Retention in the US Forest Service in California

The San Bernardino Sun has an article about retention of US Forest Service employees, especially firefighters, in California. The headline of the article is “Burning Questions”. Every time someone writes that as the title of an article or book, they think they are the first one to think of it.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Burning Questions
U.S. firefighter report raises concerns
Jason Pesick, Staff Writer
04/05/2008
Federal lawmakers from California think Washington doesn’t know how to put out fires.

“With a fire, for God’s sake, you’ve got to be able to respond and respond effectively and have that response led by people who understand the forest,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands.

Last week, the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the national forests and fights wildland fires, responded to federal legislation requesting a report on federal firefighter pay and personnel policies with proposals to increase recruitment and retention in the Southern California national forests. The report, released two months late at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, had little in common with a draft produced by agency officials in California.

“The upshot of the new report is that – `Problem? What problem?’ It seems to be disconnected from the situation on the ground,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, who served a stint as a seasonal firefighter with the Forest Service in the ’80s.

According to the final report, the idea that there is a recruitment and retention problem in Southern California is “hard to substantiate based on data.” The eight-page report – trimmed down from a 22-page draft originally crafted by California-based Forest Service officials – also said recruitment is more than making up for attrition and was scant on specific recommendations.

In their draft, officials painted a very different picture, recommending that firefighter pay, facilities, leadership, training and communications be improved and that perks such as providing day care and more government houses be considered. They also recommended examining job titles for the firefighters, who are classified as forestry technicians.

“This is a critical issue. The lives and property of many Californians are at stake,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who requested the report, said in a statement, “and we must have a competent, professional and adequate firefighting force.”

She said she’d send the draft to a senior-level Agriculture Department official to get further feedback.

According to the report, the Forest Service in Southern California lost 9.4 percent of its firefighters in 2007. The rate was 46.6 percent for a certain class of junior firefighters.

“When you’re losing half your people in the first year, I think you’re delusional not to realize you’ve got a problem,” Schiff said.

The attrition rates for the San Bernardino and Angeles national forests were the worst in Southern California, according to the report, with 61 percent of those departing last year going to state and local fire departments, which pay higher salaries.”

Air tanker drops

Here is a great 10-second video of Tanker 459 (AT-802) making a drop near Ronan, MT, in September, 2006. It shows the maneuverability of a single engine air tanker and the value of having a variety of tools in the aviation toolbox.

And speaking of air tankers this 54-second scene from the movie Always shows a PB2-Y air tanker vs. some fishermen.

Wildland Fire Conferences

There are a couple of interesting conferences on the horizon for wildland firefighters:

Aerial Firefighting Conference, October 21-22, 2008, Athens, Greece
As far as I know this is the first major conference in many years that is specifically dedicated to aerial firefighting. Quite a few vendors and users of wildland fire aircraft from several continents are already committed to participating.

“The ’88 Fires: Yellowstone and Beyond”, September 22-27, 2008, will commemorate the fires 20 years ago in the greater Yellowstone and northern Rockies area. The deadline for submission of abstracts and special sessions is April 15.


Another B-1 bomber fire

On March 25 we reported on a B-1 bomber that caught fire while in flight near Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City and apparently started several vegetation fires from falling debris before landing safely at Ellsworth. And about 2 weeks before that a B-1 made an emergency landing at Guam. After the crew exited the aircraft in Guam, it rolled into some emergency vehicles, causing major damage to the aircraft and the ground vehicles.

Now there is a report of a B-1 that caught fire today after landing at an Air Force base in Qatar. The reports say a fire erupted as the plane taxied after landing at al Udeid Air Base around 1:10 p.m. EDT (1710 GMT) after what the Air Force described as “a ground incident.”

Another “ground incident”? On March 25 we wrote:

You have to wonder if maintenance issues or the heavy use of our military assets on conflicts and wars has anything to do with these two incidents. Our B-1’s have been used fairly heavily since 1998 in Kosovo, Iraq, Afganistan, and again in Iraq. Much of our military equipment has been damaged, destroyed, or just worn out while serving as the World Police. If we ever need the military to actually defend our country, I hope it’s ready.

If this had happened in the fire service, there would be a safety stand-down to figure out what the hell is going on.

Maps….. Maps showing fire danger

I like maps. Studying a map can be almost like traveling, but without the canceled flights, lost luggage, or travelers diarrhea.

Maps that show wildland fire danger, fire potential, or fire weather are especially interesting. Here, for example, is one that shows the fire weather outlook for the Southwest Area (AZ, NM, and western TX). Click on it to see a larger version.


The map above is theoretically the map for today, but it has not been updated since November. I assume that very soon the Southwest Area Coordination Center will begin to update it daily.

(Update: April 13, 2008; the coordination center modified the above file. It should automatically display the most current version of the map. They say that in May they will have recurring updates.)

HERE is a link to a daily map that shows the fire danger for the whole country.

And HERE is a link to a page of links of various fire potential outlooks, with many of them being maps.

Below, is a map showing the wildland fire potential for the month of April. Click on it to see a larger version. This map, as well as other maps and forecasted data for the next 3 months, can be found in their report which is updated at the beginning of every month, HERE.

Enjoy.

Opinions about Terry Barton, Hayman fire arsonist

In other posts, here and here, we covered the Terry Barton situation. She is the US Forest Service Fire Prevention Technician who started the 138,000 Hayman fire in Colorado in 2002. On March 27 her 12-year state sentence was thrown out by an Appeals court, leaving her with a 6-year federal sentence.

The father of one of the firefighters that died in a vehicle accident while driving to the Hayman fire wrote a letter to the editor of the Denver Post expressing his opinion that a 6-year sentence is not adequate.

