By Harrison Raine
By mid-September, there was no one left to call. The West, with its thousands of federal, state, and local fire engines and crews, had been tapped out.
Wildfires across the West had consumed the labor of all available wildland firefighters, and though there were fewer fires burning, those fires were larger and more difficult to contain. They consumed 13 million acres — an area almost the size of West Virginia.
In the midst of the 2020 wildfire season, John Phipps, the Forest Service’s deputy chief, told Congress that this “was an extraordinary year and it broke the system. The system was not designed to handle this.”
Draining the national wildland firefighting pool was why my fire crew and I had to work longer and harder than usual on the Idaho-Oregon border. We were fighting the Woodhead fire, which had peaked at 85,000 acres and threatened to burn the developed areas around the towns of Cambridge and Council, Idaho.
With only three crews to try to contain a fire that required probably ten crews, it meant day and night shifts for 14 days. Each crew found itself with miles of fire line to construct and hold. With not enough person-power, we were always trying to do more with less, and it was no comfort to know that what we faced was not unique.
Across the nation, the large fires meant working in hazardous conditions that called for far more workers than were available. For those of us on the line, it came down to little sleep and a heavy workload, combined with insufficient calories and emotional and physical exhaustion.
Fighting wildfires week after week takes a toll on the body. Smoke contains carcinogens, and firefighters spend days exerting themselves immersed in air thick with ash. We all figure that the long-term health effects cannot be good.
One of my co-workers confessed that he goes to sleep “with pain in my knees and hands,” and added, “I wake up with pain in my lungs and head.” Over a six-to-eight month fire season, minor injuries can become chronic pain.
Wildland firefighters are also vulnerable to suicide due to job-related stress and the lack of resources outside of the fire season. Long assignments put a strain on firefighters’ families and can damage relationships. A 2018 psychological study, conducted by Florida State University, reported that 55% of wildland firefighters experienced “clinically significant suicidal symptoms,” compared to 32% for structural firefighters.
Wildland firefighters who work for federal agencies, such as the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management, are classified as “Range” Technicians” or “Forestry Technicians” — a title more suitable for golf course workers than people wearing heavy packs and working a fire line.
Calling them “technicians” negates the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to work with wildfire. Most firefighters sign contracts as seasonal “1039s,” agreeing to work 1,039 base hours for $12-$16 an hour. This is one hour short of being defined as a temporary worker who is eligible for benefits such as retirement and year-round health care.
Overtime work is what allows “technicians” to pay the bills, but once they reach 1,039 base hours some firefighters are laid off even while the fire season continues and their regions continue to burn.
There is a remedy in sight: the Wildland Firefighter Recognition Act, which formally identifies wildland firefighters as exactly that, tossing out the technician term and recognizing the “unusual physical hardship of the position.”
Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines introduced the bill last year, and recently, California Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa introduced the bill in the House. Co-sponsored by California Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, the bill currently sits with the House Oversight and Reform Committee. This is a nonpartisan bill that deserves support from every Westerner.
We all know fires will continue to burn throughout the West, but right now many of the men and women who fight those fires on our behalf are suffering from burnout. Addressing wildfires as a national priority starts with recognition of the profession fighting them.
From Writers on the Range.
Harrison Raine has been a wildland firefighter since 2016.
When we (“Wildland/Urban Interface Task Force”) submitted our draft report on “Fire Hazard Reduction and Open Space Management” following the Kitchen Creek Fire (1970), the mayor iced it, but for the wrong reasons. A certain PhD had gotten his ear, and he decided that the solution was to eliminate the brush and plant grass, since all brushlands were “degraded grasslands.” It hasn’t happened, and neither were the report’s fuel separation strategies.
I take full responsibility for the draft report’s defects, but they did not include brush removal (chipping, hauling, and compressing the chips into “briquets” for cooking steaks, electric power, etc. and planting flash fuels.) We were introduced to a fabulous, gigantic teacup-looking thing mounted onto a wide-load flatbed with a huge diesel engine driving some huge impeller blades. The demonstration was embarrassingly pathetic. A four-man crew laboriously cut the “brush,” and shoved it into a waiting, extra-tall loader which worked its way over to the teacup, which was whirring up one helluva noisy dust-devil. When the load was dumped into the contraption, a conveyor belt system, reaching about twenty feet above the ground, dispensed a little pile of chips about a foot tall onto the ground (presumably into a waiting dump truck for transport to a compression plant some miles away, in reality). Afterwards, we were fed steaks cooked on the stuff. Whatever happened to this miraculous solution?
But seriously, folks, the fundamental problem (not to mention the damage done to public and private assets–and injuries and deaths) is that when a fire gets bigger than the suppression forces’ capabilities, the rest is an outrageously expensive made-for-TV spectacle. The politicians always declare that the fire was “unexpected.” Huge blasts of hot air reach a point where they become unstoppable. The weather, not the dangerous and hyper-costly drama, eventually tips the scales in favor of mopping up. The ARROGANCE of Nature! How DARE she show up her control-freaks as IMPOTENT!
