Bill passes in House to establish list of presumptive illnesses for federal firefighters

Creates the presumption that federal firefighters who become disabled by certain serious diseases contracted them on the job

Firefighter Cerro Pelado Fire in Arizona
Firefighter on the Cerro Pelado Fire in New Mexico, May, 2022. IMT photo.

Today the House of Representatives voted 288-131 to approve and advance the Federal Firefighters Fairness Act, H.R. 2499, a bipartisan measure authored by Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-CA) that ensures federal firefighters receive the same access to job-related disability and retirement benefits as state, county, and municipal firefighters.

The legislation would create the presumption that firefighters who become disabled by certain serious diseases contracted them on the job, including heart disease, lung disease, certain cancers, and other infectious diseases.

Federal firefighters do not have signed legislation establishing the presumption that local firefighters have in 49 out of 50 U.S. states– and are forced to identify specific exposures that may have caused their illness. This burden of proof makes it extraordinarily difficult for federal firefighters to qualify for workers comp and disability benefits related to their work.

The measure would improve benefits for more than 20,000 federal firefighters across the U.S., with about 16,000 of them being wildland firefighters. It would apply to “personnel who have been employed for a minimum of 5 years in aggregate as an employee in fire protection activities.”

The diseases covered under the legislation, if passed by the Senate and signed by the President, are:

  • Bladder cancer, brain cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, colorectal cancer, esophageal cancer, kidney cancer, leukemias, lung cancer, mesothelioma, multiple myeloma, Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, prostate cancer, skin cancer (melanoma), testicular cancer, thyroid cancer, and a sudden cardiac event or stroke while, or not later than 24 hours after engaging in certain fire-related activities described in the bill.

It was just three weeks ago, on April 19, when the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP), in FECA Bulletin No. 22-07, established a list of cancers and medical conditions for which the firefighter does not have to submit proof that their disease was caused by an on the job injury.

The medical conditions covered under the OWCP bulletin as of last month are:

  • Cancers: esophageal, colorectal, prostate, testicular, kidney, bladder, brain, lung, buccal cavity/pharynx, larynx, thyroid, multiple myeloma, nonHodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia, mesothelioma, or melanoma; or
  • Hypertension, coronary artery disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary fibrosis, asthma, or a sudden cardiac event or stroke.

The OWCP list includes six conditions that are not in H.R. 2499: buccal cavity/pharynx cancer, larynx cancer, hypertension, coronary artery disease, pulmonary fibrosis, and asthma.

H.R. 2499 covers one disease not in the OWCP list, skin cancer, an important addition, especially for wildland firefighters whose work requires being outside most of the time. The bill includes a method for adding other diseases within a three-year period, including breast cancer, if supported by scientific evidence.

The pending legislation had 203 co-sponsors in the House, an extraordinarily large number of representatives who stated early-on that they were in favor of the bill and wanted to help get it passed.

The next step is the Senate, a place where many bills go to die. Senators Tom Carper (D-DE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are the lead sponsors of a bipartisan companion bill there. It has 12 co-sponsors, only two of which are Republicans. With a 50-50 Dem/Rep balance and a requirement for 60 of the 100 Senators to vote yes, the passage is not a foregone conclusion, in spite of overwhelming approval in the House.

“We know fire fighters are routinely exposed to carcinogens on fire scenes. Sadly, our brothers and sisters in federal service are too often denied the benefits they deserve when needed the most,” said International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) General President Edward Kelly. “The Federal Firefighter Fairness Act brings the federal government in line with the 49 states that recognize the deadly link between firefighting and cancer.”

Two firefighters injured in Oklahoma engine rollover, one died a month later

Rollover of Balko FD Engine 5, Oklahoma
Rollover of Balko FD Engine 5 — Oklahoma, April 6, 2022. Photo courtesy of OK Forestry Services.

Updated at 8:30 p.m. CDT May 9, 2022

Just a few hours after we saw the notice from the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center and wrote the piece below about the rollover of an engine in Oklahoma on April 5, Mark informed us that one of the two injured firefighters, Jason Smith, passed away yesterday from his injuries.

