Steve Lopez:
He won't say 'I told you so . . .'
October 24, 2007

Former San Diego fire Chief Jeff Bowman, who repeatedly warned that his city wasn't prepared to handle major fires, is out back of his house near Escondido at 7 a.m., watching the smoke come over a ridge and wondering if he'll lose everything he's got.

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There's no way to adequately staff for fires of this magnitude, Bowman says, and he doesn't want to turn so much scorched earth and misery into an I-told-you-so speech. But as we drive to get his mother, he can't help but go over some of the facts.

Although the city of San Diego has a fire department, the county doesn't, leaving many suburban and rural areas to rely on volunteer departments. The city has but one firefighting helicopter and just 975 firefighters for 330 square miles and 1.3 million residents.

Compare that, he says, with San Francisco, which has 1,600 firefighters for 60 square miles and 850,000 people.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lo...