Brings the number of USFS air tankers on exclusive use contracts up to 18
Air Tanker 163, an RJ 85, at Rapid City December 12, 2017.
The U.S. Forest Service announced on October 27 they intend to sign contracts with three companies to add five Next Generation large air tankers (LATs) to its fleet of firefighting fixed wing aircraft. If everything goes as they hope, the FS would have 18 LATs on exclusive use (EU) contracts beginning in 2021.
This contracting process for what the FS calls Next Generation 3.0 began November 19, 2018. The first attempt to award the five LAT contracts on March 26, 2020 was protested, so now seven months later they are trying again. The vendors who did not receive these new contracts will be debriefed, allowing them to ask why they were not selected. Then, if no additional protests are filed within 10 days of the October 27 announcement, actual contracts can be signed with the three contract recipients.
The companies selected for this Next Generation 3.0 contract:
Coulson Aviation: one B-737, Tanker #137.
Aero Flite: two RJ85s.
Erickson Aero Tanker: two MD-87s, two of these three: Tankers 102, 103, or 107
The companies will be given only a one year guaranteed contract, with the possibility of up to four more years at the discretion of the FS.
In a press release the FS claimed to have “met its goal to convert to a fully Next Generation Airtanker fleet with up to 35 airtankers .” The simple math is, there are 13 now on EU contracts, so adding five brings it up to 18. They can bring on additional LATs on Call When Needed arrangements if they are available, but in 2017 the average daily rate for large federal CWN air tankers was 54 percent higher than aircraft on EU contracts. During this COVID year when the FS needed to boost the number of LATs, they gave about seven companies hybrid CWN contracts for a total of 11 LATs that were basically EU, but for 90 days, rather than the typical 160-day EU Mandatory Availability Period. The rates they negotiated were generally less than the typical CWN rates. For a while they also activated four additional LATs on a true CWN basis, with no guarantee of days worked.
In addition to temporarily adding to the fleet by using CWN aircraft, the FS can under certain conditions use up to eight military C-130 aircraft that have been outfitted with a slip-in 3,000-gallon retardant tank, a Modular FireFighting System (MAFFS). A few more tankers have been borrowed from Canada, for example Convair 580s, Tanker 471 manufactured in 1958, and Tanker 474 manufactured in 1955.
Our opinion
The last year for the six air tankers on the Next Gen 1.0 contract will be 2022, according to my calculations. Since it takes the FS about two years to award an LAT contract, the agency should begin the process for Next Gen 4.0 immediately. If they don’t get it done, there will only be 12 LATs on EU contracts.
Next Gen 1.0 and Next Gen 2.0 were for five guaranteed years with up to five more at the discretion of the FS. The trend of the FS only issuing one year guaranteed contracts is disturbing. Last week in an interview with Fire Aviation, Dan Snyder, Senior Vice-President of Neptune Aviation, was asked about the one-year contracts:
“If that becomes the new USFS contacting model, I believe it will create a barrier to entry for other vendors due to the risks involved,” Mr. Snyder said. “It will also make long-term planning for aircraft acquisition, maintenance, training and hiring of staff, difficult even for the established vendors in aerial firefighting.”
If multiple large air tankers and helicopters could attack new fires within 20 to 30 minutes we would have fewer huge fires.
Fighting wildfires is a Homeland Security issue
The US Navy has 11 large nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that each cost $13 billion to build and carry 64 to 130 fighter jets.
Protecting our citizens and forests from wildfires is more important than sending our soldiers and trillions of dollars to fight wars in places that many people could not find on a map. Suppressing wildfires and managing federal forests to reduce the threat to our citizens is a Homeland Security issue and should be adequately funded. Firefighters need to be paid a living wage. You can’t fight fires on the cheap.
50 Type 1 Helicopters
Several years ago the largest helicopters on EU contracts, Type 1, were cut from 34 to 28. This number needs to be increased to 50.
40 Large Air Tankers
Congress needs to appropriate enough funding to have 40 large air tankers on exclusive use 10-year guaranteed contracts, not one-year contracts.
