or is that something you would look?
Speaker 2:at yes and no. So the county public works is very good. They manage most of our debris basins. We do have a couple of debris basins that are managed by our own city public works. County public works does send their crews out periodically to do inspections. When I say periodically it's multiple times a year to do inspections just for routine maintenance as well as capacity in them. After any significant rain event they always come out and check the capacity on them and then, if it is really a significant rain event, you'll even see them out there during the event checking on current capacity and to make sure that water is actually flowing from them as it's designed to.
Speaker 2:Now, although they do come out, I believe in trust but verify. So yes, I do go to all of our debris basins annually. I do check on them and then before any significant rain event. So anytime we have significant rain forecasted, I am on a direct conference calls with the national weather service. So, unlike just watching the news or getting something off of weathercom, we get specific weather briefings. I am tied into uh webinars or uh teleconferences directly with the national weather service.
Speaker 2:We pull spot forecasts specifically for Burbank. So when you hear a forecast for the LA region. We'll pull a forecast that gives us something specific for here in the city of Burbank, so we'll know what we're really facing. We'll look at the inches per hour that we're looking at and then we'll even send out emails to all the respected departments and what we might be facing. But if it's something significant, I always go out the day before and check. Even if I've checked not recently, I always go out at least the day before and get eyes on each of these debris basins, just for my own peace of mind, especially after what happened in 2018.
Speaker 1:well, let's hope we get through this in good shape. Now let's talk about the one subject nobody ever likes to talk about. It's inevitable, it's going to happen, it hasn't happened for maybe 30 years, and that's the big one an earthquake. I'm sure that takes the majority of your time to always make sure that you're preparing because it's going to happen. You don't know how serious, you don't know what's going to fail, what's not going to fail. We know we have very old overpasses and at one time we had three overpasses and if they fail, Burbank would actually be cut into two pieces. The five would be separating of the two pieces and resources might be stuck on one side or the other. Now we have a new Burbank Bridge, of course, which hopefully will be seismic stable in that situation. But talk to us a little about what you do for earthquake preparation, because you know it's going to happen and we're due. We're due right now for it. So let's talk a little about earthquakes. What do you have to say about what you do with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you brought up a good point. It's Southern California. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. We have small earthquakes all the time. Most people don't realize it, but if you actually go onto the USGS website and look, there are earthquakes every single day. Most just aren't felt 1.2, 1.5, yeah, it's just a matter of time. It's not a matter of if and.
Speaker 2:So when we look at that, we do prepare for earthquakes. One of the things that I like to say is we do have within the state a California catastrophic earthquake plan, and I'll go into that here in a second. But at the city level or jurisdictional level, we do keep catastrophic earthquake in the back of our mind. But when we do most of our planning doesn't matter if it's for earthquake or anything. We do what we call all hazard planning. So it's for any type of hazard. But when we do that, we don't necessarily plan for the 1% incident. We plan for the 90% incident. So we plan for the earthquakes that we're more commonly going to see, something like a Northridge type earthquake, and then we can scale up or scale down from there. But if we plan for the catastrophic earthquake, then we're not prepared for when something smaller happens, and if we prepare for the catastrophic earthquake, we think that's how it's going to be. We don't know how it's going to be yet. So preparing for that is preparing for the unknown. So when we look at this, we prepare for the most common size earthquake something more like a 6.4, something that we saw, like the Northridge earthquake, and how that will impact us. As you saw, even with the Northridge earthquake, it brought down overpasses. It brought down an overpass on the 10 freeway, it brought down the overpass on the 14 to the five interchange, so we don't have to think catastrophic to have something like that happen. So when we plan for something like this, yes, uh, that's one of the critical things that we look at.
Speaker 2:When you look at Burbank, it's bisected right in the middle with the five freeway. There's no getting around that. Um. And yes, as you said, uh, we had some aging overpasses. Uh, luckily, with the five widening project, we have had some new overpass construction put in. Um, they've also seismically retrofitted some of the other stuff that is here, um.
Speaker 2:But again, there's no guarantee. Right until it actually happens, we don't know. You can say something's rated to whatever magnitude, but until that magnitude happens, we don't know what will actually happen. So we have to prepare for the unknown and in that situation we do have what we would call area command that we would go into. So we have plans that if the city is bisected, we would go into area command and we would have what we have east of the fire freeway and what we have west of the fire freeway. Those would become two of our branches, so we would have East branch and West branch. We would then go into that area command, similar to what we talked about with Verdugo, where an incident commander on each side of the freeway would control the resources fire law, public works, whatever it may be on each side of the freeway.
