Mutual aid at Madison Fire keeps city’s costs down

Cause of fire turned over to arson investigator

The cost of the fighting the brush fire that raced across the foothills just above Monrovia last month was approximately $1.7 million according to the State Emergency Management Agency. According to Fire Chief Chris Donovan, Monrovia will not have to bear most of the cost of the fire.
Early in the incident Donovan had told Channel 4 News that the fire had been sparked by a gardener using a power tool, but later told reporters that the cause had not been determined. This week he said that the investigation had been turned over to an arson investigator from the Verdugo Fire. Donovan said that the Monrovia Police Department had conducted interviews to assist the investigator and that he hoped the exact cause would be determined soon.
“I reported to (City Manager) Laurie Lisle that our cost on the fire will be $200,000 to $250,000,” Donovan said. “But this is a very liberal estimate and our cost might be much lower,” he added.
He said that so far he has received invoices only for the air support and that those charges were around $100,000. Donovan also said that he was in the process of negotiations on those fees that may be lowered.
The reason Monrovia does not need to bear the entire cost of the fire is Mutual Aid. “Monrovia is a part of MMA – Master Mutual Aid,” Donovan said. “Because California has so many large fires, the state has the MMA program. Through it we can ask for aid for 12 hours at no cost
Donovan explained that even though the fire was fought for more than 12 hours, they were able to utilize the engines from particular agencies for only 11 or less hours at a time. When a particular engine approached the maximum amount of time Monrovia could receive aid without incurring cost, that engine was released and an¬other agency was asked for assistance according to the Chief.
Because Monrovia has what the Chief called a “mutual threat” with brush fire in the foothills, we have additional aid agreements with the U.S. Forest Service and with Los Angeles County Fire. We have agreed to supply an engine with a crew and the water tank/tender to the Forest Service when they have a need, in exchange they will supply us with a strike team when we need it. A strike team consists of 5 engines, a hand crew and a Battalion Chief when we are in need. We can request a 1st Alarm team from the County. They will provide us with a helicopter, a hand crew, 5 engines and a Battalion Chief.
The reason we seem to be supplied with much more than we offer in return is that while we rarely need to call upon the other agencies, they have more frequent needs to which we respond.
As an example of mutual aid, Donovan recounted an occurrence earlier this month. “When the fire happened in Glendale,” the chief said. “We sent an Engine 701 over to assist them. Instead of fighting the fire, our engine covered Station 25 in Glendale while their crew was at the Chevy Chase fire. They had a structure fire in town which we fought for them.”
And that, he explained was the point of mutual aid.

-Story by Susan Motander and photo by Terry Miller

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