Allen Ira Dinoyo, a homeless man, was convicted of setting nine fires in San Diego County and sentenced to 13 years in prison on Thursday. Dinoyo’s arrest and conviction demonstrate that there is a link between the homeless crisis and increasing wildfire danger in San Diego County.
Here’s my plan to solve the critical challenges of ending homeless encampments and preventing fires in San Diego County:
I strongly believe that we cannot allow people, many of whom suffer from mental illness or substance abuse, to live on our streets. We need to utilize the conservatorship law enacted by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1967, which allows intervention for individuals who are gravely disabled due to severe mental illness or substance use disorder. San Diego County uses conservatorship 11.2 times less than other large jurisdictions, even though the Board of Supervisors directly oversees this tool through the County Conservator and Mental Health Department. It’s time to change that.
I also believe in Fire Prevention. Proper planning could have prevented the LA wildfires. San Diego County needs to ensure that this does not happen here by:
Removing Ignition Sources: Especially illegal homeless encampments. I applaud the San Diego County Board of Supervisors for approving Jim Desmond’s proposal to reduce fire danger by clearing homeless encampments during red flag warnings.
Creating Appropriate Firebreaks: These need to be as wide as 300 feet—the length of a football field—in forested areas to keep the fire from jumping.
Building Adequate Evacuation Routes: This is especially important in rural and unincorporated areas of the County. These wide roads can also halt the progress of an advancing fire.
Fiscally Conservative Government and Balanced Budgets: Voters and elected officials care about fire preparedness during fire season, but critical public safety priorities are often the first to suffer when bloated government programs grow to consume essential budgets. Take for instance the County of San Diego which is funding attorneys for illegal migrants while it stands in a structural budget deficit and has significantly cut critical public safety spending this year.
Under my leadership, the City of Vista built the finest Fire and Rescue Department in Southern California. We’ve expanded our firefighting force by 15% to decrease response times, purchased 7 new fire trucks, brush fire rigs, ambulances and other fire apparatus. Our fire department inspected more than 8,000 parcels last year to ensure that overgrown brush was not allowed to become dry fuel that threatened homes in our community.
We’ve also invested in cutting edge fire prevention technology by installing two new thermal fire imaging cameras, perched high above the city that immediately detected the recent Mar Vista fire, which our firefighters extinguished in a record 21 minutes. The Mar Vista fire is the fire you didn’t hear about on the news, because we were prepared to stop it before it threatened life and property.
John Franklin
Mayor, City of Vista