Below is an excerpt from a Facebook post by Western Oklahoma Fire Coverage on May 8:

In memory of fallen Firefighter Jason Smith with the Balko Fire department. Just 33 days ago, while fighting the Beaver River Fire in Beaver County, two Balko firefighters were injured when their truck rolled over off of a 6’ embankment. They were flown to Lubbock, TX to the burn unit to receive treatment. Jason was finally able to come home at the end of last month, but today he lost the battle and succumbed to his injuries. Jason leaves behind his wife, 2 daughters and a 3 1/2 month old grandson Emmett that he was very proud of.

We send our sincere condolences to the family, friends, and co-workers of Mr. Smith.


5:08 p.m. CDT May 9, 2022

Two firefighters were injured and later burned in a fire engine rollover in Oklahoma. It happened in the state’s panhandle April 5 on the Beaver River Fire during the initial attack on a vegetation fire 11 miles west of Beaver. (This information was contained in a “24-hour report” about the incident which was distributed by the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center.)

Balko Volunteer Fire Department Engine 5 with two occupants veered slightly off the road onto a gravel shoulder that collapsed. As a result, the engine slid off an embankment approximately six feet in depth and rolled over on its top. Subsequently, an active area of the fire switched directions as it was impacted by strong variable winds. Prior to the fire arriving at the accident scene both occupants were able to self-extricate. However, they sustained 1st and 2nd degree burns to their arms and hands as the fire burned past. In addition, one victim possibly suffered a concussion during the vehicle rollover. 

Both firefighters were evacuated from the incident by law enforcement and later flown by air ambulance to a burn center in Lubbock, Texas. Initially the victims were listed in critical condition. When the 24-hour report was issued the next day on April 6, 2022 they were conscious and in ‘Yellow’ status at the burn center. 

Rollover of Balko FD Engine 5, Oklahoma
Rollover of Balko FD Engine 5 — Oklahoma, April 6, 2022. Photo courtesy of OK Forestry Services.

OWCP moves toward recognizing presumptive diseases for wildland firefighters

wildland firefighter with hose
NWCG photo.

Yesterday the Department of Labor announced that they have implemented important changes for processing Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA) claims submitted by firefighters. FICA can pay medical expenses and compensation benefits to injured workers and survivors, and helps injured employees return to work when they are medically able to do so. The new policy eases the evidentiary requirements needed to support claims filed by federal employees engaged in fire protection and suppression activities for certain cancers, heart conditions and lung conditions. In essence, to an untrained observer, the new program looks similar to the presumptive disease policy employed by many fire departments and governments.

The new Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs FECA Bulletin, No. 22-07 “Special Case Handling in Certain Firefighter FECA Claims Processing and Adjudication” issued April 19, 2022, establishes a list of cancers and medical conditions for which the firefighter does not have to submit proof that their disease was caused by an on the job injury. The requirements to qualify for this new policy are that the condition must be diagnosed by a doctor, the person was engaged in fire protection activities for at least 5 years, and the diagnosis must have occurred no more than 10 years after employment.

If these requirements are met, the employee’s claim would be deemed “high-risk” and qualify for expedited processing.

The medical conditions covered are:

  • Cancers: esophageal, colorectal, prostate, testicular, kidney, bladder, brain, lung, buccal cavity/pharynx, larynx, thyroid, multiple myeloma, nonHodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia, mesothelioma, or melanoma; or
  • Hypertension, coronary artery disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary fibrosis, asthma, or a sudden cardiac event or stroke.

To implement the policy changes, OWCP has created a special claims unit to process federal firefighters’ claims. The unit consists of existing staff specifically trained to handle these issues. The agency is also providing comprehensive training to the unit’s examiners on the impacts of the policy changes, and working with federal agencies including the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Homeland Security and Interior to explain the changes in policy and procedures.

These two major changes in how the OWCP handles illness and injury claims from firefighters appear to be monumental improvements if they pan out as advertised. In recent years the reputation and services provided by the agency for injured or sick firefighters, or the surviving spouses and family members of those killed on the job, has been abysmal. Too often they have been driven to beg for money at GoFundMe just to pay medical bills after being hounded by bill collectors when the federal government did not fulfill their legal obligations.

NFFE and IAFF met with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh
NFFE and IAFF met with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh (wearing the red tie) and Department of Labor officials in Los Angeles, April 20, 2022 to discuss processing of firefighters’ injury claims. NFFE photo.

