Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,
speaking Friday to the International Association of Fire Chiefs,
emphasized how firefighters were integral to a wide range of activities
at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as the department
continues to integrate first responders into an all-hazards approach to
dealing with disasters.
Chertoff noted that federal assistance has
been critical to getting fire departments the proper equipment and
training to deal not only with fires, but natural disasters, terrorist
attacks, pandemic outbreaks and other disasters. In 2006, DHS provided
$485 million in fire grants to about 5,000 US fire organizations. Since
2001, DHS has provided $2.4 billion to fire departments and other first
responder organizations, Chertoff added.
The secretary stressed that DHS is striving to
incorporate fire services into more of what his department does, noting
that the National Operations Center has a fire desk and that a fire
services representative now meets in interagency committees whenever
operational challenges arise.
"Moreover, Charlie Allen, our Chief
Intelligence Officer, is working to add firefighter personnel to state
and local fusion centers," Chertoff announced. "Now some people might
say, well, wait a second. Why do you want to put firefighters in an
intelligence fusion center, which has intelligence officials and police
officials?
"I'll tell you why," he continued. "In many
cases, the first person on the scene for an event where there's an
explosion or where there's a fire is going to be a firefighter or
responder. And what they see may very well lead us to recognize that
the source of the fire is not an accident but is an act of terror or an
act of criminality. And that's why fusing firefighters and responders
into the normal law enforcement and Counterterror Intelligence Fusion
Center is critical to get a whole picture of what's going on."
California Wildfires
Chertoff also applauded firefighter response
to wildfires that raged across southern California last week–and still
burn today. Chertoff estimated that about 4,000 firefighters were in
California to fight the blazes.
Interagency coordination had been strong, and the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people went smoothly, he noted.
"At various times, evacuation orders went out
to literally hundreds of thousands of people, a lot of it through the
reverse 911 system, which is a significant improvement that California
has made since the 2003 Cedar fire. And with all that, it was possible
for the authorities to stand up shelters that accommodated I think at
one point over 20,000 people, including over 10,000 at Qualcomm
Stadium," Chertoff said.
DHS also had opened 11 recovery centers to
help register people for emergency funding last week, following
President Bush's declaration of a major disaster.
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