Sierra Madre outlines Eaton Fire response, forms Fire Safe Council and expands emergency programs

Mayor Robert Parkhurst said Thursday that Sierra Madre’s rapid emergency response and interagency coordination during the Eaton Fire allowed the city to be the first in the area to order evacuations and begin recovery work. “We were the first city to evacuate the Eaton fire,” Parkhurst said, crediting the emergency operations center, the fire department’s outreach systems (Genesis and Nixle), and early reservoir pumping by the water department.

The mayor described a sequence of response and recovery steps: activating the city’s emergency operations center; deploying public-notification systems; coordinating with CERT and Search and Rescue to clear and re-open neighborhoods; and working with state and federal partners, including FEMA, to restore damaged roads, trails and other infrastructure. Parkhurst announced the creation of a Fire Safe Council chaired by Gavin Lee and said the council will lead local efforts to create fire-wise neighborhoods, expand defensible space and reduce fuel loads.

Parkhurst and city staff emphasized training and equipment improvements across public-safety agencies. He said the fire department more than doubled its staffing after professionalization in 2020 and that all current firefighters are paramedics; the department logs nearly 5,000 hours of training annually and averages under five minutes for fire response. The city also plans to expand emergency communications through Smart911 and features of the Genesis system.

Police updates described by Parkhurst showed relatively flat rates for theft and residential burglary, and a nearly 50% decline in auto burglaries. He said the city’s average police response time is about three minutes and cited roughly 1,300 hours of police training in areas including de-escalation and use-of-force guidance.

Parkhurst outlined near-term program expansions: recruitment and professional development for emergency personnel; a paramedic subscription program to defray ambulance costs when insurance does not cover them; and consideration of new technology such as drones for scene assessment, license-plate readers and body-worn cameras for officers. The mayor said these steps aim to maintain quick response times and strengthen public-safety resilience.

The mayor asked residents to participate in community preparedness work led by the Fire Safe Council and said the council will coordinate with regional partners such as the California Conservation Corps to pursue vegetation management and other mitigation projects.