Greg here......About an hour ago air attack lead on the Rogue River Drive Fire most certainly did call down to the ground units and told them to evacuate the houses on Dry Creek Road in advance of the approaching fire. He told the ground units...you are going to want to get the people on Dry Creek Road out of there. Get them going now. If you do not know how this works......air attack lead is the eye in the sky over the fire. He sees everything that is going on below. He has the best vantage point on a fire and sees exactly what is is doing. Air attack will alert ground command if they need to get an evacuation going. Hearing the call from the eye in sky who does have the job of safety where it relates to the movement of the fire.....I went with the mandatory evacuation notice because that was the call being made from the air attack leader who would have the authority to make that call. Now, why that was not followed up by an order on the ground and a full activation from the Sheriffs Department, I have no idea. Can things change? Sure, but this is not a common happening. This would be one of the very few times I know of where air attack gave an order based on observed fire behavior that it did not happen. I am trying to reach the PIO for Fire District 3 to find out why this did not happen. As I said....not too often when they will override the eye in the sky.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 02:59:42 +0000