Month: March 2009

Jennifer A. Reinish filmed a documentary in 2007 and 2008 in California about the behind the scenes activities at a wildland fire. Behind the Lines: Fighting a Wildland Fire focuses on what happens at an incident base–the support, logistics, finance, command, and planning functions that make it possible for the firefighters to suppress the fire.

On her web site (where a trailer can be viewed), Ms. Reinish says she made the film with “absolutely no budget”. She completeted it, but in order to scrounge up the $550 she needed by March 7 in order to send it to film festivals, she conducted a successful on-line fund raising campaign for her “Film Festival Fund”.

Ms. Reinish told Wildfire Today:

The film has been submitted to three film festivals to start with – the LA Film Festival, Mountainfilm in Telluride, and SilverDocs.  I am waiting to hear on those, and will be submitting to a few more.

I am planning to do a local premiere in Santa Barbara sometime in the next few months.  Proceeds of the event will be donated to a charity that Santa Barbara firefighters will choose for me.

She also said that she will re-open the on-line contribution site so that she can more easily accept funds from those who want to purchase copies for a $25 donation.

We have not seen the film yet, but we just ordered a copy. After it “premiers” here at the Wildfire Today “World Headquarters” we’ll let you know how many stars it earns.

UPDATE:  Wildfire Today reviewed the film HERE.

A copy of testimony that the Government Accounting Office was scheduled to give on Wednesday before the Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives (Whew!) is available on the GAO web site.  The entire 22-page .pdf document is HERE, publication # GAO-09-443T.

This is a brief summary of the testimony, provided by the GAO:

Why the GAO did this study

The Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture, manages over 190 million acres of forest and grassland. The agency is responsible for managing its lands for various purposes—including recreation, grazing, timber harvesting, and others—while ensuring that such activities do not impair the lands’ long-term productivity. Carrying out these often competing responsibilities has been made more difficult by the increasing cost of wildland fires and the budgetary constraints necessitated by our nation’s long-term fiscal outlook.

This testimony highlights some of the major management challenges the Forest Service faces in carrying out its land management responsibilities. It is based on numerous reports GAO has issued on a wide variety of the agency’s activities.

What Gao Recommends

GAO has made a number of recommendations intended to improve the Forest Service’s wildland fire management, strengthen its collection of data, and increase accountability. The Forest Service has taken steps to implement many of these recommendations—by, for example, improving its processes for allocating funds to reduce potentially hazardous vegetation, and issuing guidance to strengthen financial controls—but has been slow to take action on others.

Thanks Ken.

This is a “word cloud”, made by determing how frequently words were used on the first page of Wildfire Today on March 11.  You can make your own HERE.

Don’t forget, we’ll host a live discussion about Fire Aviation, Friday evening right here.  More information.

A site that calls itself Mother Nature Network has identified what they call “10 great eco-jobs“. Along with the jobs of Soup Salesman, Regulatory Advisor, and Vegan Grocer, they say being a wildland firefighter on a hot shot crew is also a “great eco-job”. Here is an excerpt:

Justin Law, Firefighter, Craig, CO

Call Justin Law the accidental firefighter. During his senior year at the University of Kentucky, he Websurfed onto a site featuring rough-and-tumble forest firefighters in action. “I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do,’” he says. After earning a degree in forestry, Law battled infernos from Kentucky to Arizona before signing on with the Hotshots—the big leagues of wildfire fighting, where he helps preserve endangered animals and their habitats by extinguishing fires in an eco-friendly manner.

During wildfire season—from May until about mid-October—Law is on call around the clock. On two hours’ notice he must be ready to spend up to 16 hours a day felling trees with a chainsaw, clearing brush, and digging trenches. The Hotshots travel hundreds of miles from their home base to places like southern Nevada, where his Colorado-based crew (one of about 90 such crews in America) saved the endangered desert tortoise’s habitat. “I love my job’s unpredictability,” Law says.

Except for the odd day off, Hotshots spend every minute with their crew of 20 men, usually sleeping out under the stars because they’re too tired to pitch a tent. “Most people would give up after a week, but I can’t,” Law says, “We’re saving people’s homes and protecting the ecosystem—that’s what’s important.”

I’m not sure I’d put being a hot shot in the same category with a Soup Salesman, but I have to admit, being on a hot shot crew is a pretty cool job.  Not that there’s anything WRONG with being a Soup Salesman!

The U.S. Forest Service has received stimulus funds to begin work on hazardous fuel reduction projects in six Oregon counties, $1-2 million in each county. $2 million each has been set aside for Josephine, Douglas, Deschutes, and Jefferson counties, and there will be $1 million worth of contracts each in Curry and Crook counties.

The funds were appropriated in the “stimulus” bill, or the “Recovery and Reinvestment Act”. The money will be used to award contracts for work on national forest land to remove hazardous fuels and will employ about 100 people. The contracts should be awarded by March 17.

UPDATE @ 1:00 P.M. PT, March 11

The San Diego Union has a story about specific projects in the Cleveland National Forest that will be undertanken with stimulus funds. One of them is repaving at Camp Ole fire station–where I used to work.

“…placement of new asphalt throughout the fire station area to improve access for fire equipment.”

Of course when I was there, there was no pavement in the parking areas or in front of the apparatus bays.