An article in the Colorado Springs Gazette has a similar view.

Representative Darrell Issa is against benefits for 9/11 workers

We have a new use for one of our post labels. Used only once before for Glenn Beck of CNN, now the post label “idiot” is awarded to Representative Darrell Issa of San Diego. He made a series of stupid statements about the 9/11 attacks, minimized the health effects on the rescuers and workers, and argued against extending benefits to the people that are still hugely affected by the incident.

Many firefighters are still suffering from the long term effects of working in the contaminated Ground Zero area.

An excerpt from the New York Daily News:

The California congressman who called the Sept. 11 attacks “simply” a plane crash ran for cover Wednesday under a barrage of ridicule from fellow Republicans, first responders and victims’ families.

San Diego GOP Rep. Darrell Issa was under siege for suggesting the federal government had already done enough to help New York cope with “a fire” that “simply was an aircraft” hitting the World Trade Center.

“That is a pretty distorted view of things,” said Frank Fraone, a Menlo Park, Calif., fire chief who led a 67-man crew at Ground Zero. “Whether they’re a couple of planes or a couple of missiles, they still did the same damage.”

“New York was attacked by Al Qaeda. It doesn’t have to be attacked by Congress,” added Long Island Rep. Pete King, a Republican.

“I’m really surprised by Darrell Issa,” King added. “It showed such a cavalier dismissal of what happened to New York. It’s wrong and inexcusable.”

Lorie Van Aucken, who lost her husband, Kenneth, in the attacks, slammed Issa’s “cruel and heartless” comments.

“It’s really discouraging. People stepped up and did the right thing. They sacrificed themselves and now a lot of people are getting really horrible illnesses,” she added.

Under pressure from all sides, the Golden State pol – who got rich selling car alarms after getting busted for car theft as a teen – pulled a partial U-turn. He issued a statement but cowered from the press.

“I continue to support federal assistance for the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” he said.

But he didn’t retract his wacked-out rhetoric claiming the feds “just threw” buckets of cash at New York for an attack “that had no dirty bomb in it, it had no chemical munitions in it.”

He went on: “I have to ask … why the firefighters who went there and everybody in the city of New York needs to come to the federal government for the dollars versus this being primarily a state consideration.”

Predicting the severity of fire seasons

I stopped trying to predict the severity of fire seasons long ago. The most important factor is the weather during the season. If it is hot, dry, and windy, you can have a busy season. If it is not, even with a heavy fuel buildup and/or drought, you are not likely to have numerous large fires.

An article in the March/April issue of Wildfire by Krista Gebert, an economist with the US Forest Service, showed a relationship between the average spring-summer temperature and total fire suppression expenditures in the US Forest Service’s Northern Region (Montana, and parts of Idaho, North Dakota, and Washington). The threshold was 59-degrees (15 degrees C). When the average was below 59, the total fire suppression expenditures were generally less than $50 million per year. When the average was above 59, expenditures ranged from as low as $25 million to as high as $350 million.

Isn’t it great when a researcher, or even an economist, crunches numbers at a desk and tells us what experienced fire managers already know. But you don’t see experienced fire managers writing up stuff like this. The fact that Ms. Gebert is documenting it, and backing it up with data, reduces the learning curve for people coming into the wildland fire game. And this data may improve some of the predictive services tools and products.

In the article below, from the San Diego Union about the fuel buildup in Arizona, a fire meteorologist takes a bold step and predicts a “substantial fire season” for the greater Phoenix area.

By Amanda Lee Myers
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:45 p.m. April 3, 2008

 

 

PHOENIX – An abnormally wet winter has spawned a rare profusion of grass and brush in the Phoenix metro area and other parts of the state – setting up much of Arizona’s desert lands for an active wildfire season, according to fire management officials.

That same wet weather has been a blessing for the state’s higher-elevation forests, which have been dried out by years of drought and left with millions of dead trees because of a beetle infestation.

For the forests, above-normal snowfalls mean trees and undergrowth will have high moisture content, and the fire danger is expected to be relatively low.

But by May, searing temperatures and arid conditions are expected to dry out the often hip-high grasses now blanketing desert areas.

“It’s almost like Ireland it’s so green out there right now,” state Forester Kirk Rowdabaugh said recently, referring to one area just north of Phoenix. “But we know that’s going to turn brown here in a few weeks, and certainly by early May it’ll be cured out enough to start to carry fire.”

The conditions are reminiscent of those in 2005, when a blaze named the Cave Creek Complex became the second-largest wildfire in state history. It scorched nearly 250,000 acres of desert and destroyed 11 homes in a small community northeast of Phoenix.

“It looks like the greater Phoenix metro area and for many miles around that has grass growing at this point is going to see some kind of substantial fire season,” said Chuck Maxwell, a fire meteorologist at the Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque. “It’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of how severe it is.”

 

Fire at FEMA

Today there was a fire at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington, DC. It was contained to an office on the first floor by automatic sprinklers and the fire department, but 200 employees evacuated for 50 minutes.

More FEMA news:

  • An internal FEMA evaluation gave themselves solid ratings in seven out of nine categories of readiness while raising concerns about coordinating federal resources and the agency’s ability to provide housing for displaced disaster victims. The coordination issue is not good news for state and federal agencies providing support for disasters through FEMA.
  • David Paulison, the FEMA Administrator, said yesterday that hurricane victims should not expect to receive free ice and generators during future FEMA-managed recovery efforts.
  • Paulison said that regardless of who is elected as our next President, he will resign before the new President takes office.