It is an unfortunate fact of life here in SoCal that many, if not most
wild fires are arson related. This is an environment that the
pyromaniacs seem to love. When you combine this with the careless
smokers, construction equipment in the back country, illegal (and legal)
camping, and high wind/low humidity these conflagrations are all to
common. 
   4 years ago, almost to the day we had the Cedar fires, loosing over
2,000 homes in San Diego County, these fires will surpass those in
acreage (over 300,000) but hopefully not more in homes. We have had
several City staff members loose their homes in this fire storm, and
more than 1/2 of our office staff were either evacuated or on standby to
do so, and fires still burn in many areas of the county. 
   From a records management standpoint, our focus is on the
documentation of City expenditures of labor and material. The City has
provided mutual aid to all surrounding areas with fire strike teams and
police support, and had street crews and others on standby. All of this
requires detailed accounting for submission to Federal and State
agencies to try to recover some of the costs, and then to survive the
audits that are sure to come. We have had final (?) audits from various
agencies as much as ten years after an incident. 
   From past experience with fires and flooding (we have several really
pretty valleys - read as flood planes) we have learned to be very
careful to document everything and have assigned appropriate retention
periods.

John Guthrie CDIA+
City Clerk Records Manager
City of Oceanside California
760.435.3024
[log in to unmask]

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]