RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
NPR's Carrie Kahn went looking for some answers.
BILL MIDDLETON: Go on.
CARRIE KAHN: Bill Middleton calls out to his three cows resting alongside...
MIDDLETON: Come on, girl.
KAHN: ...his 20-acre home in rural San Diego County. His small herd keeps the grass and flammable chaparral low to the ground.
MIDDLETON: It's part of our effort just to try and make our house defensible. That paid its dividends this year when the fire came through.
KAHN: Last October's wildfire literally roared through this picturesque valley just outside the town of Ramona, burning dozens of homes. Middleton, a retired firefighter, says his house is still standing because of its preventative measures and because he stayed by his barn all night to put out half a dozen small fires that erupted from flying embers.
MIDDLETON: If you look at awful lot of the homes that burned out here, they burned right after the fires went over the top. Some of them even the next day. So that meant that there was a small fire hidden some place that people either didn't see or there was nobody there to see it.
KAHN: During congressional hearings held this fall in San Diego, state and federal lawmakers like California's U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein chastised the county for its lack of resources.
DIANNE FEINSTEIN: I deeply believe that San Diego has to increase the size of its fire services. This means eventually a loss of life of a major scale if nothing happens.
KAHN: The county has just two water-dropping helicopters; the city has one. That leaves the state to provide the bulk of crucial aerial assets. And during the October wildfires, state officials refused to let their pilots fly during the first three days of the fires because of safety concerns. Lately there's been growing pressure on San Diego to take responsibility for its own fire protection and unify the region's resources into one agency, even if it costs taxpayers money.
RON ROBERTS: You know, I think a lot of people come in and try to understand San Diego after they've spent five minutes here without realizing that it's distinctly different than some of the other counties in California.
KAHN: Ron Roberts is the chairman of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
ROBERTS: Distinctly different in that over 51 percent of the county is owned by the state and the federal government. And it necessitates a whole series of different solutions, if you will, because of that.
KAHN: Cary Coleman, chief of the Volunteer Intermountain Fire Department agrees. He says his station operates on an $80,000 a year budget and is adequately staffed to answer the one emergency call a day he averages.
CARY COLEMAN: Professionalism is not defined by a paycheck. It's a standard of performance. And you can do it with volunteers and reserves. There's no reason you can't.
KAHN: Former San Diego City Fire Chief Jeff Bowman calls the current system short-sighted and says it's costs the county 23 lives and more than 4,000 homes in the past four years.
JEFF BOWMAN: It's a great system if you can get away with that.
KAHN: Bowman quit his post after the deadly 2003 Cedar Fire, when officials balked at his calls to fund 22 new fire stations and hire hundreds of new firefighters.
BOWMAN: They just claimed that this region is different. I think it's different as well, but different in a bad way. They just have failed to recognize their responsibility.
KAHN: Carrie Kahn, NPR News, San Diego.