“Thinning,” a euphemism for taking out the big trees with branches high enough to prevent laddering and leaving the non-merchantable second-growth stuff to feed the next fire, along with the flash fuels brought on by the soil disturbance brought about by the logging process, not only negating the theoretical value of fuel reduction/separation but exacerbating/exasperating it, may or may not be theoretically defensible. But the fly in its ointment is SCALE, leaving cost out of the picture for now–by the way, what IS the cost?
And spot fires are out to git ya!
This is off topic, but….
That machine to turn brush into briquets was part of the Laguna-Morena Demonstration Project. It was quite impressive to watch — VERY loud, as pieces of brush, sticks, dust, and rocks were thrown into the air above the contraption.
At 6:15 a.m. PT on September 26, 1970 the Laguna Fire started on Mt. Laguna east of San Diego near the intersection of Kitchen Creek Road and the Sunrise Highway. By the time it was stopped on Oct. 3 1970 it had burned 175,425 acres, killed eight civilians, and destroyed 382 homes. In the first 24 hours the fire burned 30 miles, from Mount Laguna, California into the outskirts of El Cajon and Spring Valley, devastating the communities of Harbison Canyon and Crest. Previously known as the Kitchen Creek Fire and the Boulder Oaks Fire, it was, at its time, the second largest fire in the history of California.
Articles on Wildfire Today tagged “Laguna Fire”: https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/laguna-fire/
In Silicon Valley there’s a common remedy for compensating workers.
$$ and more $$ in the form of stock options.
However it appears that the contribution of the firefighters is not whole-heartedly appreciated.
That is one difference perhaps between firefighters and Silicon Valley. For fire-fighters it’s NOT, all about the Benjamins.
However that seems to be the language that California understands.
Until the state is smart enough to hand out shares of Apple and Oracle and Amazon to the fire-fighters, i.e. to simply compensate them well and fairly, it creates a situation where it may be tactically logical for the fire-fighters to use the nuclear option –
A General Strike.
While supporting the proposed legislation, I hope we all recognize and advocate for those needed changes that will do the most to “support” the entire Wildland Fire community, as well as those affected by the type fires now all too common.
I’ve experienced first-hand the reality of the empty-cupboard syndrome. As well as the necessity of revising strategic objectives and priorities, and operational tactics, in order to account for resource shortages, all with personnel welfare and safety as the primary goal.
But focusing all our attention on the suppression-side of the overall issue – regardless if it’s technology, resource-type, personnel needs, etc – is a losing proposition. We do win the wildfire battles, but as uncomfortable as it is to consider, we’ve lost the suppression war. Look at all the trend lines – none are going our way, nor will they reverse themselves until such time that we alter the playing field and put the right resources in the right place at the right time.
Make no mistake, “firefighters” will always be needed and deserve the support necessary to do the job we need them to do. But, we need just as much emphasis (staffing and funding) on hiring, training, equipping and unleashing fire managers, Rx Fire specialists, thinning crews, and others who are the only ones who can make a pre-emotive, and enduring difference across our landscapes.
Concurrently, regardless of land ownership, the national fire problem is “our” problem. Every one of us, across every jurisdiction, regardless of our location, and at every level of government. We all benefit from the forests, rangelands, watersheds, and communities that have, and will, burn badly without our intervention. From Planning & Zoning to Fire Codes to Partnerships to Community Collaboratives to Support for vegetation management (including Acceptance of Rx Fire smoke) to Legislation to Funding to Direct Support, we all need to be vocal and engaged.
It’s more than a “firefighter” issue.
Hi Paul,
Your comment is addressing where I was unable to go in only 700 words. Untangling fuel/forest health challenges through fuels management and prescribed burning is necessary to find an out to our “suppression war”. The people that will be needed to conduct prescribed burns or veg management for wildfire should be the people that understand the realities of wildfire. The workforce necessary for these land management actions exist. These people are wildland firefighters. Making this possible means changing the way their duties and the support framework around them are structured.
I agree with each and every one of you. I’m a civilian water tender operator, and although I try hard to be everything that the crews (I support) need, there is no way that I consider myself a wildland firefighter. Me and the tenders that I operate, are there to support the highly skilled and brave men and women who deserve that title. And I continue to support you in the off season by posting the articles from Wildfire Today, and (now) weiting my representatives in support of this legislation.
I thank each and every one of you for what you do, and for the opportunity to support you. I consider it an honor.
Sincerely, Phil Red Bluff, CA.
All I can say, as “just a citizen” is ” thank you to all of you who fight fires everywhere”. To me you are all cream of the crop…. and you should all be treated accordingly. I for one appreciate All that All of you do for All of us. You ALL should be treated and cared for and protected BETTER THAN MOST. THANK YOU ALL FOR ALL YOU DO – ESPECIALLY IN RECENT YEARS. BLESSINGS TO EACH OF YOU AND YOURS.
