While dry conditions have left the Santa Clarita Valley susceptible to an especially long fire season this year, SignalSCV.com has the best local online resources available for the SCV in the case of such an emergency.
SignalSCV.com/fire is a local “Fire Center,” which, in the event of a Santa Clarita brush fire or any other kind of wildfire, will have the latest available information, such as statistics on the size and direction of the fire, as well as “Additional Resources” toward the bottom of the page, such as a glossary of fire terms.
One of the most helpful features for residents in and around the Santa Clarita Valley, as well as those out of state or even country, who would like to check up on their SCV family members, is the fire map.
The Fire Center’s Interactive Wildfire Map is shared from the National Interagency Fire Center, a national support center for wildland firefighting.
The fire vocabulary is aimed at helping print readers and website visitors understand exactly what fire officials mean when they report a fire is contained, i.e. when, “A fuel break around the fire has been completed. This break may include natural barriers or manually and/or mechanically constructed line.” Or what is meant by “defensible space,” an area either natural or manmade where material capable of causing a fire to spread has been treated, cleared, reduced, or changed to act as a barrier between an advancing wildland fire and the loss to life, property, or resources.
And The Signal’s Fire Center will also have the latest news reports possible for a fire through a number of avenues, whether it’s the constantly updated Twitter feeds for emergencies from the L.A. County Fire Department, the Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol and the city of Santa Clarita, among other first-responders and official agencies, or the real-time feed of Santa Clarita Valley updates from The Signal’s newsroom.
Tweets from the Santa Clarita Valley’s emergency responders are one of the agencies’ preferred methods of communication during times of emergency because the normal channels of communication are often strained during such events.
One recent story for example, notes the status of a pair of Sikorsky S-70i Black Hawk helicopters that were signed over to the Los Angeles County Fire Department recently.
