On Monday National Public Radio’s flagship station in Southern California, KCRW, interviewed Brianna Sacks, a Buzzfeed News reporter who has been covering the hiring and retention problems faced by the U.S. Forest Service and other federal agencies that have wildland fire responsibilities.
“The burnout is really real for these firefighters who are making no money. They make their living doing thousands of hours of overtime and they still can’t afford to make ends meet,” Sacks tells KCRW. “They’ve been leaving en masse, hemorrhaging firefighters to go to CalFire, PG&E, or private sector jobs. And they’ve also been part of the great resignation with the pandemic.”
You can listen to the entire 8-minute interview by clicking below.
Angeles National Forest Firefighter Academy. USFS photo.
The Angeles National Forest in Southern California recently conducted a four-week Firefighter Academy. The 100 trainees were hired under a fairly recently granted authority of direct hiring for GS-5 Senior Firefighters. This hiring process was approved in order to help mitigate recent challenges in recruiting firefighters. Most of the Academy participants previously had multiple years of experience in wildland fire working for the US Forest Service or other agencies in California or across the country.
Another method for placing personnel into Senior Firefighter positions that has been used for years is the Wildland Firefighter Apprenticeship Program, a 3,000 hour on-the-job learning program, which includes a two month-long residential firefighting academy at the Wildland Fire Training Center in McClellan, California.
The direct hire process and the Academy help make it more feasible to achieve the agency’s goal of increasing the number of firefighters in permanent positions to 80 percent, with only 20 percent in seasonal positions. Many of the seasonals who were limited to working only 1,039 hours a year, not counting overtime, will now be in “permanent seasonal” 18 and 8 jobs, with guaranteed employment and full benefits for 18 of the 24 pay periods each year.
A person with knowledge of the program who was not authorized to speak on behalf of the Forest Service told Wildfire Today that the goals of the Academy were to level the playing field, to cover the curriculum the trainees would have had if they had gone through the Apprenticeship program, and to ensure that they all had at least an intermediate level of training along with exposure to multiple aspects of the fire management program.
There were many logistical issues that had to be accomplished before the four-weeks of training began. Those were handled by a Battalion Chief with Engine Captains and Hotshot Captains from throughout the Angeles National Forest. One of the most time-consuming projects was to provide uniforms for each of the 100 trainees upon their arrival. That required collecting clothing size data from everyone, then ordering, receiving, and finally sorting and issuing the garments at the beginning of the training.
The courses completed in the Academy included:
L280 – Followership to Leadership
S131 – Firefighter Type 1
S219 – Firing Operations
S260 – Interagency Incident Business Management
S270 – Basic Air Operations
S290 – Intermediate Wildland Fire Behavior
Applied Skills Wildland Firemanship
Incident Size-ups
Sand Table and Simtable Fire simulations
Helicopter Target Descriptions
Avenza Setup and Use
A219 Prerequisites
A100 – Basic Aviation
A110 – Aviation Transportation of Hazardous Materials
A117 – Fixed Wing Hand Signals
A200 – Mishap Review
Physical Training Test (1.5mi run, Pushups, Situps, & Pullups)
CRM – Crew Resource Management (7 Skills)
Work Capacity Test Arduous Level
Angeles National Forest Firefighter Academy. USFS photo.
The forecast for wildland fire potential issued May 1 by the National Interagency Fire Center predicts that in July and August the wildland fire potential will be above normal in the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and the Northwest. Until then, in May and June it will be above average in the Southwest, Northern California, Central Oregon, and the Central and Southern Plains. Hawaii will be above normal for the entire May through August period, and Alaska will be in the normal range except in May when the central part of the state will be below normal. Most of the eastern half of the country is expected to be in the normal range through August.
The fire potential text and maps from NIFC shown here represents the cumulative forecasts of the ten Geographic Area Predictive Services Units and the National Predictive Services Unit. Additional graphics are included from other sources.
Below:
Excerpts from the NIFC narrative report for the next four months;
Additional NIFC monthly graphical outlooks;
NOAA’s three-month temperature and precipitation forecasts;
Drought Monitor;
Keetch-Byram Drought Index;
Soil moisture.