Speaker 2:So we do have that in place that we can manage resources locally on each side and we at least have resources there for immediate need.
Speaker 2:We will, no matter what, even if overpasses did come down, be able to get resources around. We just have to take a little bit more time to get to a passable position to get across. But we will keep managed resources on both sides of the freeway to manage that immediate need resource. So if, for example, there's only two patrol units in the west side of the freeway at the time from law enforcement. We will make arrangements to start moving in equal numbers so we can actually have adequate response on both sides. Because it might be the point that they had a call going on when this happened and a lot of our resources were tied up, like, say, at the, and so it just happens when the earthquake took place, a lot of our resources were cut off on one side of the city. Well, the remaining units will handle that immediate need threat. We will move and position resources back into an area to provide that support and then we will go into that area command for both sides of the freeway.
Speaker 1:I think people need to rest assured that it has been thought out and there is a plan in place. It's going to happen. Yeah, we don't, and you don't know when. It could happen in five minutes, it could happen in five years.
Speaker 2:So it's, you know, middle of the night middle of the day and most of the exercises that we dove usually around a while excuse me around an earthquake. It's our typical thing. It's the thing that we're we're most, you know, attuned to, because it doesn't matter what you're going to see something about earthquake preparedness or you're going to see Dr Lucy Jones on the TV or something. It's something that in California we're very attuned to earthquake TV or something. It's something that in California we're very attuned to earthquake. So when we do a lot of our larger disaster drills or emergency operations center drills, not just in Burbank but throughout the state, you'll see a common theme that a lot of times it's focused around earthquake. Because that's the thing that if we do more sets and reps, then we're ready to go when it actually happens.
Speaker 1:I remember back in I think it was 2008 or 2009, maybe a great shakeout day. I actually went on a ride-along with Engine 11. And Mark Hatch at the time was going to become a captain just at that time. He just retired recently after. Yes, he was a great guy, he was a super guy. But when the call went out, you know, imaginary earthquake, everything else, and to watch how they responded, watch how they assess their district and all that. So when an earthquake first hits, everybody moves their rigs out of the station is correct. And then and then they start patrolling their districts for damage and be preempted before calls are made correct and it's not just the fire department.
Speaker 2:Um, we have a whole thing with earthquake mode. So for the fire department since you brought that up, first is fire department. When we have that earthquake, Verdugo will send out the alert. We go into earthquake mode, we move to our appropriate channels, like we talked about with that catastrophic dispatching. So that way we have our direct dispatching for our units. All of our stations will move their equipment out of the apparatus base because we don't know what the building might have suffered in that initial earthquake and we don't want equipment to be stuck in there if there's an aftershock that might make that worse. So we want to get our equipment out as quickly as possible, have it ready in case we need to go somewhere. And then the first thing we start doing is assessing our own facility, making sure that facility is still structurally sound. Then we'll do basically our hazard assessments within our area. They'll start doing windshield surveys.
Speaker 2:Now this isn't just unique to the fire department. This will be the law enforcement side. So our police department will be doing windshield surveys, Public works will be doing windshield surveys. They'll all be looking at different components falling in earthquake. So from the law enforcement standpoint, they're looking at law enforcement threats, traffic control issues signals out things like that. They're also looking at law enforcement threats, traffic control issues signals out things like that. They're also looking at our streets. Passable Public Works is kind of looking at our bridges, underpasses, things like that. Also our infrastructure same with water and power and all that stuff. So we're going to go out and do quick initial windshield assessments of what's going on. We do this for every earthquake that reaches a certain magnitude that triggers us to go into it. Basically, if you felt it, we're probably going into earthquake mode just to assess it.
Speaker 1:A lot of times I'll hear I won't feel an earthquake, but all of a sudden I hear Verdue saying, going into earthquake mode. Oh, I have to check in. Where was that? How much you know?
Speaker 2:So I mean, they're on top of it as soon as it happens and that's one thing that our fire department might go into earthquake mode for something and we might not go into full earthquake mode for all the other city departments Because the earthquake might have been felt more to our east side.