We often say, “air tankers don’t put out fires”. Under ideal conditions they can slow the spread which allows firefighters on the ground the opportunity to move in and suppress the fire in that area. If firefighters are not nearby, in most cases the flames will eventually burn through or around the retardant. During these unprecedented circumstances brought on by the pandemic, we rely more on aerial firefighting than in the past. And there must be an adequate number of firefighters available to supplement the work done from the air. It must go both ways. Firefighters in the air and on the ground supporting each other.
This article was first published at Fire Aviation.
A dozer working on the Silverado Fire not far from the heel of the fire near Dripping Springs Loop, at 11:18 a.m. PDT Monday October 26, 2020. NBCLA.
The two firefighters on an Orange County hand crew that were seriously injured Monday on the Silverado Fire in Southern California, suffering second and third degree burns, are still in critical condition. Their names have not been released. The firefighters were intubated when they were admitted to the hospital, but they are still fighting, Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Finnessy said Wednesday morning.
On Monday when the Chief first announced the incident he said they had been gravely injured.
“They were working near what we call the heel of the fire, where the fire started,” the Chief said then. “We don’t have any information about what occurred. We have requested an accident review team from the state to come in and do the investigation… I was with them when their families arrived. We are giving them all the support we can, not only through our chaplain program, but we have a very comprehensive peer behavioral health program.”
Wednesday I asked the Chief if there was an address to which we could send cards or letters to the firefighters and their families.
“The families would be so grateful to receive cards or letters,” the Chief said. “They are just now realizing how the fire and aviation family comes together during times like this.”
Here is the address:
OCFA
Attn: Injured OCFA Hand Crew Firefighters
1 Fire Authority Road
Irvine, CA 92602
Even though we don’t know their names, let’s flood them with kindness, cards, and letters.
UPDATE October 30, 2020:
For those who wish to help, there are two ways to make a monetary donation to support the costs associated with the long healing process of these burn victims, and to support their families:
Wildland Firefighter Foundation. You can choose “yes” to dedicate the donation as a gift to someone, then, for example, you can specify the two firefighters critically injured at the Silverado Fire. www.Wffoundation.org
Fallen Firefighters Relief Fund. Created October 28, 2020 by Orange County Local 3631 as a fundraiser “in support of two firefighters critically injured while protecting our community battling the Silverado Fire.” www.gofundme.com/f/orange-county-ca-firefighters
Vice News produced an excellent introduction to the world of hotshot crews. In 12 minutes they interview the Superintendent of the Eldorado Hotshots, Ben Strahan, and others on the crew, as well as a few of their family members. And importantly, they ask a former hotshot why he felt he had to move on to another job, discussing the inadequate pay federal firefighters earn, and the effects on family life by constantly having to work overtime in order to make enough money to get by.
The camera crew spent some time on the fireline with the crew, capturing video that the public rarely sees.
Vice News also produced a 30-minute podcast with the crew.
Storm Prediction Center forecast for Sunday. Extreme fire danger.
A major weather event that will affect wildland fire danger begins in California Sunday morning. NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center does not often predict extreme fire weather, but they have done just that to warn of a wind event with very low humidities for parts of California Sunday through Tuesday. At times the wind will be very strong and the relative humidity will drop below five percent in some locations.
Check out the forecast for Red Bluff in Northern California — on Sunday, 29 mph north winds with gusts to 40, and 10 percent relative humidity. On Monday, 18 gusting to 25 with 5 percent RH.
Weather forecast for Red Bluff, CA Sunday and Monday
The extreme weather will begin in Northern California on Sunday then work its way to the southern part of the state on Monday and Tuesday.
Fire weather Sunday and Monday, Northern California
The forecast for Riverside in Southern California beginning early Monday morning: 26 to 30 mph north winds gusting to 45, with 8 percent RH; then Tuesday, 18 to 20 mph gusting to 30 with 10 percent RH.
Weather Forecast Riverside, CAFire weather Sunday and Monday Los Angeles and Ventura Counties.
