We cannot stop talking about the 2009 Station Fire. With reason: when an arsonist ignited it on August 26th, we could not know that it would continue to burn until mid-October; that it would kill two valiant firefighters, torch upwards of 100 structures, and consume 160,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest, blackening much of the San Gabriel Mountains; or that it would become the largest fire to date in Los Angeles County, and the most costly.

Its aftermath has been just as incendiary. Even as firefighters struggled to gain control of the blaze, even as its thick, dark smoke still churned skyward, criticism erupted. Why had it taken so long for the Forest Service to gain traction in the fight? What decisions had led to the grounding of the federal agency's air fleet in the crucial first night of the fire? Why, homeowners wondered, had they lost their homes--was it a result of command-and-control failures? And were communication glitches the reason why two LA County firefighters perished in a firestorm on Mt. Gleason?

Read More:
http://www.kcet.org/updaily/the_back_forty/commentary/golden-green/fiery-heritage-or-what-we.html

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