Natural disasters occur unexpected or seasonally. If these disasters are not taken care of, they can lead to lose of lives and destruction of properties. This is an area of interest to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In this paper I will look on how DHS responds to wildfires, the help of National Guards in dealing with wildfires and how lessons from hurricane Katrina can help in wildfire disaster preparedness.
DHS response to wildfires
The U.S. Fire Administration is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security which is tasked with dealing with fire disasters. This is the entity that should work together with local and state agencies in fighting fires that pose a threat to domestic security and safety. The agency is within the FEMA and therefore well prepared to deal with wildfires that can destroy life, properties and alter the climate.
The FEMA works with other Federal agencies like DOD in mobilizing resources and personnel to deal with wildfires. For example, the seasonal California wildfires that are a threat to domestic security are dealt with local and state fire agencies in collaboration with FEMA (FEMA, 2018).
The FEMA help to deal with wildfires is determined by the Stafford Act and includes personnel, equipment’s and grants to local and state governments but not to individuals. The grant is only used to control, manage and mitigate fire on the state or private land that may result to a major disaster (FAS, 2019). If the wildfire is too much, the state governor can request the President to declare it as a disaster and therefore invite other humanitarian assistance programs to come and help individuals and households.
The National Guards response
The National Guards are in the forefront in dealing with wildfires. The service member, Airmen and Soldiers, work together with the police and firefighters to contain and suppress wildfires. The National Guards have capability in dealing with wildfires (Garamone J., 2018). They help in evacuating families, providing logistic support, dropping slurry on blazes and flew helicopters with water buckets when called upon.
The application of hurricane Karina lessons
The lessons from the hurricane Katrina were more of preparedness and clear coordination. These lessons can be used in preparing the local, state and Federal agencies, in readiness to wildfire disasters that may pose a great risk to homeland security than seen before. The Fire Fighting Departments in local and state governments should be trained to handle fire disasters that are even beyond their capability. These departments should be given resources like personnel and equipment’s enough to handle emerging disasters. The local and state firefighting departments are the first responders in disasters that crop in their region and if they are not well armed the situation may get out of their control.
The California wildfires are a good example of strained resources. What makes these wildfires to cause a lot of damage is understaffing and lack of equipment’s to handle the disaster. The Cal Fire does not have enough personnel to handle fire cases that emerge and therefore keeps relying on Federal support which in several occasion is not timely. The employees in the Forest department in California are getting opportunities elsewhere leaving the department with very few people (Lozano A., 2021). The presence of private firefighting companies with better pay is denying the local and state governments potential firefighters. The Federal pay rate of a firefighter is half of what firefighters in the California area earns and therefore cannot attract or retain personnel’s.
The second lesson that can be applied in fighting wildfires is having a clear plan of who should be responding to wildfires that poses a domestic security threat. There are so many agencies that offer help during the wildfires, but, there should be an official entity which is tasked to handle wildfire disasters. This is to avoid blaming each other in the case of delayed response.
In conclusion, wildfire disasters can be prevented if the local communities are well trained on how to handle it. This is because the local people are the ones able to detect the fire before it becomes even a local government issue. The local communities should be empowered to respond to fire disasters. The wildfire disasters should not be left to government agencies alone. The disasters should be worked on by individuals, community based organizations, private entities and government agencies.