Some of these changes and improvements are due in part to efforts that have been going on behind the scenes by members of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, International Association of Fire Fighters, and the National Federation of Federal Employees. In the last month they have traveled to Washington DC and Los Angeles (at least) to meet with federal officials who can make things happen. For example they have met with Marty Walsh, the Secretary of Labor, twice. These folks deserve your thanks.

One of the causes of the slow response to firefighters’ injury and death claims has been a reduction in the number of OWCP claims examiners due to declining budgets over the last few years. It is critical that the President and both houses of Congress follow up and ensure that the agency is appropriately funded so that they can perform their required duties, assisting employees injured or sickened on the job.

More information from the Department of Labor:

How to file a workers’ compensation claim (From the OWCP):

To file a workers’ compensation claim, you must first register for an Employees’ Compensation Operations and Management Portal (ECOMP) account at www.ecomp.dol.gov. ECOMP is a free web-based application. You do not need approval from your supervisor or anyone else at your agency to initiate your FECA workers’ compensation claim. Once you register for an ECOMP account, you will be able to file either Form CA-1 ‘Notice of Traumatic Injury’ (single event trauma) or Form CA-2 ‘Notice of Occupational Disease’ (repeated exposure).

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Ben.

Federal government to spend $18 million to rebuild fire station destroyed by Dolan Fire

The federal government has balked at paying for the treatment needed by a firefighter who was severly injuried during the burn over

Dolan Fire deployment site
Dolan Fire deployment site. Engine & pickup. Image from the report

Congress has set aside $18 million to rebuild a US Forest Service fire station that was destroyed in the Dolan Fire in the Los Padres National Forest in Southern California in 2020.

The fire had been burning for weeks. The night before it reached Nacimiento station on Nacimiento-Fergusson Road 7 miles from the California coast highway on September 8, 2020, the fire ran for about three miles toward the station, burning 30,000 acres with spot fires three-quarters of a mile ahead. The fire personnel at the station during the burnover included two USFS engine crews, two dozers with operators, and the only Division supervisor working the night shift due to a shortage of personnel.

Below is an aerial photo of the Nacimiento guard station taken almost exactly two years before the burnover.

Nacimiento Station
Nacimiento Station, satellite photo, September 7, 2018.

Fifteen firefighters deployed into only 13 fire shelters. Four were injured and three were hospitalized. One had very serious burns.

The Forest Service will use the funding to replace the fire station, barracks, engine garage, and pumphouse, as well as a water well, solar connections, and access roads.

These funds were provided as Supplemental Disaster Funding through the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act of 2021.  The disaster assistance funding is a share of the $1.36 billion of supplemental appropriations provided to the Forest Service.

The federal government balked at paying for treatment for injuries to one of the firefighters

According to The Tribune of San Luis Obispo, California, one of the firefighters severly injured in the burn over is still dealing with not only his on-the-job injuries, but attempting to get the government to pay for his treatment:

Casey Allen said Monday that healing from his second- and third-degree burns is continuing, with only a few small wounds left on his ankles, and his Achilles tendon on his right foot is almost completely healed.

However, the news about Allen’s injured left hand wasn’t as good: Doctors may have to amputate his ring and pinkie fingers.

He credited U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal and his district representative Wendy Motta with finally breaking a stubborn repayment logjam so Allen and his wife Tina, who he called “my rock,” could be repaid for money they had to pay out of pocket toward his recovery.

Mr. Allen’s fiancée at the time set up a GoFundMe account for him. She wrote, “He will need hospital services for the next year at a minimum.”

Mr. Allen is suffering one of the ultimate indignities — being severely injured in a life-changing on-the-job incident, and your employer, the U.S. government, is balking at stepping up and providing the payment for your desperately needed medical treatment. The Office of Workers Compensation needs to be funded adequately by Congress so it can rebuild its staff and respond PROMPTLY to situations like this.

Casey Allen
Casey Allen

Senators urge the OWCP to use special unit for handling injury claims of firefighters

Numbers Fire Nevada wildfire Carson City Minden
Numbers Fire, Nevada, July 6, 2020. Photo by Tallac Hotshots.

A bipartisan group of U.S. Senators has signed a letter urging the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) to expedite the handling of death and injury claims of federal firefighters “in advance of the 2022 wildfire season.”

