SHANNON URTNOWSKI
A&E Editor
As the flames from last week’s Malibu Canyon Fire threatened campus, Pepperdine’s Department of Public Safety stepped in to battle the wildfire.
The fire started just before 5 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 21, and DPS Officer Matt Cartwright said he knew at about 5:45 a.m. , as he was driving to campus through the canyon, that it would be a busy day on the job.
“I could see orange glowing through the canyon, and I knew that I would be going to work right away,” he said.
Cartwright, who has been a DPS Officer for about two years, was deployed to one of the department’s three fire engines as soon as he arrived on campus.
One of the first tasks Cartwright said he was assigned to was spot fire duty.
“Initially, we were assigned to hot spot detail,” he said. Hot spot detail is throughout the campus, and wherever we see fires or start to see flames we respond and try to extinguish that as soon as possible.
Attending to the various hot spot fires on campus was one of the more common tasks among DPS personnel, according to Cartwright.
However, officers were also assigned to attend larger, more threatening fires, such as the one that consumed portions of the pool shed.
Sergeant Jaime Gladin oversaw Engine 111 and its crew, and they were deployed to the shed shortly after receiving word that it had caught fire.
“We tried to knock it down from the outside until L.A. County showed up,” he said. “Then they went inside and knocked it down from the inside, and whatever was remaining from the outside we handled.”
DPS worked closely with the L.A. County Fire Department to coordinate how to best utilize the resources of both organization. The system is called mutual aid.
With help from the county fire department, DPS was able to attend to the various fires threatening Pepperdine’s 830-acre campus.
“DPS doesn’t just go out and pick a location to protect,” McKelvy said. “We coordinate with L.A. County Fire to make sure that wherever they’re putting resources, we’re not putting them in the same place.”
Deputy Chief Robert McKelvy said DPS officers successfully served as firefighters during the wildfires, which is something they were prepared for and expected to do as part of their duties.
“They change hats throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month, depending on what’s needed,” he said.
To prepare for fire outbreaks, DPS Officers have been undergoing a fire cross-training program, which was created in by McKelvy in 1993. The cross-training program focuses specifically on preparing DPS officers for local wildfires, much like the recent Canyon Fire.
According to Frank Padilla, the DPS contract fire operations manager, the 32-hour cross-training the officers undergo not only involves teaching officers about dealing with wildfires, but also about basic fire behavior and tactics for fire suppression. In addition, the officers conduct regular fire drills on-scene at the Ventura County Training Center.
Despite the intensive course, Padilla said training is never really complete.
“We’re continuing to improve, looking at more drills to enhance their skill levels and we’re trying to work that out right now,” Padilla said.
DPS is staffed with about 35 employees, nine of which are currently cross-trained by the fire program.
According to McKelvy, the cross-training program was reassessed after the campus volunteer firefighter program was disbanded in late February. It now involves more wildfire training than had previously been incorporated.
Cartwright, who has been involved with the fire training for about four months, said he feels fortunate to have received the education, as it helped prepare him for the recent fires.
“Coming here and dealing with fire training, it’s all pretty new to me, but when I went out to the brush fire I immediately went back to training and it helped me out,” he said. “Obviously, without that training I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did.”
And, though the official Pepperdine fire station, which was first recognized in 2003, was closed, McKelvy said he believes it has allowed DPS to utilize the resources within its fire cross-training program more efficiently.
According to McKelvy, the volunteers were only on duty four times a month and they often left the program only after a few months of duty to pursue other fire organizations. This created a great deal of instability in the program, he said.
However, despite many of the resources still being available, having the volunteer firefighters on campus did have its advantages, Gladin said.
“The resources have always been there, but it was a little more convenient to have volunteers here because it took a little bit of the load of us when it came to these situations,” he said.
Without aid from the volunteer firefighters, DPS was forced to step up in the fire and utilize the training skills that it has been working to hone during this past year.
Though DPS personnel fought the flames until the morning of Thursday, Oct. 25, there is a chance the Santa Ana winds may return this weekend, possibly provoking new fires. Padilla said DPS is already on alert, preparing themselves in case another fire threatens the Malibu community.
11-01-2007