“Most of the West, Plains, and Texas remain in drought, with areas of drought also along the Gulf Coast and South Florida. Temperatures were above normal across the Southwest into Texas with below normal temperatures across much of the northern US. Below normal precipitation continued in the Southwest into the central and southern Plains. Snowpack continued to rapidly melt in the Southwest, with the below normal snowpack in the Northwest and Rockies melting off at a slow rate.
“Climate outlooks indicate below normal precipitation is likely across much of the Plains west through the central Rockies to the Northwest, with above normal temperatures likely across much of the contiguous US (CONUS) through spring into summer. Critically windy and dry periods are likely to continue through June for the Southwest and central and southern High Plains with an active severe weather pattern to the east over the eastern Plains and Ohio Valley. The North American Monsoon is likely to arrive on time and be robust this summer, but potential early moisture surges during June could result in periods of lightning across the Southwest, Colorado, and the southern Great Basin.
“Above normal significant fire potential is forecast across the western Florida peninsula in May. The southern High Plains will retain above normal significant fire potential through August, with much of the Plains forecast to have above normal potential by July and spread into the western Mid-Mississippi Valley in August after green-up and subsequent curing occurs due to anticipated warmer and drier than normal conditions.
“Most of the Southwest is forecast to have above normal significant fire potential in May and June, with potential increasing across southern and western Colorado and southern portions of the Great Basin before returning to normal in July. Above normal potential will likely expand from central Oregon to southwest Oregon and central Washington by July and much of the Northwest in August. Above normal significant fire potential is also forecast to increase across northern California from May into July, with rising potential likely along portions of the Sierra Front. Alaska is forecast to have below normal potential across the Interior in May, returning to normal in June. Leeward locations of Hawaii are forecast to have above normal potential during June and July.”
Three-month precipitation and temperature outlook, May through July, 2022. Created April 21, 2022.
The staging area at the South Fork prescribed fire in Custer State Park, April, 2014.
We’re trying something new this weekend. Borrowing an idea from The War Zone, this post can serve as the beginning of an open thread where our readers can talk about what happened this week that we have or have not gotten into yet. This is literally an off-topic thread.
The usual rules about commenting apply. And in light of some recent topics, remember, no personal attacks.
So let’s enjoy a wide-ranging debate! (Oh, and send us pics of staging areas. Date, location, and photographer’s name would be nice , but not required.)
Linnea Gebauer, prize winner in CSPAN documentary competition.
C-SPAN announced that earlier this month that Linnea Gebauer, a 12th grade student at Klamath Union High School in Klamath Falls, Oregon, is a second prize winner in C-SPAN’s national 2022 StudentCam competition. Ms. Gebauer will receive $1,500 for the documentary, “Fire Season,” about the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. The competition, now in its 18th year, invited all middle and high school students to enter by producing a short documentary. C-SPAN, in cooperation with its cable television partners, asked students to explore a federal policy or program and address the theme: “How does the federal government impact your life?”
In response, more than 3,000 students across the country participated in the contest. C-SPAN received over 1,400 entries from 41 states, Washington, D.C., Morocco and South Korea.
In February we reported that Ms. Gebauer had entered the competition and included her video in the article. We wrote, “It is obvious that Linnea put a great deal of time and effort into research, planning, interviewing subject matter experts, and editing the dozens of clips into the finished product. Excellent job, Linnea!”
Here again is her video:
Several government officials recorded congratulatory videos for Ms. Gebauer, including National Park Service Division Chief for Fire and Aviation Management Bill Kaage and Oregon Governor Kate Brown.
A truck with a movie projector visited rural communities to teach people about the evils of wildfire. PBS.
A PBS program, “The future of Fire,” takes us from the 1920s when trucks visited rural communities in the Southeast and used a projector to show a movie on the side of barns about the evils of fire, to today when modeling tools help fire managers make better decisions about using and managing fire.
"Her vision is that she'd be able to sit on her front porch and just watch the fire go by and be completely unconcerned because the conditions around her home were such that she would be confident that she had done her work and her neighbors had done their work and it was safe to actually have fire play an active role in restoring the landscape. And that we don't look at all smoke as bad, that we be really working toward seeing smoke and have that be a positive experience, that it's like, oh, the forest is under renewal right now."
Anne Bradley, Forest Program Director, The Nature Conservancy, paraphrasing someone she knows who lives in the forest.