With five to nine inches of snow beginning tonight on three fires in Colorado, I wonder if they can spare any crews or overhead personnel in case they are needed in California? Of course the 192,000-acre East Troublesome Fire after burning for 11 days only has 5 crews and 336 personnel, but the 206,000-acre Cameron Peak Fire next door has 42 crews and 1,903 personnel. The 10,000-acre Calwood Fire that has not spread for days now has snow, 10 crews, and 495 personnel. The National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group may have already made decisions along these lines.
As we wrote earlier today, of the 113 Interagency Hotshot Crews in the U.S., only about 35 are still funded and available for fighting fire. In two weeks that number drops to around 13 according to projections in a September 30, 2020 planning document compiled by an Area Command Team (ACT).
In August 600 US Forest Service firefighter positions were unfilled
Firefighter on the Myrtle Fire in the Black Hills of South Dakota, July 22, 2012.
The way the federal government manages wildland firefighters made a small step recently toward gaining enough attention that their issues might be acted upon somewhere down the road. In addition to the legislation that has been introduced this year to establish a wildland firefighter job series and pay them a living wage, two senators wrote a letter to the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior asking for those issues to be addressed, and also to waive the annual salary cap restrictions for fire personnel and convert seasonal firefighters to permanent.
The letter pointed out that in August 600 US Forest Service firefighter positions were unfilled. In a record-setting year for fires in California and Colorado, having about six percent of the jobs vacant is a problem. Is is also an indication that retention is an issue that needs to be addressed.
The letter was written by the two senators from California, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris. Talking about improving the firefighter program does not accomplish anything, alone. Writing a letter to the Secretaries is a slightly stronger step, as is introducing legislation. PASSING meaningful legislation to make these improvements is what needs to be done, if the executive branch of government can’t or won’t do it on their own.
Below is the full text of the letter written by the senators:
October 19, 2020
The Honorable Sonny Perdue The Honorable David Bernhardt
Secretary of Agriculture Secretary of the Interior
1400 Independence Avenue, SW 1849 C Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20250 Washington, D.C. 20240
Dear Secretary Perdue and Secretary Bernhardt:
As California and the West contend with yet another historic and destructive wildfire season, it has become clear that we are entering a “new normal” in which increasingly intense wildfires wreak havoc during a nearly year-round fire season. So far this year, California has had over 8,600 wildfires, which have burned a record-setting 4.1 million acres, killed 31 people, and destroyed more than 9,200 homes and structures. Given the increasing demands placed on firefighters and the fact that the federal government owns 57% of the forest land in California, federal firefighting agencies must adapt to ensure that firefighters have the resources they need. To that end, we write with three requests:
1. In conjunction with the Office of Personnel Management, please review and consider increasing the General Schedule (GS) pay scale for all wildland firefighters employed by the Departments of Agriculture and Interior. As a part of this effort, we urge you to consider creating a new, separate job series and GS pay scale for federal wildland firefighters to ensure their pay is commensurate with other firefighting agencies and reflects their training requirements and the hazardous conditions they must endure.
The Pacific Southwest Region of the Forest Service has informed us that “hiring and retention is becoming increasingly difficult due to the high cost of living, increasing minimum wage and the significant discrepancy in salary compensation compared to other wildland fire organizations in [California].” For example, the annual base salary for an entry-level Cal Fire firefighter is $58,000; whereas the base salary for an entry-level Forest Service firefighter stationed in the San Francisco Bay Area is just $33,912. The Pacific Southwest Region has further informed us that as a direct result of low, non-competitive pay, nearly 600 Forest Service firefighter positions (seasonal and permanent) were unfilled as of August—a time when California’s fire activity increased substantially. Federal firefighters are specialized workers who face great risk to protect our families, homes, businesses and natural resources. Their salaries must reflect that, and we simply cannot afford to have so many firefighter positions unfilled.
2. Please examine and consider waiving the annual salary cap restrictions for fire personnel who exceed the GS pay ceiling while working overtime on wildfire emergencies. If Congressional action is necessary to waive these restrictions, please indicate so.