As we wrote on December 14, 2021, the federal agency responsible for supporting firefighters when they are injured on the job too often fails to reimburse them appropriately for medical bills and death benefits. A December 13, 2021 article at BuzzFeed News described numerous examples of firefighters who were seriously injured while working, then confronted with huge medical bills. Some were being hounded multiple times a day from bill collectors demanding money that should have been paid by the OWCP. Firefighters’ credit cards have been maxed out and credit ratings destroyed. Injured firefighters have routinely been reduced to setting up GoFundMe pages and depending on grants from the Wildland Firefighter Foundation.

A spokesperson for the OWCP told BuzzFeed News that the agency was in the process of developing new procedures and modifying existing policies. For example, a “Special Claims Unit,” which usually handles nontraditional requests, will now adjudicate “all new incoming firefighter claims.”

The Special Claims Unit already existed. The agency’s manual states that one of its duties is handling death benefits for members of the Armed Forces who die “in connection with service with an Armed Force in a contingency operation.” All of these claims for a death gratuity “are to be transferred to [the unit] immediately upon receipt for handling and response.”

One of the causes for the slow response to firefighters’ injury and death claims is a reduction in the number of OWCP claims examiners due to a declining budget over the last few years. The letter signed by the Senators does not address their responsibility for appropriating adequate funds to accomplish the mission.

“Federal wildland firefighters have recently reported difficulty getting their medical treatment costs for work-related injuries covered by the government within a reasonable timeframe,” Feinstein wrote in a letter to Christopher Godfrey, director of the Labor Department’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs. “This is simply unacceptable – these firefighters put their lives at risk to defend American lives and property, and they deserve our support.”

Feinstein continued, “Your commitment to establish a special claims handling unit is an excellent first step to remedying this situation; we urge you to follow through expeditiously and to focus on handling the claims of both federal wildland firefighters and structural firefighters…Given the urgency of the wildfire situation in the western United States, we request an update as to the status of this special claims handling unit at your earliest convenience.”

In addition to Senator Feinstein, the letter was signed by Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine).

The complete text of the Senators’ letter is below:


February 14, 2022

Mr. Christopher Godfrey
Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs
Department of Labor
200 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20210

Dear Director Godfrey:

We urge you to expedite the establishment of a special claims unit to handle firefighter compensation claims so that it can be in place before the start of the 2022 fire season. As you noted in your testimony before the House Committee on Education and Labor on December 2, 2021, federal firefighters who file claims with your office are facing many challenges, and it is our understanding that firefighters are sometimes unable to obtain compensation for their medical treatment, especially those who assert long-term illnesses attributable to their work.

As you know, wildfires in the West are becoming larger, more frequent, and increasingly hazardous. In 2021, the wildland firefighting national preparedness level was raised to its highest level on July 14 – the earliest date in a decade and the second earliest date in history – and required the active deployment of more than 80 percent of the nation’s wildland firefighting crews. We expect this trend to continue, requiring federal firefighters to be engaged for longer periods of time each year combating increasingly dangerous fires. As a result, firefighters will likely sustain more work-related injuries and will increasingly be exposed to conditions that can lead to long-term illness and injury.

Federal wildland firefighters have recently reported difficulty getting their medical treatment costs for work-related injuries covered by the government within a reasonable timeframe. These firefighters, facing bankruptcy, have been forced to seek assistance from the Wildland Firefighter Foundation or private fundraisers to pay their bills while they await reimbursement. We are similarly concerned that claims from firefighters diagnosed with certain cancers or other long-term illnesses associated with firefighting activities are simply refused. They are told that, because they cannot definitively prove the link between the illness and their job exposure, the federal government will not cover their medical expenses. This is simply unacceptable – these firefighters put their lives at risk to defend American lives and property, and they deserve our support.

Your commitment to establish a special claims handling unit is an excellent first step to remedying this situation; we urge you to follow through expeditiously and to focus on handling the claims of both federal wildland firefighters and structural firefighters. This new unit should ensure its examiners are aware of the particular risks facing firefighters and provide clear rationales for rejected claims to ensure that claims processing is efficient, accurate, and transparent. Given the urgency of the wildfire situation in the western United States, we request an update as to the status of this special claims handling unit at your earliest convenience. Thank you for considering our request, and we look forward to working with you to support the important work of our federal firefighters.

