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Tom Sadowski, El Cariso Hotshots, 1969-1972

Bill GabbertSeptember 22, 2021January 24, 2022UncategorizedEl Cariso, Tom Sadowski9 Comments

A former El Cariso Hotshot passed away unexpectedly on June 16. Tom Sadowski was on the crew from 1969 through 1972.

Tom was unique — if you spent much time with him you would remember him. He was one of the smartest people I ever met. I learned from him. As young and dumb as I was, I had much room in my little brain for knowledge about wildland firefighting and how the world works. For a year we were roommates in the hotshot barracks up the hill from the hotshot camp in the Orange County facilities. At night there was not much to do so we talked or read. He taught me a great deal about photography and with his guidance I purchased my first 35mm camera of my own, a Minolta, after using a very old Argus that was my mom’s.

One year Tom drove with his girlfriend from his home in New England 2,500 miles to our base near Elsinore, California in a very old, army surplus jeep. He was pulled over more than once for driving too slow.

He admired well-built machinery that was made to last with heavy duty materials. We were on a fire in Wyoming and Tom had climbed on top of a large old water tender to check it out. I was taking a picture of him with my old beat-up Argus. When I pressed the shutter, I could hear and feel the guts of the camera come apart. I shook it and it rattled, which is never a good sign. I blamed Tom then for breaking my camera. I still do. I took a picture of him and he literally broke the damn camera.

When Tom was on the crew there was no standard training curriculum in the USFS for new firefighters. At the direction of crew Superintendent Ron Campbell our crew developed a four-day basic training package which became known as the “Basic 32-hour Package”.

Tom taught us how to build a slide program of illustrations, graphics, photos, narration, and visual aids that was automatically advanced by silent cues on a taped narration.

There were no personal computers then, and we made all of our graphics using hand-drawn images, artist supplies, press-on letters, and a 35mm camera, mostly Tom’s, but I also contributed some images.

When the training package was finished in 1972 or 1973, it required a Wollensak cassette recorder and a 35mm slide projector, but eventually was converted to VHS tapes and was used with the workbooks in many locations around the country for training new firefighters.

In 1972 Tom and I sent some of our fire photos and a proposal to National Geographic hoping they would pay us handsomely. We received a very nice declination letter from someone there named, and I have not forgotten this, “Smokey”. He explained that they liked our photos, but that they had done a wildland fire story 3-4 years before and it was too soon to do another one.

After fighting fires in Southern California Tom worked for the BLM in Alaska and worked his way up to the position of Assistant Fire Management Officer. In the 1980s I visited him at his home on a hill that had a very nice view of Anchorage. I knew he was an excellent photographer, but was surprised to see that he had a full-blown studio with fancy lighting and various backgrounds on spools that could be pulled down behind his subject.

In 2008 Tom recreated the El Cariso Hotshots logo for the commemoration of their 50th year. I’m not sure that he ever received proper credit for that project.

In his later years Tom lived in Maine and for a while he and his wife ran a women’s clothing store and later a restaurant and bar.

He and I stayed in touch by email exchanging messages every one to three years.

He wrote a regular humor column, “Just Saying”, that ran in at least one newspaper, The Free Press in Maine, where an archive of his columns is still available. If you only read one, check out a tribute to him written by Ethan Andrews, “Remembering Tom Sadowski”, which includes Tom’s own thoughts about how to write his “autobituary”. (UPDATE Dec. 26, 2021: The previous three links no longer work, but the WayBackMachine has retained some of the archives.)

We have published some of Tom’s writings on Wildfire Today. In 2013 he contributed a large section of our tribute to former El Cariso Superintendent Ron Campbell. In 2015 he wrote about the passing of Fred Rungee, “Alaska resident, forest fire control veteran and humanitarian.”

Continue reading “Tom Sadowski, El Cariso Hotshots, 1969-1972”

Who has said, “we can’t fight fires on the cheap”?

Bill GabbertSeptember 21, 2021September 19, 2021UncategorizedGavin Newsom, Tom Vilsack19 Comments

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Secretary Tom Vilsack tour the site of the 2020 August Complex of fires, August 4, 2021.

When Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said August 4 we can’t manage forests and suppress fires “on the cheap” it was not the first time that concept has been stated. Here is part of what the Secretary said when he was meeting with California Governor Gavin Newsom to discuss state and federal collaboration on wildfire response and fuels management across the West:

We are prepared to do a better job [of forest management] if we have the resources to be able to do this… Candidly, I think it’s fair to say over the generations and decades, we have tried to do this job on the cheap. We have tried to get by, a little here, a little there, with a little forest management here, a little fire suppression over here, but the reality is this has caught up to us.

We have to significantly beef up our capacity. We have to have more boots on the ground… And we have to make sure our firefighters are better compensated. Governor, that will happen.

We need to do a better job, and more, forest management to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire.

Looking back at the Wildfire Today archives, here is where we’ve seen that phrase before — excerpts from the articles:

William Scott, September 8, 2012:

Stop narrowly thinking of fires as a land management issue, and begin treating them as a national security issue. Finally it’s time. We have to develop and field a robust large air tanker fleet of firefighting aircraft. The Forest Service has made a good start, but it still suffers from a culture and attitude of what firefighters call ‘cheapism’, the idea that we can fight wildland fire on the cheap. And that’s no longer acceptable.

Senator Harry Reid, July 19, 2013, from the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

As firefighters head home from Southern Nevada, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid on Wednesday blamed “climate change” for the intense blaze that consumed nearly 28,000 acres and drove hundreds of residents from their homes around Mount Charleston this month.

Reid said the government should be spending “a lot more” on fire prevention, echoing elected officials who say the Forest Service should move more aggressively to remove brush and undergrowth that turn small fires into huge ones.

“The West is burning,” the Nevada Democrat told reporters in a meeting. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a fire in the Spring Mountains, Charleston range like we just had.

“Why are we having them? Because we have climate change. Things are different. The forests are drier, the winters are shorter, and we have these terrible fires all over the West.”

“This is terribly concerning,” Reid said. Dealing with fire “is something we can’t do on the cheap.”

“We have climate change. It’s here. You can’t deny it,” Reid went on. “Why do you think we are having all these fires?”

Bill Gabbert, February 25, 2018:

The federal government is reducing the numbers of large air tankers and helicopters on exclusive use contracts. Air tankers are being cut from 20 to 13, and Type 1 helicopters over the last year have been reduced from 34 to 28. Cutting back on these firefighting resources is not going to enhance our ability to suppress new fires before they become large, dangerous, and expensive.

You can’t fight fires on the cheap.
.
Sometimes “cheap” is too expensive.

— Wildfire Today ? (@wildfiretoday) February 24, 2018

Bill Gabbert, March 16, 2018:

OpEd: I am tired of complaints about the cost of fighting wildfires

(This was first published on Fire Aviation)

The large air tankers on exclusive use contracts have been cut this year from 20 to 13. In 2002 there were 44. This is a 73 percent reduction in the last 16 years.

No scooping air tankers are on exclusive use contracts this year.

The large Type 1 helicopters were cut last year from 34 to 28 and that reduction remains in effect this year.

Some say we need to reduce the cost of fighting wildfires. At first glance the above cuts may seem to accomplish that. But failing to engage in a quick, aggressive initial attack on small fires by using overwhelming force from both the air and the ground, can allow a 10-acre fire to become a megafire, ultimately costing many millions of dollars. CAL FIRE gets this. The federal government does not.

Meanwhile the United States spends trillions of dollars on adventures on the other side of the world while the defense of our homeland against the increasing number of acres burned in wildfires is being virtually ignored by the Administration and Congress. A former military pilot told me this week that just one sortie by a military plane on the other side of the world can cost millions of dollars when the cost of the weapons used is included. The military industrial complex has hundreds of dedicated, aggressive, well-funded lobbyists giving millions to our elected officials. Any pressure on politicians to better defend our country from wildfires on our own soil is very small by comparison.

I am tired of people wringing their hands about the cost of wildfires.

You can’t fight fire on the cheap — firefighting and warfighting are both expensive. What we’re spending in the United States on the defense of our homeland is a very small fraction of what it costs to blow up stuff in countries that many Americans can’t find on a map.

Government officials and politicians who complain about the cost need to stop talking and fix the problem. The primary issue that leads to the whining is that in busy years we rob Peter to pay Paul — taking money from unrelated accounts to pay for emergency fire suppression. This can create chaos in those other functions such as fire prevention and reducing fuels that make fires difficult to control. Congress needs to create the “fire funding fix” that has been talked about for many years — a completely separate account for fires. Adequately funding fire suppression and rebuilding the aerial firefighting fleet should be high priorities for the Administration and Congress.

