ABSTRACT
It is not terrorist bombs or the release of anthrax spores that spawned the birth of modern-day emergency preparedness. It was not the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center twin towers in New York that began this effort to prepare the U.S. for disaster response. It began with a wildfire in Southern California in 1970 that swept through several counties during a 13-d period, burning more than half a million acres, destroying over 700 structures, and taking 16 lives. The awesome fury of this fire swept across county lines and created chaos among responding agencies, which could not coordinate efforts because there was no clear person in charge, no common easily understood language among police, fire, and emergency response agencies, and no previously established coordination plan among these multiple agencies.