Speaker 2:It might have been in West Covina, which is one of our cities, and so it might have been felt more there, triggering us to go into Verdugo-wide earthquake mode which impacts all of our cities. So we might not have felt it where we would have been doing damage assessment or those windshield surveys with public works, water and power and everybody else, because we really didn't feel anything. You might have seen your water jiggle a little bit, but they felt it more in the San Gabriel Valley. But since Verdugo goes back to what we talked about earlier is all one system, the alert goes out to all of Verdugo resources, so you might see our fire apparatus out doing a windshield survey when others might not be. So I also want to make sure the public understands that if you don't see everybody out all of a sudden cruising the area, it might be that we didn't feel it necessarily in Burbank.
Speaker 1:Explain to me what a windshield survey is. It's not. You're not looking at car windshields. No, Explain what a windshield survey, what that, what that entails.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a windshield survey gets its name because we're in the vehicles whether it be a police car, a dump truck, a fire engine, whatever you might be in and you're looking at everything through the windshield. Basically, at that point we're not getting out of our vehicles assessing stuff. We're driving by, we're getting a quick visual down and dirty of how big is big, how bad is bad. Yes, there might be a building that looks collapsed. If we stop and take our time to really go and assess that building, we might find out that it's just a facade that's really damaged and there's not really a lot of other stuff.
Speaker 2:But we've taken that unit out of service that could have been looking at two or three more blocks in that same amount of time. So in this initial phase we're going through and doing this rapid assessment of what's going on and then we know what parts of the city are hit hardest and we know where we're going to. Probably focus in our attention Doesn't mean that we're not going to do life saving measures If there's somebody who's injured. Of course life safety always comes first. But we want to try to assess as much of the city as quickly as possible, so we're doing that in the comfort of the vehicle while we're driving around behind the windshield. And then we're going to get out boots on the ground after that and then start doing more detailed assessments after we get that first down and dirty snapshot of what's going on.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I think. I think we're in good hands, I think you guys have it figured out in advance and people will know that you're just not playing it by cuff. It's really, there's really a plan in place and it's thought out. Yes, and I'm sure you put a lot of time into that entire plan and organization and you continue to probably look at it, you know, probably on a monthly basis, don't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's chaotic when it it happens, but, like you said earlier, it's orchestrated chaos. Um, yeah, it's gonna look like, you know, a duck on water. The legs underneath are paddling as fast as they can, but they're just kind of gliding across the top. I wish it just always looked that graceful. It doesn't. A lot of times it looks like we're running around, but there is a method to what we're doing, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, let's get off earthquakes. That scares enough people as it is. What would you like to see residents do to be preemptive for disaster? What you know what? What? What should we advise people? We always talk about earthquake kits and this and that and everything else, but what, what do you advise? And there's anything that you or the city does to help people? Or talk about preparedness a little bit for average residents.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there are several things right off the top that residents can do and can control their own destiny with a lot of this. First thing is sign up for Alert Burbank. Alert Burbank is our alert and warning system that we have in the city of Burbank. Alert Burbank is our alert and warning system that we have in the city of Burbank. It's similar to, but not the same as, the wireless emergency alerts that you get for an Amber alert. It will be received on your phone, unlike a, a wheeler, which just hits a cell tower, hangs off of everybody who's within the circumference of that polygon of that cell tower. Our alert Burbank is more targeted. So, um, you can sign up with your home phone. If it's still a landline phone or voiceover internet phone, you can put your cell phone in there, your email address. We actually recommend you put as many modes of communication as possible, because what will end up happening is we will send out a targeted message and even if cell phones are down for some reason or you're in an area with low or poor cell phone coverage, it will go to your landline, it will go to your email. You will still get that message. Unlike WIA. Wia is getting a lot of criticism right now and again. Wia is just a tool in the tool chest. We will use WIA as well, the wireless emergency alert, but we will also use our alert burbank. And if you're just waiting for a we alert, um, it's like I've tried to explain to people.
Speaker 2:We might not send the we alert first. We might send an alert burbank message first. For example, um, the um, uh country club fire that we had. We did send out a targeted uh evacuation warning to people in the country club area because it's a one way in, one way out. Although there wasn't a truly a threat, we wanted to make sure they were aware. We put a warning in place and we let them know because it is a one way in, one way out. Canyon. If we would have used we are for something like that, it would have hit everybody within the cell phone towers of that area and since we put cell phone towers on higher points, the antennas go to further distances, so you put it in the foothills. I could have sent out a we a message and it could have been targeting people on the other side of the five freeway and on a we a message. We're limited to only 360 characters. It doesn't give me a lot of options to say this is really targeted for the country club drive area. It's more precautionary, where we can put as many characters as we want in our message and I can target the specific block that I wanted to go to. So, first and foremost, signing up for alert Burbank. You can go to a ready Burbankorg or the Burbank city website. There are links on both to take you directly there to sign up.
