COMMANDER’S MESSAGE
District teammates:
Bill Peters, a fire prevention specialist with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, spoke to Corps employees about
the dangers of wildfires during a lunch and learn session at the District’s headquarters Oct. 16. (Photo by David A. Salazar)
Wildfire preparedness helps Corps employees
David A. Salazar
LOS ANGELES—Corps of Engineers
employees have a number of duties related
to the safety of life and property in communities across the nation.
The ability to provide disaster relief
assistance when duty calls requires that
employees be prepared for disaster when
it strikes near their homes as well. Bill
Peters, a fire prevention specialist with
the California Department of Forestry
and Fire Protection, gave Corps employees the information they need to prepare
themselves in the event of wildfires during
a lunch and learn session held at the Los
Angeles District headquarters Oct. 16.
Peters, a 22-year veteran of CalFire,
spoke to attendees about the dynamics
of wildfires most often seen in Southern
California and offered tips on how people
can mitigate risks to life and property in
anticipation of wildfires as part of National
Fire Prevention week.
Although the fire prevention discussion was pertinent to people from all walks
of life, it was particularly important to
Corps employees because of the roles they
often play in responding to emergencies.
“It’s very important that as Corps
professionals we are vigilant about how
susceptible our homes and families are to
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disasters,” said Anne Hutton, chief of the
District’s emergency management office.
“Due to the fact that our jobs require many
of us to be in the emergency operations
center or on disaster sites when those
events occur, we need to make sure that
our personal disaster plans are in order
so that we can focus on what we’re here to
do.”
The learning session was timely for
Southern California residents, as the
autumn cold fronts bring with them dry,
windy conditions, which help fires spread
more rapidly over a larger area than in
spring and summer, Peters said.
“The Santa Ana winds in Southern
California are the driving engine of our
fires,” Peters said. “They’re what really
push fire out of control. Regular wind will
help to move a fire, but if you have a fire
with 60 to 80 mile per hour wind behind
it, it becomes a screaming blowtorch and it
can run hundreds and thousands of yards
very quickly. It’s one of the key factors of
our catastrophic fires.”
Another factor that makes the area
vulnerable to wildfires is the lack of moisture in the air, Peters added. “You also
have extreme dryness because it’s warm
and you have single-digit humidity. Everything’s going to burn at that point. And
that’s going to fuel the fire,” he said. “That
makes everything more susceptible to
ignition, to burning, and to burning more
ferociously.”
Peters gave Corps employees tips on
decreasing the risk of their homes catching
fire through landscaping and switching
out flammable roof material with more
fire-resistant options, such as metal or
tile. He also discussed the importance of
communications and evacuation plans
and familiarizing more vulnerable family
members, including young children and
elderly people, with the plans.
Peters said he was honored to discuss
fire prevention with such an esteemed
group of professionals, but to him the talk
was just as important as if he were addressing elementary school students or elected
officials, due to the common bonds shared
by all Southern California residents.
“Everyone here is much smarter than I
am,” he said with a chuckle. “It’s a privilege
to get to speak with them. But engineers
and other responders live in houses like we
all do. Everybody needs to be reminded
of what’s at stake and shaken up a little
bit just to get out and do it. We all live
in California; we all share the pain of the
disasters. We need to get to a mindset of
sharing in the success of the defense, too.”
To learn more, go to http://www.ReadyForWildfire.org.
Do you know about the about the USACE campaign
plan? As I look at all of the prospective work we’re planning
to undertake in the coming months and years, I see several
projects and activities that come to mind
when I think of the Corps’ campaign plan #4
goal of “Preparing for Tomorrow.”
Lt. Gen. Bostick details the objectives for
this goal as:
1. Building strong people and teams
through leader development and talent management.
2. Streamlining USACE Business and
Governance processes.
3. Developing a USACE 2020 Vision and
Implementation Plan by the end of CY 2013
that nests with (or complements) Army 2020.
4. Improving strategic engagement and
communications to build and maintain trust
and understanding with customers and teammates.
5. Ensuring we can maintain and advance DoD and
Army critical enabling technologies.
I’m proud to say that the Los Angeles District is already
meeting several of these objectives.
On Oct. 21, we announced the application period for the
District’s Leader Development Program courses for fiscal
year 2014. For those who are not familiar with LDP, it’s a program that helps us by developing the future leaders who will
run our business at all levels. This is an important program
for our District, and although there have been and still are
budget constraints and restrictions, we are going to continue
to invest in our people and leadership development is one of
those investments that I believe will pay back big dividends
in return.
Graduates of LDP go on to work on important District
initiatives, including process improvement projects and
many other activities that strive to improve District, Division, and USACE-level business and governance procedures.
District Commander: Col. Kimberly Colloton, PMP
Public Affairs Officer: Jay Field
Editor: David A. Salazar
Staff: Daniel J. Calderón, Greg Fuderer,
Brooks O. Hubbard IV, Beverly Patterson,
Kristen Skopeck and Mario Zepeda
Tel: (213) 452-3922 or Fax: (213) 452-4209.
I give LDP my full support. The suspense for LDP I, II and
III--yes, the division is sponsoring an LDP III program--is
Nov. 15. Sign up or refer someone to sign up if you have
already completed an LDP track.
On Oct. 17, the District hosted a public meeting on the
Los Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration
Feasibility Study and heard more than 50
comments from members of the public before
an audience of more than 500 people. Aside
from voicing their opinions on the study, the
feedback was overwhelmingly positive about
the District’s work and its value to the community. This indicated to me that those in
attendance were attuned to the complexity
of the study and the collaborative effort it
required on the parts of the District and the
numerous stakeholders involved. This was
largely due to an effective strategic communication and engagement plan, which ensured
broad dissemination of timely, accurate information regarding this project. Do you know we streamed
the public meeting live on UStream to more than 3,000 people? You can still watch the entire meeting at http://www.
ustream.tv/channel/usace-la. I applaud those on this project
delivery team and those countless others who incorporate
comprehensive communications efforts in everything they
do. These efforts help us build and maintain the trust and
understanding with customers, teammates, and members of
the public that are absolutely vital to everything we do.
I’m proud of what we have accomplished for the Corps
goal of “Preparing for Tomorrow” thus far. I look forward to
our continued work toward meeting and surpassing Lt. Gen.
Bostick’s expectations for this goal and all of the others.
I wish everyone a safe and happy Veteran’s Day and
Thanksgiving! Let’s keep BUILDING STRONG!
ESSAYONS!
COL C
The NewsCastle is published monthly under the provisions of AR 3601 for the employees and extended Engineer Family of the Los Angeles
District, USACE.
Views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the
District or of the Department of Defense.
Address mail to the Los Angeles District Public Affairs Office, ATTN:
NewsCastle Editor
P.O. Box 532711, Los Angeles, CA 90017-2325
E-mail the Public Affairs staff at: [email protected]
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