I have been through all the Malibu fires since 1962 and they all have shared the same problem: out-of-town fire departments don’t know where the primary, secondary or auxiliary fire hydrants are located. During the ’96 Calabasas/Malibu fire there were five fire trucks lined up in my driveway and they were all out of water except the one that extinguished my garage fire. The preparedness section of this city’s Web site should contain a Thomas Guide style map of Malibu showing the location of all hydrants that other engine company’s can download. The GPS latitude/longitude coordinates of these hydrants should be shown on this map so they can be easily located by GPS equipped fire trucks.
Each hydrant should be equipped with RFID (Radio Frequency Identifier) tags that the engine companies can use to scan the water pressure, manufacture, model numbers and hydraulic fittings of each of these hydrants.
Another unrelated preparedness item: the city should mark “tsunami safe” high zones such as the Bluffs Park area along the PCH because if we ever get an alert system operational and an alert is activated, the canyons will be jammed.
Google Earth, a mapping program which offers a free download, displays the elevation at the geographic point (latitude and longitude) where the cursor is placed, so by guiding the cursor along PCH the high points can be armchair identified. Question is, how high is high enough?
Jack Singleton