Fire Departments who fight few fires do not easily gain experience.

Leadership without experience is afraid of engaging fires because they fear their inexperience might get a fireman hurt.

There are three ways to deal with this issue –

1. THE RIGHT WAY: Extra training by experts from other experienced Fire Departments to instruct, do practice burns, use a “doll house,” and other techniques to gain experience and fire savvy knowledge – Most buildings are saved or partially saved if they act quickly and try.
2. THE WRONG WAY:
   • Refuse to enter building to fight fires or delay until you can't go inside.
   • Claim you still do fight fires.
   • Wait until fire can be fought from outside using the overhead ladder truck hose and ground hoses – All buildings are destroyed. (This protocol risks the public finding out the fire is not being fought if a hard-to-burn structure is on fire.)
3. THE CRIMINAL WAY:
   • Refuse to go into buildings on fire.
   • Still claim you go inside and fight fires.
   • Actually take actions to intensify and promote the fire to ensure the roof burns through fast so the overhead ladder trucks can put out what is left of the fire without the public realizing what's going on – Building will be totally destroyed
   • This eliminates the risk of the general public discovering no attempt is made to save the property as a big hot fire is quickly produced by aggressively cutting draft holes in the roof to excite and expand the fire. The public is fooled into thinking it was just the fire, rather than the Fire Department actions that are causing the fast moving and big fire. Once the fire is “big,” the public does not question Fire Department actions and there is little they can do.
   • Firemen who are already in the habit of assisting fires by cutting draft holes in the roof can easily rationalize starting a “backfire” inside the building to get the fire over faster, which is their primary goal and the agreed upon end result anyway (even when they could have put out the fire)
   • Once you stop saving buildings and realize that, no matter what, the structure will be destroyed, what is the harm of starting a few new “backfires” inside the building to cause the fire to reach its predetermined conclusion more quickly? The faster the fire burns everything, the safer and less exposure to risk for firefighters.

The overall situation with the San Luis Obispo City Fire Department narratives is that they seem to be an attempt to cover up gross negligence, professional malfeasance, and cowardice by the leadership of SLO City FD.

A Fire Department that won't investigate a fire in which most of the witnesses interviewed and the property owner stated was arson is apparently covering up something. The fire had flames too hot to be a simple fire and not be arson. The videos and available photos show extra high temperatures in the color of the initial fire that could not have been reached without accelerant – The window boxes were essentially empty of fuel – They could not have supported such a large fire without additional fuel from outside being added.

Narratives written many days after the fire, apparently in order to coordinate the stories, are narratives that present a troubling picture of a Fire Department with leadership that has lost its way.

For all the Fire Department leadership to show so little integrity in their willingness to "spin" the story of The Sub fire is a problem for the entire community.

Our research is showing The Sub and Square Deal Recordings & Supplies fire is not the first such "spin" job or "burndown" that has happened in San Luis Obispo – and without reform, it will not be the last.