Sincerely,

Dianne Feinstein
U.S. Senator

Alex Padilla
U.S. Senator

Susan M. Collins
U.S. Senator

Jacky Rosen
U.S. Senator

Ron Wyden
U.S. Senator

Thomas R. Carper
U.S. Senator

Report released about entrapment of 15 firefighters on the 2020 Dolan Fire

The Nacimiento guard station, two fire engines, several personal vehicles, and two dozers burned — there was one very serious injury

Dolan Fire deployment site
Dolan Fire deployment site. Engine & pickup. Image from the report

Several “learning reports” have been released by the U.S. Forest Service about the burnover and entrapment one and a half years ago of wildland firefighters at a remote fire station. It occurred on the Dolan Fire on the Los Padres National Forest in Southern California September 8, 2020. Fifteen firefighters deployed into only 13 fire shelters. Four firefighters were injured and three were hospitalized. One had very serious burns.

The Dolan Fire had been burning for weeks but there were about half a dozen other fires in California that were larger, some much larger such as the LNU Lightning Complex, SCU Lightning Complex, CZU August Lightning, and the August Complex.

The Incident Management Team ran a modeling scenario on September 4 which showed that within the next 14 days the probability of the fire reaching the Nacimiento Guard Station was 60 to 80 percent with no delaying tactics. At that time the fire was 3.1 miles away.

The night before the fire reached the station on Nacimiento-Fergusson Road 7 miles from the highway on the California coast, the fire ran for about three miles toward the station, burning 30,000 acres with spot fires three-quarters of a mile ahead. The map below based on infrared data shows the growth in the 26-hour period ending at 2 a.m. on Sept. 8. The fire hit the station between 7 and 8 a.m. on September 8.

Map of the Dolan Fire
Map of the Dolan Fire. The red line was the perimeter at 2 a.m. PDT September 8, 2020. The white line was the perimeter about 26 hours earlier. The red shaded areas indicate extreme heat.

When the fixed-wing aircraft mapped the fire five or six hours before the incident, it had burned about 74,000 acres, more than twice the size mapped the previous night. The sensors on the plane detected intense heat on the southern edge of the fire, 0.7 miles north of Nacimiento Station.

(To see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Dolan Fire, click here: https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/dolan-fire/)

The fire personnel at the station during the burnover included two USFS engine crews, two dozers with operators, and the only Division supervisor working the night shift — due to a shortage of personnel. Other overhead at the fire may have been distracted as a newly established Incident Command Post had to be evacuated and relocated as the fire approached in the middle of the night. 

Dolan Fire deployment site burned engine
Dolan Fire deployment site. Engine 17. Image from the report.

Several of those involved at Nacimiento believed there was no way to defend the station even though a hand crew had cleared some vegetation, a hand line had been dug, and there were hose lays around the structures. With that work done and the fact that the station had survived other fires, some of the locals said they could protect the buildings and the personal belongings and vehicles of the fire personnel who lived there.

Below is an aerial photo of the Nacimiento Guard Station taken almost exactly two years before the burnover. It appeared in an article on Wildfire Today about the entrapment published September 11, 2020.

Nacimiento Station
Nacimiento Station, satellite photo, September 7, 2018.

The photo below was taken after the burnover.

Dolan Fire deployment site
Dolan Fire deployment site, aerial photo. Image from the report.

This is the first paragraph in the Learning Review — Narrative:

Smoke is billowing out of the barracks and hot embers are raining down all around. Engine 16 is on fire. The engine bay is on fire. Marty can’t get his pack out of the burning engine, which means he can’t get to his fire shelter. He’s just standing there, and Rene can’t get his attention. She has her shelter out, ready to go. She hits him, but he just stands there. She hits him again, but he still just stands there. Marty is not ready to commit to the shelter; he’s thinking about potential dangers from the propane tanks around them, and that more needs to or could be done. Rene hits him again and pulls down on his shirt to get him down to the ground and into the fire shelter. Rene tucks the fire shelter around him and cinches it in tight under his arms and legs. She takes a quick look around and then climbs in under the shelter with him. Eleven other firefighters are deployed around them in the parking lot of the Nacimiento guard station. The heat inside the shelters was stifling. “I could feel the skin tightening on my face. Mucous was coming out of my nose and eyes, hanging off my chin. I felt like all the fluid was being roasted out of me. My throat was so sore I could barely drink my water.” Everyone is asking the same question: “How did we get here?”

“If we preach it, we should do it.”