It is our understanding that some federal firefighters are working so many extra hours that they will soon reach the annual pay cap for GS employees and become ineligible for overtime compensation. Being asked to work for no pay places an unfair expectation on federal firefighters. It also serves as a dangerous disincentive for personnel to respond to fires, especially later in the season when conditions are often most dangerous in California. Given that states face different peaks in their fire seasons, we must ensure that federal firefighters remain available later in the year when California’s wildfires are often at their worst.
3. Please consider reclassifying seasonal federal firefighter positions as permanent, and let us know what additional resources or authorities you might need from Congress to do so.
It has become increasingly clear that wildfires in the West are no longer a seasonal phenomenon and that we can, therefore, no longer afford to have a seasonal firefighting workforce. Transitioning to a larger, full-time workforce would add immediate capacity to fight wildfires nationwide, allow for greater flexibility in shifting personnel between regions depending on wildfire activity, provide more stable work opportunities and employee benefits, increase employee retention, and reduce agency costs and burdens associated with the seasonal hiring process.
Some of California’s largest active wildfires—including the biggest in State history, which has now exceeded 1 million acres—are burning on federal land. While we are grateful that Cal Fire, local agencies, and other states and countries have sent crews to help fight wildfires on federal lands, the federal government must address the long-term issues with our federal firefighting workforce. Making salaries competitive enough to fill positions and retain personnel, addressing overtime caps, and transitioning seasonal roles to permanent posts are critical first steps. We urge you to address them as soon as possible, and we stand ready to help.
Josh Baker just got home from a 50-day deployment to three California wildfires. Although his job wasn’t dangerous — he worked on a support team, making calls to track down equipment such as port-a-potties and bulldozers — the hours were long, the stakes were high and the work was exhausting.
He’s still feeling tense. “I’m anxious, nerves are kind of frayed, things that would normally not be a big deal — kind of water off a duck’s back — hit a little harder,” said Baker, a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) fire captain who spoke to Stateline as a member of the agency’s union, Local 2881.
Being a wildland firefighter has always involved long hours, personal risk and weeks away from home. But this year has been something else: More than 4 million acres burned in California alone. Entire towns were torched in Washington and Oregon. Smoke was so thick the sky turned orange over West Coast cities.
Now state and federal officials and mental health experts are bracing for firefighters to come home and start processing what they’ve been through. It’s not uncommon for wildland firefighters, even in a less-intense year, to develop depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, unhealthy substance use or suicidal thoughts.
“When you almost die on a wildfire, away from your family and kids — that doesn’t go away,” said a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal from his employer. “I know people who wake up in the middle of the night, and in their dreams they’re getting burned over by a fire, because they almost did.”
This year feels like a breaking point for many firefighters, said Mike West, who resigned as a fire dispatcher for the U.S. Forest Service this summer after 17 years working various fire-related jobs for the agency. His resignation letter, which detailed his struggles with post-traumatic stress, has been widely shared online.
“People are burned out,” West said. “They’re incredibly tired. And I think it’s been building for several years, and this is the year people are finally being more open [about mental health].”
State and federal agencies are trying to connect employees with counselors, chaplains and tools for managing trauma. But union officials and mental health experts say state and federal lawmakers must also fund more firefighter jobs and improve pay and mental health benefits, with severe fire seasons set to increase because of climate change.
“We can’t even get relief for our guys on these major fires,” said Tim Edwards, president of Local 2881. He wants the California legislature to hire hundreds more full-time firefighters to give people like Baker more time off to decompress. But state budgets are tight because of the pandemic and face many competing priorities.
The Forest Service smokejumper has started an online petition asking Congress to pay for a psychologist at every National Forest headquarters, mental health paid leave, better salaries for entry-level firefighters and better benefits for temporary employees. Federal firefighter salaries start at about $26,000 a year, not including hazard pay.
“The whole thing, to me, is mental health,” he said of his proposals. “To me [hiring] the psychologist is treating the problem. It’s not preventing it.”