We feel sorry for the federal firefighters- led by people in the National office who have never been a federal firefighter.
Have they ever spent any significant time digging line, getting blistered feet, callused hands, eating rats, sleeping on the dirt, cold, hot, miserable and yet happy- day after day- and doing that for six months at a time- NOPE.
Time is way overdue to get some real experienced fire leaders who can lead these brave mean and women on the fire line. Support them. Understand them.
Maybe the federal land agencies are too scared to change the series because others who sometimes do the fire job may not get kudos for doing that. Enough of that! Pay and respect the real every day federal firefighters – oh yeah- forestry techs. Hahah. What a joke.
Do you believe a rookie FFT2 should have more benefits and pay than an active militia Trail crew foreman who is a FAL 1, ICT4, ect. What is the criteria old shrub?
I don’t need a kudos parade, just a level playing field. We aren’t the US Fire Service. Fix the 1039 problem for all employees.
Being a federal full time firefighter/ forestry technician – is different than a person who comes to help when they can- or are allowed to. Hard to explain unless you have been there and done that.
Support help to all 1039 technicians in federal service.
As a former hotshot I do understand how complicated this will get.
You didn’t answer the question about the Rookie FFT2 deserving more and who gets to decide, you just said it was different….it’s Too complex for Congress or a one-trick-pony fire employee.
Many of us take a tremendous amount of pride being well rounded FORESTRY TECHS, who can fight fire, cruise Timber, build a bridge, tree climb, study wildlife…. These were the first foresters and we need to value that on a level field.
You make great points.
It seems like there’s more attention on wildland firefighter’s getting appropriately paid and compensated than ever and you’re right that there are many such folks in the federal service.
I hope feds start getting treated appropriately across the board, but for the time being it looks like momentum is with wildland firefighters.
In short, and as respectfully as possible, go start your own movement- these folks are just speaking to their experience and you can’t expect them to speak to yours.
no disrespect Thor but i think he’s trying to say people who do fire full time deserve more pay. they get the .7% increase on there retirement but no other bene’s. obviously you have time in fire maybe you should have stuck it out then? your a trails guy full time now, your decision no one elses? it would be no different then a front desk person asking for special treatment because they have a red card and a qual lol. I’m all for paying full time fire people based on there quals that would be sweet, however that still wouldn’t help you as your a trails person.
“This is one hour short of being defined as a temporary worker who is eligible for benefits such as retirement and year-round health care.”
Clear case of scheming–immoral manipulation of arbitrary laws reveals the exploitative character of the writers of the “regulations.”
And we wonder what drives people toward communism?
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Bill, can you repost here, the previous article on wildfire today about the research that’s been done on fire shelters? It would take me too long to find it, I know you’d posted in sometime in the last 3 months? I may be mistaken, but I believe it shows that the present shelters are the best they’ve found to work, so far.
Dave, all articles on Wildfire Today about fire shelters are tagged “fire shelter”. You can see them all here:
https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/fire-shelter/
Thanks–ok! Are we supposed to go through several quizzes or just one?
Maybe you should tell us what it’s like to be a wild land firefighter in communist Russia and China? I heard Australia is 90% volunteer wild land firefighters…
Other countries, totally irrelevant to this discussion. What’s your point ? Troll.
Do the same benefits requested apply to ‘militia’ technicians from other departments who do fire suppression and fuels work on a moments notice?
What is the minimum qualification to consider yourself in this new Firefighter Job category? FFT2?
Many Ranger Districts rely heavily on these ‘Wildland Firefighters’, especially during PL5 or staffing shortages. Same risks, same work. Thanks for posting and reading.
We all know the 1039 contract is one of the most criminal things in Federal Civilian Service….but what about Forestry Technicians who work in Timber, Wilderness, engineering departments who join the call as ‘Militia’ members assisting on Wildfires for a significant portion of their season, putting their other projects on hold and doing the exact same work alongside fire management employees?
Do they get to share in the added benefits?
Does a wilderness trail crew member, using primitive tools and working an extremely physically and mentally challenging job, even during a slow fire season, get the same recognition?
The 1,039 hour rule makes little or no sense during a fire season like 2020.
I know of Type 1 crews deactivated while large western fires were screaming for additional crews especially Type 1 IHC. In a couple of cases these elite firefighters moved to staff contract engines or crews as relief staffing. But, this isn’t good personell management. Breaking up an expert hot shot crew when large fires needed them over a administrative hours issue is stupid.
Including the administrative ability to waive the 1,039 hour rule when national mobilization levels warrant should be part of reforms
WAY past time for this to happen. Along with pay commensurate with duties and continuous exposure to life threatening conditions.