In response to “Corral Canyon Call Firefighters battled Woolsey Fire without Fire Engine 271” published on Nov. 29.
Corral Canyon residents spent years recovering from the previous fire and put in place a unique and well-conceived plan to protect ourselves when others could not or would not. That included countless hours and tens of thousands of dollars raised to get Engine 271 in place to better protect our community. I applaud what our Call Firefighters do, but I am shocked to see the confiscation of our fire engine spun in such a way that it was actually a good thing for our community. What your article failed to address was that the person who “redirected” our fire engine; when told by one of our Corral Canyon firefighters that his decision would not go over well with our community, the person told that same firefighter, “Do I look like I give a ‘F’ what your community thinks?” I would like you to let that settle in for a minute. This isn’t hearsay or rumor. It was his mouth to my ear shortly after it occurred. It also was not mentioned that Engine 271, after being denied from us, was then likely left at Zuma shortly after it was taken and sat unused through the height of the fire. The 17 homes lost in the upper Corral Canyon bowl area did not have to happen. We saw that fire coming at us for over six hours before it hit our neighborhood. At the height of the fire, when so many homes were burning or lost, I drove to the bottom of the canyon to see two engines sitting half a mile up Corral “monitoring” the situation and at least eight more engines sitting idle on the south side of PCH, at the 76 Station—all while our neighborhood actively burned. If there were a single thing that symbolizes the response disaster to our disaster, it is the taking of Engine 271.
Dana Clark