The petition has collected more than 30,000 signatures in two months.
Some firefighters are heading home with memories of crew members who died in a fire. Others have lost their homes to wildfire or are returning to damaged communities. And like everyone else, they’re contending with the coronavirus pandemic.
Baker had been home with his wife and young daughter for less than an hour when he learned that a firefighter he’d worked with had COVID-19. Baker cloistered himself in a spare room for a few days until his own test results came back negative.
Some forestry experts say the pressure on firefighters will subside only when policymakers and the public invest more money in reducing wildfire risk, such as by clearing brush from around homes. Western states such as California have been ramping up investment in such projects.
“Ultimately, that’s what’s going to make it safer for fighters, is a healthy, restored, resilient ecosystem,” said Tim Ingalsbee, a wildland fire ecologist and executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, a Eugene, Oregon-based nonprofit.
An Increasingly Stressful Job
Tens of thousands of Americans are involved in fighting wildfires, from full-time federal and state employees to seasonal hires, private contractors, prison inmate crews and local fire department volunteers. Cal Fire alone employs 6,100 full-time fire professionals and 2,600 seasonal firefighters.
Unlike their city counterparts, wildland firefighters typically deploy for weeks or months, working long hours and usually sleeping in tents or catching quick naps in the dirt. When employees go home at the end of a fire season, it can be tough to readjust to normal life.
“That’s when the post-traumatic stress takes its toll on the wildland guys, the off-season,” said Burk Minor, director of the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, a Boise, Idaho-based group that raises money to help injured firefighters and the families of firefighters who died on the job.
West said that for years, he suppressed feelings about two close calls escaping wildfires in his early 20s. Going home became a struggle, particularly after his kids were born. “I was really hyper-vigilant, you know,” he said. He startled easily and would grow impatient and irritable when, for instance, a line at a restaurant buffet moved slowly.
The job has become more dangerous in recent years, largely because of climate change. Dry conditions and high winds in California are fueling fire behavior that firefighters have never seen before, Baker said.
“I hate to say it, because it sounds cliché, but every time we have these large-scale fires we say, ‘This is a career fire,’ or, ‘You’ll never see this again in your career,’” he said. “And every year, you’re topping that.”
In a farewell letter posted online this spring, Aaron Humphrey, a California hotshot crew supervisor (hotshots are on the front lines of fighting fire) explained that the 2018 Carr Fire — a blaze so intense it spawned a terrifying tornado — was his breaking point, reached after years of suppressing the strain of managing a fire crew.
“The day the fire tornado came and everyone did the best they could I lost the mental fight. … I felt dead inside that night,” he wrote. He spiraled into angry outbursts, heavy drinking and depression.
And as fires grow and more people move to forested areas, firefighters are both facing more pressure to protect communities and witnessing more human suffering.
“Now if you even lose one acre, that could be several people’s homes,” said Nelda St. Clair, a retired U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administrator who now manages crisis stress management training for wildland firefighters for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
“The suicide rate in wildland fire is much higher than it is in municipal fire departments, or the general population,” said St. Clair, who keeps an informal tally of wildland firefighter suicides.
She said many wildland firefighters who die by suicide have experienced a traumatic event on the job, which can later fuel stress disorders, relationship problems and unhealthy substance use.
West said that after a close friend of his died on the fire line in 2013, the negative thoughts and emotions he’d been battling for years intensified. By 2017, he said, “I was having nightmares, I was having anxiety memory loss.” He had suicidal thoughts, too.
A Changing Culture
State and federal agencies have for decades conducted mental health training for wildland firefighters after catastrophic events, such as the death of a fire crew member. More recently, agency leaders have ramped up efforts to prepare firefighters for stressful and traumatic experiences and to encourage them to reach out for help.
“What we’ve been very successful at is changing the culture,” said Ted Mason, fire and aviation national safety program manager for the BLM. He said the profession is shifting away from the traditional, suck-it-up stoicism of first responders.