Speaker 2:Second thing is have a plan. So many times I've responded to incidents, like I said, up and down the state of california into other states. Most people are unprepared. Uh, we just got done talking about earthquake. It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when. Most people do not have the necessity and the supplies that they need within their own home to take care of themselves following an earthquake. Um, if you look at different websites, they're going to give you different things. I'm that they need within their own home to take care of themselves following an earthquake. If you look at different websites, they're going to give you different things.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to say one is right over another. Have food and water. You'll see some sites say have three days worth of food and water. Some will say five, ours says seven. I'm a big proponent of seven. That's a week.
Speaker 2:If you look at previous incidents that are of large significance, like hurricane katrina, things like that, it takes a couple days just to get everything mobilized to bring in fema resources to have points of distribution set up.
Speaker 2:The likelihood of us having anything set up in under five days to start providing that humanitarian care of water and food to people is probably slim in a true catastrophic situation like an earthquake where supply chains are disrupted.
Speaker 2:So I say have seven days, and again it's not going out and you don't have to go and spend a lot of money on these things that you see on TV with all of these MREs, meals ready to eat or these pre done kits and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:Have a plan and have a kit. It's simple. You can just do something as simple as in your pantry buy canned goods that you're not typically going to eat. I tell people you know like, if you're not going to eat chef boy RD, buy some Kansas chef boy RD and put it in your pantry, not to knock on chef boy RD, because I don't want to get in trouble with somebody who says I love that stuff. We love the chef, but if that's not something that you typically eat, you will in an emergency and it will last for a while. And I say get something that you're not typically going to eat, because if you get something that you eat and enjoy, what will end up happening is one day you'll come home from work, you'll be tired and not want to cook and not want to order takeout.
Speaker 2:There's the chef, yes, so if it's something that you're not as inclined to eat, I recommend you do that, because it'll always be there and canned goods will last for several years on the shelf. But have a plan, have food and water, have a kit, because we're not going to be there in every situation. As we talked about earlier, I've got six fire stations on any given day. There are six fire engines, two ladder trucks, three ambulances, with an additional ambulance during peak staffing. That's not a lot of resources. We have to triage those 911 calls coming in. We're not going to be able to be there for everybody.
Speaker 2:So have a plan, have a kit and, last but certainly not least, after what we're seeing with these fires, and last but certainly not least, after what we're seeing with these fires, if you're a homeowner, reassess your insurance every year. Go around your home, look at things that you've bought we don't even think about. If you bought new electronics, is that on your plan? Have you looked at what your insurance coverage covers? Have you looked at inflation and what rebuilding costs are? Always revisit your insurance every year, if not every other year, and make sure that you're adequately insured.
Speaker 2:We're seeing too many people, not just in these fires, but it's a common trend of people being underinsured and I'm not talking about people that are on the fair plan and, as some people call it, the unfair plan but if you've got homeowners insurance, it doesn't matter if it's a flood, an earthquake, a fire. We are constantly seeing that people are underinsured for what they need to rebuild because they got their insurance when they bought their home. It's gone up quite a bit in the 10 years since they bought it and they've never looked at their insurance since then. They haven't shopped around, they haven't gotten new quotes, they haven't upped their insurance coverage and when something happens, they're inadequately insured for the repairs that need to take place.
Speaker 1:I want to go back to one thing you were talking about with preparedness. I've also been told that, especially during an earthquake, you should have a meeting place. So if people are separated during a disaster and your house is, you know, burned down or flattened, you have a place where all the family members know where to go to find each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, If there's a communication failure for some reason, you want to be able to have some type of meeting place. Um, one of the things that's recommended is like a church or a park or community center that's nearby that. Um, yeah, if something happens and it's not just for an earthquake. It could be for kids coming home from school and there's an evacuation from a wildland fire Um, you can't get home, for whatever reason, you should go to this alternate location, whether it be a relative's home.
