Klitzke: These warnings came before the fires
The discussion extends to West Central and other neighborhoods. Klitzke recalls earlier warnings to the commission and explicitly discourages civilians from fighting fires themselves. Her account is retained with its qualifications; automatic captions are not independently audio-verified.
“I was describing conditions as they exist. I wasn’t making crazy speculations. It happened, and we’re lucky no one died.”
Clip transcript
Automatic captions, formatted for reading.
period. Yeah. I think we could, at a policy level, specifically address Five Mile, Indian Trail, and Eagle Ridge. To me, those are the three areas that stick out of all the areas we built in the last 30 years, but, that are the most dangerous in terms of- Grandview Thorp, Laker. Sure. Yeah.
Just because they haven't burned yet. Even West Central. We've had so many fires, and- I mean, I- ... we've got civilians out there tamping them down because we know. And that I don't recommend. But it could've been so much worse without vigilante firefighting that happens during these fires, even though I keep telling people- I'm talking about- ... don't do it. They did it anyway. Talking about the South Hill, and doing the same thing. Yeah.
We're in a really bad place, and I got in trouble my first year on council for saying these exact same things to this committee. So I was describing conditions as they exist. I wasn't making crazy speculations. It happened, and we're lucky no one died. It seems like room for potentially an additional policy or two or three.