PBS interviews wildland firefighters about benefits, travel, health care, and pay

Bill GabbertSeptember 20, 2021February 29, 2024UncategorizedGrassroots Wildland Firefighters, Kelly Martin, pay10 Comments

Laura Paskus, a reporter and producer for PBS of New Mexico, interviewed three wildland firefighters for an episode of Our Land: New Mexico’s Environmental Past, Present, and Future. They covered some of the pressing issues faced by wildland firefighters, including health care, benefits, extensive travel, and pay.

Seen in the video are Marcus Cornwell, federal wildland firefighter; Kelly Martin, president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters; and Jonathon Golden, former wildland firefighter.

Two water tender operators on the Dixie Fire died of COVID-19

Bill GabbertSeptember 19, 2021September 19, 2021UncategorizedCalifornia, cover-up, COVID-19, Dixie Fire, lodd, pandemic26 Comments

Jose T. Calderon and Cessar Saenz, both of San Diego County

Two water tender operators have died of COVID-19 this month. They both worked for Brenda’s Fire Water based in Ramona, California. Two trucks with three drivers were dispatched from the company to the Dixie Fire in Northern California. They worked shifts to keep the water tenders working on the fire as much as possible.

Jose T. Calderon of Chula Vista California had spent much of his adult life driving virtually all types of trucks. He was the first of the two to die. On August 11 after 14 days of employment with the company and testing positive for COVID, he was taken from the west zone of the Dixie Fire to a hospital in Redding. He spent three weeks on a ventilator before passing away there September 5.

A family member told Wildfire Today that Jose’s death certificate listed the cause of death as respiratory failure, COVID-19, and smoke inhalation.

After Jose went to the hospital, his co-worker Cessar Saenz of El Cajon, California tested positive for COVID at the Dixie Fire and went home. When his symptoms worsened he was admitted to Paradise Valley Hospital in National City, California. About three or four weeks later he died on September 14. He had just turned 63 two weeks earlier.

On July 25 he changed his employment status on Facebook to “Started New Job at Happily Retired” and was planning on moving to Texas.

Cessar drove water tenders on fires off and on since 2001. John Clark thought of Cessar not just as a good friend, but like a brother. He said Cessar liked to ride his motorcycle, fish, and camp. Cessar had been a truck and charter bus driver for decades and for eight years drove a mobile clinic out of Alpine, California to seven Tribal Reservations for the Southern Indian Health Council. He also taught people how to drive school busses.

Brenda Dahl of Brenda’s Fire Water confirmed the deaths of Jose and Cessar, but declined to provide any additional information. Neither the US Forest Service or the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection responded to multiple inquiries about these line of duty deaths. As far as we know there has been no official announcement from a fire agency about the passing of these two firefighters. The water tenders were under a call when needed contract with one of the two agencies.

Our sincere condolences go out to the families, friends, and co-workers of Jose and Cessar.

OPINION
Before COVID, the line of duty deaths of contractors on wildfires was always announced and their service was honored even though they are not regular government employees. It is not clear why the FS and CAL FIRE now feel the need to cover up fatalities on fires. I can remember when reports were written and lessons were learned from serious accidents and fatalities in the line duty. Is the problem that there are now too many to document and they are offloading that duty to journalists?

Putting your head in the sand is rarely a successful strategy.

Two fires merge in Sequoia National Park and spread into a giant sequoia grove

Bill GabbertSeptember 18, 2021September 19, 2021WildfireCalifornia, KNP Complex13 Comments

KNP Complex of fires in Southern California has burned more than 21,000 acres

5:55 a.m. PDT Sept. 19, 2021

KNP Complex of fires map, 11:50 p.m. Sept. 18, 2021. The white line was the perimeter about 24 hours before. The green areas are the approximate locations of giant sequoia groves.

There was less growth of the KNP Complex of fires on Saturday than the day before, but it has spread 1.5 miles north of the Generals Highway northwest of the Lodgepole Visitor Center. Smoke cleared in the afternoon, allowing air tankers and helicopters to resume direct attack on the fire in steep terrain inaccessible to fire crews. This includes areas on the southwest perimeter of the fire nearest the Three Rivers community.

Sequoia with wrap — Photo by Matthew Mehle, Incident Meteorologist for U.S. National Weather Service (NWS), assigned to the KNP Complex Fire.