Cal Fire now has about 20 staff members who work full time with struggling employees and recommend counseling services and other resources, said Mike Ming, staff chief of Cal Fire’s behavioral health and wellness program. The agency also has trained staff all over the state to serve as peer support personnel who can offer colleagues a friendly ear.
Ming’s team sometimes sets up trailers at fire base camps that firefighters can duck into for a confidential discussion with a trained peer. Sometimes, he said, firefighters will walk into a trailer and just start crying.
The agency also is training firefighters to recognize the signs of stress and trauma and combat them with techniques such as deep breathing, Ming said. “Over time, if they don’t have the positive coping tools and skills … oftentimes people find themselves on their knees reaching out for help.”
But more needs to be done, St. Clair said. Although the culture of wildland firefighting is changing, “we’re not there yet.”
It’s difficult for anyone to reach out and ask for help, she said. “It’s more difficult for a wildland firefighter. They’re terrified that if anybody knows about it they’ll lose their jobs. They’re terrified that the people they depend on won’t trust them.”
And some employees still slip through the cracks. State and federal jobs generally offer an employee assistance program that includes access to a handful of free counseling sessions, for instance. But temporary workers lose access to that benefit when they’re laid off at the end of fire season.
People experiencing post-traumatic stress can need more specific help than general counseling. After initially being referred to a local marriage counselor by the Forest Service’s employee assistance program, West, who lives in a rural area that has few mental health providers, decided instead to drive 90 miles to see a trauma specialist.
“The guy was very nice,” West said of the marriage counselor. “But he didn’t really understand firefighting or what I was dealing with.”
It can also be difficult for firefighters to claim workers compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly at the federal level.
California lawmakers last year approved legislation that will make it easier for certain state and local firefighters and law enforcement officers to make such claims from 2020 to 2025. As of last March, Florida and Minnesota had similar laws on the books, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a Denver and Washington, D.C.-based group that advises state lawmakers.
Next Steps
This fire season has been so bad that agency officials and union leaders are calling for more mental health support for wildland firefighters and other public lands employees.
The Oregon State Department of Forestry has hired an outside contractor to connect employees with mental health professionals and chaplains. “These fires hit home for a lot of our employees,” said Patricia Kershaw, human resources manager for the agency. “It’s communities where they live, some lost their homes, some had families that lost their homes.”
U.S. Forest Service management and union leaders are discussing how to better support workers in Western states, said Randy Meyer, safety committee chair for the Forest Service Council of the National Federation of Federal Employees.
“There’s been a lot of talk about trying to delve into critical stress management,” Meyer said, “and possible or even probable PTSD issues with firefighters in particular, but our Forest Service employees in general.” Some employees have watched decades of work on public lands go up in smoke, he said.
Meyer said there’s also talk of expanding the agency’s employee assistance program to temporary workers after they’ve been laid off. But that might require an act of Congress.
“It’s not just a fiscal issue,” Meyer said. “We can’t spend money on people that aren’t employed by the agency.”
Baker agreed with Edwards, the Local 2881 president, that while it’s vital for firefighters to have mental health support they also need more time to go home and unwind between deployments.
“While having those resources is great,” he said, “it’s putting a Band-Aid on a bigger issue, which is the amount of personnel.”
The recession caused by the pandemic has squeezed state budgets and made new investments difficult, however. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, in January proposed spending $120 million this year and $150 million in future years to hire 677 more full-time Cal Fire firefighters and staff.
The legislature instead approved — and the governor in June enacted — $85.6 million to hire 172 new full-time firefighters and staff, as well as seasonal workers. Newsom later used emergency funds to hire over 850 more seasonal firefighters.
The Forest Service smokejumper said anecdotally he’s hearing wildland firefighter jobs are getting harder to fill, perhaps because of the low pay, tough schedule and risk. “There are less and less people who want to do that,” he said.
West is now working as an eighth-grade teacher, fulfilling a longtime dream and spending more time with his wife and two young kids. He said he no longer feels ashamed or embarrassed by his mental health struggles. “Hearing other people talk about it helped me talk about it,” he said.
This article first appeared in Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts.