This weekend we are continuing an occasional weekend feature we started a few weeks ago. This post can serve as the beginning of an open thread where our readers can talk about issues that we have, or have not, gotten into yet. This is literally an off-topic thread. You have the floor.
The usual rules about commenting apply. And remember, no personal attacks or politics, please.
Let’s enjoy a wide-ranging conversation!
(Oh, and send us pics of staging areas — date, location, and photographer’s name would be nice.)
How many others out there havent received their second retroactive incentive payment that was promised by the end of July? Ive seen some traffic that its a widespread problem but FS HRM hasnt sent out anything at all.
Be worth checking your pay stubs if you havent.
I don’t think combining the FS and BLM is a good idea. They don’t do the same things. They have different objectives and different cultures. And, to be blunt, they don’t get along.
I do think it is logical to move the FS into DOI, but that will never happen, because the USDA will not give up it’s cash cow. If the FS was moved out of the USDA, the USDA would be dissolved soon after. (Maybe that’s a good idea, if your goal is to get rid of the USDA).
The other argument is to move the FS land management to DOI and NPS, BLM, and FS FIRE to DHS. Which is logical. FIRE would have more tools and capabilities, but I’m not sure many of the FIRE employees would be able to pass the DHS background check. (Again, might be a good idea, if you’re trying to get rid of certain people).
But moving FS land management to DOI or FIRE to DHS would not solve the bigger problems…sexual harassment, assault, and rapes. Which brings me to a bigger issue…jurisdiction. So, to deal with the jurisdictional issues, you have to move FIRE to the States.
Summary
Move the land management of the FS to DOI and the NPS, BLM, and FS FIRE to the States.
For what it is worth, I used to be a big skeptic of a National Fire Service. I grew up on an FS compound and I am a pretty proud forestry tech. I viewed such suggestions as a way for the hero types to try and shift the culture to a structure department without the call volume. Now, after getting a really good look under the hood of how the land management agencies function/don’t function, I think it is the only way we will see meaningful change. (For both the workforce and firefighting effectiveness.)
I’d like to hear a serious discussion on differences, some of them “taboo,” with respect to forest management, with a strong fire component, but not necessarily a dominant one. For example, fire science and fire practice.
One of the biggest differences between (for example) the USFS and the BLM — though it’s far from taboo — is that their policies and management actions and options are subject to different federal laws. Ever heard of the NFMA and the FLPMA ?
Start with this (PDF)
https://www.swlaw.com/assets/pdf/publications/2003/06/12/DDragooFLPMApresent.pdf
But wait, there’s more:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/r2/recreation/?cid=stelprdb5356576
Yesterday, 8/5, was also the 73rd anniversary of Mann Gulch. Never Forget!
Iron 44. R.I.P.
NO!!!!! No, to uniting USFS and BLM. There is far more to managing public lands than fire. USFS has done a study to define Non Recreational Campers and make it illegal for these so called NRCs to utilize the 14 day dispersed camping option on USFS land. This includes anyone who is retired, anyone living fulltime in an RV and more. Here is a link to that study. A study which some want to use to create new and far more restrictive laws. True: we have some problems in our burgeoning society which affect public lands. To blank punish all who love and cherish these places in responsible ways is not acceptable.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/pnw/pnw-research-highlights/nonrecreational-camping
I spent a lifetime working forestry contracts on USFS and other lands; starting out with tree planting in the early 1970’s– I covered many projects after that from cone picking, hazard tree work, habitat restoration, operating water tenders and transport rigs on fires and more. Now USFS wants tell me no access because some other irresponsible people tend to make a mess on areas close to larger towns on the West Coast.
BLM has not gotten to this level of obsessive management mind set yet. I have a cancer diagnosis and only a few years (maybe months) left and want to spent my last days as close to the wild spaces I have known, cared for and loved all my life.
Even with this advanced disease diagnosis I managed to put in 2 &1/2 weeks on a transport rig chasseing a dozer around on the Calf Canyon Fire this spring.
Here’s an Off the Wall Question –
Has there ever been a Heavy Metal, Hard Rock version of
Mary Poppins, “Spoonful of Sugar” ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8VHc49ZdP4
Was she really singing about what the Rolling Stones called, “Mother’s Little Helper” ?
Roger, I don’t know if there’s one for Spoonful of Sugar, but there is one for Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU2hy0L5lgg
Thanks for telling me about that !
I knew you guys knew about a lot of things, in addition to Wildfires.
I wonder how much time it took Andy Rehfeldt to do all the performance and video editing to make that video.
https://www.youtube.com/user/AndyRehfeldt
Does anyone know how the 30 person hotshot crew trial run has gone so far? Heard talk that Little T was just rolling with everyone in 3 buggies when they came to R3 earlier this season, which would seem to be counter to what the agency said they would do (rotating one squad/mod out at a time to keep staffing but give people time off). I’m not saying I liked that idea, to me it seemed asinine to think you we going to tell a third of a crew to stay back for a week when you consider the money they would lose out on. I’m just curious if it’s being used that way or if the pilot crews just said f^#{ it and are just rolling as massive IHCs.
I am a non-fire FS employee with 22 years Fed service. I am curious how readers feel about 2 often floated ideas – 1) separating fed wildland firefighting from other agency programs, into a new fire agency, and 2) combining the BLM and FS into one land managing agency under interior. I enjoy this blog, it provides valuable insight into wildland fire culture, and helps increase respect and understanding throughout the workforce. Thank you
My feeling is against the National Fire Organization, would probably fall under DHS (Homeland Security) and be run by political hacks and they would promote like minded yes men (persons). The pot of money Fire spends is too tempting a target to keep it honest. Personally did not like the changes when FS joined All Risk with the personalities and Agencies involved.
Another problem with dedicated FFs in a different agency would be their use for Forest needs for labor not involving fire in the off season, can see them saying they are fire fighters and should not be doing project work.
No one with any dealings at all with DHS wants anything to do with them. It is a political agency where long time party loyalists get appointed to plum positions and burrow in until retirement.
Avoid going to DHS at all costs. It would be the end of decentralized decision-making and local control. Every fire would have a bean counter and diversity manager assigned to ‘oversee’ if the fire is being managed to national political priorities.
I use to think that fire should be moved to DHS, but now I think it should be given to the States.
“I used to think that fire should be moved to DHS, but now I think it should be given to the States.”
Do you think federal lands should be handed over to the states too? Any state in the West that had fire responsibility without current federal money and expertise and personnel and other resources would go bankrupt in its first season.
Kelly, yes, I do. I think overall States do a better job managing the land. I also think that the NPS and FS are too far gone. If they are not going to follow the law, then Congress needs to abolish them. I also think if the land was managed by the States then it would fix the jurisdictional issues that have been occurring.
I do not think that the States would go bankrupt.
The states would not go bankrupt, as they would sell the land, slowly but surely, every year until there was no public land for them to manage. Thus my argument for not putting public lands under the states domain. “We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation” Theodore Roosevelt. I think Teddy had the right idea when he created the original Forest Preserves, Forests, Grasslands, and Refuges. Protecting the resource to prevent it being decimated as he saw what industry was capable of. Creating a network of lands to be administered for their sustainability, in perpetuity, for the protection of timber, water, wildlife, grazing, minerals, and recreation. It is as important now as it was then.
So the States can sell it off to the highest bidder to develop into condos for the rich and famous?
Come to think about it, that might get the fire community more business, if you like all hazards fire. Every W.L. engine then carries structure gear. (Just like California.)
Yep, so what the difference in that and allowing wildfires to destroy the land so that the mining industry can come in and mine for uranium, copper, and gold??? Because that’s what’s happening now!!!
Example please.
In 2011, the Wallow Fire in Arizona and New Mexico burned over 500,00 acres. This open up the land for uranium mining. Both the FS and NPS worked on NEPA projects to open up the area for mining.
If your still curious, look into the FS’s involvement with the Rosemont Mine. It’s a copper mine southwest of Tucson. Google it or ask someone in the Region 3 Office and see what happens. Ask them about the lawsuits.
As of May 2022, the Rosemont is still on a legal hold. The Army Corps of Engineers canceled their permit, I believe in 2017.
I just looked at the Wallow Fire footprint on Google Earth Pro and other than Coalmines north of Springerville and the Old Copper mines to the west, I couldn’t find evidence of any mines within the footprint. If you could supply the names or locations of the mines, that would help me out, Thanks.
About every ten years or so the idea of combining FS and BLM gets raised in DC (usually with a new incoming administration). So a commission is appointed, the analysis is done, and the recommendation is keep them separate. Not a new idea, been considered before, and the results have been the same.
The two agencies are not redundancies. They have separate missions, different organizations, different philosophical approaches to the missions, and different sets of laws regulating each.
We need one of these: https://hackaday.com/2021/12/06/big-wind-is-the-meanest-firefighting-tank-you-ever-saw/#:~:text=Big%20Wind%2C%20as%20it%20came,producing%2027%2C000%20pounds%20of%20thrust.
Have you seen them burning?
How common is it for mgmt to allow a fire to burn well beyond what is necessary for containment for the sake of resource benefit while withholding such intent from the public veiw?
This is part of my “Fire-wise” section at Tik-tok.
https://www.tiktok.com/@messy_house_contest/video/7128117391212547371
Removing Blackberries.
This is the THIRD time I have cleared the blackberries from that area this year, and I usually don’t cut them until the pieces are 6 feet long.
Long story short, the blackberries are growing at a rate of about 24 feet a year near my house. It’s like the Mayan Jungle on Steroids.
I suspect that that growth rate will become increasingly Wildfire-Relevant in the years to come.
https://www.tiktok.com/@messy_house_contest/video/7128460367587495210
Spraying Blackberries with Crossbow or some other Herbicide.
Holding my breath while I work.
You can hear the sound of me pumping the pressure up on the white tank when I go in the garage.
I used to use goats. I still had to cut the big canes, but after a few years the vines get discouraged. Now I live far away and miss having blackberry cobbler.
Do you remember those old Pemco commercials about PNW stereotypes? “Goat Renter Guy”. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RUQyOpcBEdk
Roger, can you eat them? Because they range from $6-$10 for a small box at the grocery store. Maybe this could be a way to make some extra money! Just a thought!
Time Management.
Starting in about a week, there will be enough to be a good source of fruit, for about 3 weeks.
Mostly I just cut the branches off, and put them in a box, and pile them up in the Birds’ feeding area. Let them sort it out.
Today is the anniversary of iron 44