Despite the fire reaching the Four Guardsmen trees in the Giant Forest, the incident management team reported that fuel removal efforts by firefighters, combined with structure wrap applied by crews to the base of the iconic sequoia trees, successfully protected these national treasures.

The fire also crossed the Generals Highway again farther to the north in the area of the General Sherman tree.

The fire was mapped at 21,777 acres by a fixed wing aircraft at 11:50 p.m. Saturday.

A Red Flag Warning is in effect through 8 p.m. Sunday for gusty winds and low humidity. Northwest winds of 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 45 mph will be possible within the area identified by the NSS, along with relative humidity ranging from the upper single digits to the high teens. However localized forecasts for the fire area on Sunday predict much less wind — near calm becoming east-southeast around 5 mph in the afternoon with 34 percent relative humidity in the higher elevations of the fire.

To see all of the articles on Wildfire Today about the KNP Complex of fires, including the most recent, click HERE.

11:25 a.m. PDT Sept. 18, 2021

Wrapping General Sherman tree fire protect — Wrapping the General Sherman tree to protect it from the approaching wildfire in Sequoia National Park. NPS photo.

The two fires that comprised the KNP Complex in Sequoia National Park in southern California, the Colony and Paradise Fires, merged Friday when the Paradise fire spread north into the Colony Fire. On Friday humidities as low as 10 percent and air that was more free of smoke set up conditions for extreme fire behavior with spotting and sustained crown fire runs. The fire was mapped Friday night at 11,365 acres, an increase of about 6,000.

The fire impacted the southwestern tip of the Giant Forest grove of sequoia trees, the location of the Four Guardsmen trees, when the Colony Fire made a big three-mile run to the northeast, starting spot fires up to one mile ahead. Those four huge trees and others have been receiving attention from firefighters in recent days who cleared around them, removed duff, and applied fire shelter wrap to the bases of the trees.

KNP Complex of fire map, 11 p.m. Sept. 17, 2021 — KNP Complex of fires map, 11 p.m. Sept. 17, 2021. The white line was the perimeter about 24 hours before. The green areas are the approximate locations of giant sequoia groves.

During that three-mile run, farther north the fire crossed the Generals Highway again, this time near Red Fir and Wuksachi Lodge, west of the Lodgepole Visitor Center. Firefighters, to the extent they are available, are working on structure protection in these areas.

CAL FIRE is still constructing the indirect dozer line outside of the park southwest of the fire near Paradise Ridge. When that is complete the dozers will work with masticators to open an old road to Shepards Saddle in the southwest corner of the park, a road popular with mountain bikers. The last step before and if the fire arrives at the old road will be to use fire engines or water tenders to apply fire retardant along the edge of what will become a fire line. Fire retardant is most frequently dropped from helicopters or fixed wing air tankers, but it can also be applied from the ground. This method was used extensively on the Dixie Fire six weeks ago and can be especially useful if smoke makes flying impossible.

A south wind has been causing the fire to spread primarily to the north, so there has been little movement to the south. Operations Section Chief Jon Wallace in a Saturday morning briefing did not mention constructing any direct or indirect fireline on the south side of the fire, but said their personnel are working with cooperators to protect structures at Mineral King.

A Red Flag Warning has been issued for Saturday evening through 8 p.m. Sunday for gusty winds and low humidity. Northwest winds of 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 45 mph will be possible, along with relative humidity ranging from the upper single digits to the high teens, and with poor overnight humidity recovery. This wind direction with the low humidities could drive an intense fire through the Giant Forest, and possibly the Paradise Peak groves south of the fire.

Emigrant Fire burns over 200 acres near Pyramid Lake in Southern California

Bill GabbertSeptember 17, 2021WildfireCalifornia

5:46 p.m. PDT Sept. 17, 2021

Emigrant Fire at 4:21 p.m. Sept. 17, 2021. KTLA 5.

A fire that started off Interstate 5 east of Pyramid Lake burned approximately 220 acres by 4 p.m. Friday. At that time most of the spread had been stopped by firefighters assisted by air tankers and helicopters. The location of Pyramid Lake just across the freeway from the blaze allowed for quick turnarounds by the helicopters.

Initially it was putting up a large column of smoke, spreading rapidly uphill, and was spotting a quarter mile ahead.

The fire is 10 air miles south of Gorman and 22 miles north of Santa Clarita.