It looks like the ordeal with the Gladiator Fire is over (it would not be a Black Swan if something did happen). A week ago there was no certainty about any aspect of the fire but the uncertainty seemed to fade slowly over the course of the week--thankfully.
This was the first Type One Incident to threaten our area so obviously it was my first Type One Incident. There was another large fire in 1972 that I believe predates the current typing system. I made certain decisions on preparing for just in case based on trying to avoid Walker Rd turning into a parking lot under a get out now type of evacuation.
Going in it was obvious that not everyone would be happy regardless of the outcome--this is true of every decision made by any fire chief on any topic. We've had very little push back but there was a little which again is to be expected.
The interesting thing is how some of the biases and fallacies we talk about with investing came out during this event, an event that would seem to be much different than the process of managing an investment portfolio. This isn't necessarily a shock but it is interesting to see these sorts of behaviors exhibited in a completely different context.
One final note (hopefully) on the fire is the extent which I learned a lot, was able to get a structure protection plan devised by people with far more experience and (hopefully) raised the profile of our department made this a net positive despite some serious uncertainty early on. Unfortunately fires this big usually start in June in Arizona so it stands to be a long fire season.
Thanks for your patience with the sporadic blog posts.
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Random Roger
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6 comments:
Good news on the fire!
Specific examples of biases and fallacies you referred to would be interesting if you have time to share.
When I lived in Prescott we passed on a good house with only one road access and settled for another not quite as good but with two ways out for exactly that reason: Fire escape.
Glad to hear the weather helped a bit and the fire was controllable.
mostly hindsight bias and some confirmation bias
RW, i knew you were familiar with Prescott, I don't recall you mentioning you used to live here. Very neat.
My disaster preparation experience is with hurricanes. I find the similarities interesting. Hurricanes generally provide a good deal of lead time, most of which is wasted by government officials due to the expense of relocating urban populations from a coastal location to an urban location.
Given the degree of training you have personally undertaken, are your skills being utilized by the state or federal agencies that coordinate the emergency response for evacuation logistics?
I'm glad you have been spared the disaster,
Sam
Roger, didn't I mention that? I lived off Iron Springs rd near the north end of town. Had brunch at the Iron Springs Cafe at least once a month as I recall (if it is still there and you like spicy I can recommend their gumbo). Don't think I ever made it up to Walker though.
OT but, as is my wont, I've been reviewing real interest rates at the US Treasury web site (http://tinyurl.com/3h37ach) and the real yields of 5, 7 and 10-year TIPS are all negative now. We are still quite close to the cliff of economic depression I'm afraid and disinflationary/contractionary headwinds still exist that could push us back towards it.
Sam,
There is probably no way to really know but hurricanes seem worse to me; you can't really fight a hurricane. The utilization question raises an interesting call for introspection. i would say it is not how much we know going into the incident but how much can we learn from it? We learned a lot from this one and hopefully we didn't make assess of ourselves
RW i knew you were familiar with the area but not that you lived here. We go to the Iron Springs Cafe for just about every special--our favorite.
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