The Amador County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services, or OES, in partnership with Cal Fire, conducted a successful multi-agency disaster preparedness exercise on Thursday.  Headquartered at the Amador County Fairgrounds, the exercise was meant to give each agency an opportunity to evaluate current response concepts, plans and capabilities for conducting a large-scale neighborhood evacuation in case of a catastrophic wildfire. According to Martha Shaver, the county’s Public Information Officer, a catastrophic wildfire swept through Amador County in 1961, destroying several ranches and burning about 25 to 35 thousand acres.  If that were to happen today, that would put at risk 1400 parcels, as well as multiple businesses, and cause an estimated 215 million dollars worth of damage, and “that’s just the assessed value” says Shaver. “Are we equipped to deal with that?” In addition to OES and Cal Fire, the exercise included the California Department of Forestry, or CDF, the Amador County Sheriff’s Department, the Ione and Jackson Police Departments, Animal Control, the American Red Cross, and the county’s Administrative Office.

The exercise started off with teams meeting at the fairgrounds to discuss evacuation plans and inter-agency coordination.  The Valley Division of the CHP was on hand with their Rapid Response Vehicle, which contains everything needed to rapidly respond in an emergency.  The Chevy Tahoe, packed full with sophisticated video and satellite equipment, can easily interface various agencies, as well as pick up live video images from agency aircraft overhead. The video can be downloaded to the vehicle via satellite, which can then be linked back to CHP headquarters. As part of the mock evacuation, sheriff deputies and local city police went door-to-door in the Burke Ranch area of Plymouth, making contact with residents and handing out fire safety information. For those residents that weren’t home, police left information in an envelope attached to a balloon. Burke Ranch resident David Brattstrom, who received information from an Amador County Sheriff’s deputy, says “fire is always an issue up here.” After the evacuation, personnel regrouped at the fairgrounds and spent the afternoon evaluating the exercise.  The OES says that they “view this exercise as an excellent opportunity to bolster interagency cooperation, establish communications and to provide for a more efficient use of limited resources.”