Speaker 2:If there's no other relatives in the city, then go to a church, go to a rec center, go to a community center, go to a designated park that everybody in the family has agreed upon and knows that's where you should go. Check, In addition to that, with what you brought up, have an out of state contact. If you've got friends and relatives that live out of state. If we have something like an earthquake, we're going to tie up our phone lines here more. It's easier to play relay that I can call um an out-of-state relative and then my parents can call that same relative to check in on me. That person becomes a message board or a bulletin board for all of our messages there you go.
Speaker 1:Good idea, good idea. Well, we're about ready to wrap up here, but I want to know what is now your continuing focus, moving on. What is it? You know, I know you've got all the demons in the world hovering over in disasters, but what's your focus now, moving on daily, monthly, yearly, right now, so our focus right now, especially from my division in emergency management, is really on that community engagement.
Speaker 2:We're really trying to get the community more involved in doing home preparedness. Again, we're seeing that as a common trend. So we're spending more time in the community. We're spending more time at different civic events neighborhood watch meetings, different civic group meetings where I am presenting and trying to encourage people to have that plan and make a difference for themselves. Again, that's the biggest thing that you can do for yourself have a plan, have a kit, be prepared. It's not just for earthquakes, it's for anything.
Speaker 1:I don't want to inundate you because I know you're busy enough, but if somebody wants to talk to you or talk to somebody about preparedness, things like that, who would you advise that they call? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So they can contact our front desk. Um, so they can call our main phone number, um, area code eight, one, eight, two, three, eight, fire. It's easy number to remember, um, and they'll put them in contact with me again. Um, it's one of those things where I'm a one person division, so it is about timing, so I might not be able to get back to somebody immediately. They can also email. Our contact information is on the city's website. It's one of those things where I will get back to them.
Speaker 2:But we also have readyburbankorg, which is basically a preparedness site for the city of Burbank that we've put together that is tailored more towards the community than anything else. I would recommend that be their first starting point. But I am more than happy, especially if you've got a group to come out. We really don't do individual emergency preparedness because over 100,000 people, it would take us forever. But if you have a group, like if you're part of a neighborhood watch group and they meet on a Wednesday evening and you would like me to come out, somebody from that group could reach out to me. We'll arrange. It might take a few weeks to actually get the calendars aligned, but I will go out to that group and present. If you have a church group, I will go out and present. If it's a homeowners association at a townhome or a condo in the city of Burbank and it's for the entire townhome or condo, we will go out and present. Again, we will do group presentations, not individual presentations. Good to know.
Speaker 1:So, as we wind up here, is there anything else that you'd like to say or tell the people before we?
Speaker 2:end this thing. I just would like to thank you for having me on. It's always a pleasure. We talk quite a bit on other things throughout. You know, when you're asking about things that are going on, it's always a pleasure. We talk quite a bit on other things throughout. You know, when you're asking about things that are going on.
Speaker 1:I always appreciate you getting right back to me, every time too.
Speaker 2:This is great because, again, I don't think a lot of people know what emergency management is or the things that we really are doing behind the scenes in the city of Burbank. Residents in the city of Burbank are very fortunate. Not every city in the County of Los Angeles or anywhere in the state not everybody has a dedicated emergency management position. More and more cities are now starting to get these dedicated positions, but still it's few and far between. In the 88 cities within the County of Los Angeles, there's probably less than a quarter of those cities have a dedicated position for emergency management. It's usually somebody that, in addition to your other duties, this is something you need to think about where we've taken the time and invested to have this position, to look out and think about these problems.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we're very lucky here in Burbank not only to have an emergency director, but to have you with your experience, because I'm sure you do a lot for other cities too, to help reach out to them and say the director, but have you with your experience, because I'm sure you do a lot for other cities too, to reach out to them and say, hey, you need this or that. So we're very lucky to have you and I hope I know you're going to be busy, but let's hope you never get that busy, because that busy means something's gone. Haywire. Eric Baumgartner, thank you so much for coming to the studio. Thank you so much for coming to the studio. Thank you so much for this great conversation. I hope it helps people.
Speaker 1:It'll be on our channels forever and they can tune to it anytime and hopefully they can get something out of this. So, once again, thank you for coming in. Appreciate it. Thank you, and everybody else out there, thank you for watching. Hit the old like button and subscribe and if you're in the car, hold two wheels. Right now, don't, don't let go, as you're listening to this and we'll be. We will talk to you next time. So thank you very much for listening.