Thomas Harre: Fire and Emergency New Zealand responder on the wildfires in California

Winds have briefly eased in LA but the battle continues for firefighters trying to contain deadly wildfires.  

Whole neighbourhoods have burned to the ground and many evacuated families don't know when they can return home.  

Meanwhile, local authorities warn the gusts could pick up again next week.  

Fire and Emergency New Zealand's Thomas Harre has worked in California.  

He told Tim Beveridge the environment's very complex in terms of its terrain, fuel types, and vegetation types, as well as the number of communities affected.  

Harre says that makes it very difficult to extinguish, especially combined with the current weather conditions. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Firefighters have managed to bring the La wildfires largely under control,
but it's mayor says the city is not out of
the woods yet, with more Santa Anna winds expected next week.
Becaus there's no let up as their officials estimate that
the fires have destroyed more than twelve thousand homes, making
them the most destructive and deadly as far wildfires in
California history. Thomas Harrey is a fire and emergencies community

(00:38):
risk manager back here in County's Manecau, and he has
helped fight fires in California in the past, and he
joins me now Thomas on a second, just a little
bit of a button problem there, Thomas, Good morning morning.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
How's it going good.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
What's it been like watching the swim.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Of far.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, it's been really sad to watch, particularly with the
amount of structures in the fatalities that have been lost
throughout LA fire. So harps out through our friends from La.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, what can you tell us about what makes them
so hard? To fight? These ones and fires?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
They're just really complex environments. The terrain, the fuel types,
the vegetation types, and I guess most importantly the numbers
of communities that the fires are impacting. When we've got communities,
we've got people that are needing to be evacuated. So
just all that together makes them very, very difficult to
extinguish as well with the types of weather that they're

(01:33):
experiencing at the moment.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Are they used the worst fires that you've seen in
terms of the scale in the urban environment and the
whole shebang?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, I mean, as you just pointed out before, I
think you know, over twelve thousand structures lost, the number
of people died, and the complex environments that we've just
spoken about, add to extreme fire commissions and extreme fire areas,
so they would have to be one of the largest
files I've seen.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Do you think there's anything to consider when people want
to rebuild just as they were? But do you think
they should do that or should there be some sort
of change in the way these urban environments are designed
to prevent spread?

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yeah. We talk about it in New Zealand a lot
around the rural and urban interface and how rural meets
urban and in New Zealand we talk about the flammability
of plants, and we encourage homeowners and developers to plant
low flammable fuels I guess, which is like you know,
your flexes and your big broad left plants, which really
stop that I guess the firefronts are affecting the structures.

(02:36):
And we also talk about defendable space, which you know,
in Layman's terms, clearing areas in front or around your
properties to stop fires from I guess burning them down.
But you know, in some areas it's it's really hard,
and as we've seen in LA they could be doing
a lot of things and you know, it hasn't it
hasn't stopped the fires from the big end of storms
that they've been seeing. So I guess we just have

(02:58):
to encourage people to be really safe around the use
of fire, you know, and using fire and also things
that creates starks, which is important.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Speaking of safety, how the firefighters are you confident that
they have reliable ways of keeping themselves safe?

Speaker 3 (03:16):
We have well, in particular across the across the world.
You know, the personal protective equipment that we get issued,
you know is really high standard. So that's you know,
from I guess a personal perspective of the equipment and
technology now that we've seen across the world and developments
in the fire space has been astronomical. We've got new
g s and tranking equipment, we've got you know, different

(03:38):
types of aircraft, and the training. You know, we talk
about training, training, training, it's a significant part of the
firefighter's life to train when they're not I guess, you know, firefighting.
And then on top of that is we've got all
the standard operating procedures that we you know, throll and
train before we implement those, so very safe conditions in

(04:03):
terms of what they do.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Excellent. Hey, Thomas, thanks so much for your time this morning,
really appreciated. That's Thomas Harry and he has been in
the past, has fought over fires overseas and so he's
currently the community risk manager here in Counties Manica.

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