The Organizational Learning Report has a section, Theme 3, pointing out that even though the Forest Service has “preached [to homeowners] FireWise concepts for decades” about how to reduce the chances of their houses burning as a wildfire approaches, too many of the agency’s own structures lack FireWise status. The report says, “If we preach it, we should do it. ”

firewise wildfire risk home tree spacing
Firewise vegetation clearance recommendations. NFPA.

We asked Kelly Martin for her thoughts about the reports on the Dolan Fire. She is the current president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters and the retired Chief of Fire and Aviation for Yosemite National Park. She replied by text:

The biggest thing that comes to mind is our over confidence in what we deem ‘defendable’ until the time wedge becomes too small to make safe, proactive decisions. The oppressive personal/social pressure to protect treasured places puts us in an untenable situation to champion the notion, ‘not on my watch’ are we going to lose this place. The protection narrative gets repeated and reinforced by the majority who consider it ‘their home turf’ and unfortunately tend to dismiss many ‘outsiders’ objective perspectives on the situation that might help reduce the deep personal attachment to ‘home turf.’ Having ‘Outsiders’ become part of the decision making process can help enhance rational decision making.

Confirmation bias may have been a factor. The fire station survived previous fires, thus lulling us to previous events rather than fully appreciating the situation we now find ourselves in with excessive fuel buildup.

Also, I think the Wildfire Decision Support System (WFDSS) process and further high level local management and Incident Management Team analysis should have spotted this mindset trap early on.

Our Take

The disaster at the Dolan Fire is yet another example where knowing the real-time location of the fire may have made a difference. The Captain who ran the station and some other locals believed that they needed to protect the facility and insisted that they COULD. Others thought differently but were not assertive enough or didn’t have the authority to override that decision. They knew the fire was approaching. But would things have turned out differently with others who didn’t have emotional attachments to the buildings? Or who had real-time intelligence, and could “see” the locations of all resources as well as the entire fire — the very rapid rate of spread, the spot fires ¾ mile ahead, and the intensity? What if the Operations Section Chief, Branch Director, primary Safety Officer, or the Incident Commander had access to real-time video from a drone circling over the fire? Any one of those might have ordered the withdrawal of the engines, dozers, and 15 firefighters hours before they came close to death. They might have said, “Forget the damn structures. Think about the humans. Consider the physical and mental trauma those humans could suffer, perhaps for years.”

The decision to stay or go, in addition to human safety, should have also considered the dollar value of the personal belongings and vehicles of the employees who lived at Nacimiento. They were not evacuated days earlier even though the station was in a mandatory evacuation area. They trusted the Incident Management Team, the Forest overhead, and the Captains. How much will it cost those firefighters, on their meager salaries, to replace their personal vehicles and belongings? Then there is the cost to taxpayers of two engines, two dozers, and at least one pickup truck.

The technology has existed for years to provide real-time video of fires 24 hours a day. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act required that by September 12, 2019 the five federal land management agencies “develop consistent protocols and plans for the use on wildland fires of unmanned aircraft system technologies, including for the development of real-time maps of the location of wildland fires.”

While this technology has been demonstrated and used sparingly, such as the FIRIS program, real-time mapping is far from being used routinely.

The Dingell Act also mandated that the five federal land management agencies “jointly develop and operate a tracking system to remotely locate the positions of fire resources for use by wildland firefighters, including, at a minimum, any fire resources assigned to Federal type 1 wildland fire incident management teams,” due by March 12, 2021.

The Bureau of Land Management has installed hardware for Location Based Services (LBS), which are now operational on more than 700 wildland fire engines, crew transports, and support vehicles. Vehicle position and utilization data are visually displayed via a web-based portal or mobile device application. Ten months after it was required by Congress, the U.S. Forest Service has made very little progress on this mandate.

Some other government facilities are also not FireWise

It is not just the Forest Service with structures that do not all meet FireWise standards. When I was an area Fire Management Officer for the National Park Service, two of the parks for which I was responsible were threatened on different occasions by wildfires. Although the threat was low to moderate, I was able to convince the Park Superintendents that hazard reduction and thinning of the trees was necessary, now. It should have already been done, but seeing smoke in the air made it possible to make fast decisions and to get it accomplished very quickly. Up until then, removing any tree near park headquarters was a tough row to hoe. Neither fire spread into the parks, but the long-delayed and badly needed work got done. And I slept better.