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OWCP moves toward recognizing presumptive diseases for wildland firefighters

Bill GabbertApril 21, 2022Uncategorizedinjury, OWCP, presumptive disease17 Comments

wildland firefighter with hose — NWCG photo.

Yesterday the Department of Labor announced that they have implemented important changes for processing Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA) claims submitted by firefighters. FICA can pay medical expenses and compensation benefits to injured workers and survivors, and helps injured employees return to work when they are medically able to do so. The new policy eases the evidentiary requirements needed to support claims filed by federal employees engaged in fire protection and suppression activities for certain cancers, heart conditions and lung conditions. In essence, to an untrained observer, the new program looks similar to the presumptive disease policy employed by many fire departments and governments.

The new Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs FECA Bulletin, No. 22-07 “Special Case Handling in Certain Firefighter FECA Claims Processing and Adjudication” issued April 19, 2022, establishes a list of cancers and medical conditions for which the firefighter does not have to submit proof that their disease was caused by an on the job injury. The requirements to qualify for this new policy are that the condition must be diagnosed by a doctor, the person was engaged in fire protection activities for at least 5 years, and the diagnosis must have occurred no more than 10 years after employment.

If these requirements are met, the employee’s claim would be deemed “high-risk” and qualify for expedited processing.

The medical conditions covered are:

Cancers: esophageal, colorectal, prostate, testicular, kidney, bladder, brain, lung, buccal cavity/pharynx, larynx, thyroid, multiple myeloma, nonHodgkin’s lymphoma, leukemia, mesothelioma, or melanoma; or
Hypertension, coronary artery disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary fibrosis, asthma, or a sudden cardiac event or stroke.

To implement the policy changes, OWCP has created a special claims unit to process federal firefighters’ claims. The unit consists of existing staff specifically trained to handle these issues. The agency is also providing comprehensive training to the unit’s examiners on the impacts of the policy changes, and working with federal agencies including the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Homeland Security and Interior to explain the changes in policy and procedures.

These two major changes in how the OWCP handles illness and injury claims from firefighters appear to be monumental improvements if they pan out as advertised. In recent years the reputation and services provided by the agency for injured or sick firefighters, or the surviving spouses and family members of those killed on the job, has been abysmal. Too often they have been driven to beg for money at GoFundMe just to pay medical bills after being hounded by bill collectors when the federal government did not fulfill their legal obligations.

NFFE and IAFF met with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh (wearing the red tie) and Department of Labor officials in Los Angeles, April 20, 2022 to discuss processing of firefighters’ injury claims. NFFE photo.

Some of these changes and improvements are due in part to efforts that have been going on behind the scenes by members of the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, International Association of Fire Fighters, and the National Federation of Federal Employees. In the last month they have traveled to Washington DC and Los Angeles (at least) to meet with federal officials who can make things happen. For example they have met with Marty Walsh, the Secretary of Labor, twice. These folks deserve your thanks.

One of the causes of the slow response to firefighters’ injury and death claims has been a reduction in the number of OWCP claims examiners due to declining budgets over the last few years. It is critical that the President and both houses of Congress follow up and ensure that the agency is appropriately funded so that they can perform their required duties, assisting employees injured or sickened on the job.

More information from the Department of Labor:

Fact sheet
Details about how the OWCP will process the claims.
A more digestible version about the process, with information for firefighters.

How to file a workers’ compensation claim (From the OWCP):

To file a workers’ compensation claim, you must first register for an Employees’ Compensation Operations and Management Portal (ECOMP) account at www.ecomp.dol.gov. ECOMP is a free web-based application. You do not need approval from your supervisor or anyone else at your agency to initiate your FECA workers’ compensation claim. Once you register for an ECOMP account, you will be able to file either Form CA-1 ‘Notice of Traumatic Injury’ (single event trauma) or Form CA-2 ‘Notice of Occupational Disease’ (repeated exposure).

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Ben.

Forest Service firefighter wins whistleblower retaliation complaint

Bill GabbertApril 19, 2022April 19, 2022UncategorizedForest Service, retaliation, rhabdomyolysis, whistleblower32 Comments

A judge ordered that he receive back pay and be reinstated

A seasonal firefighter who the US Forest Service (FS) refused to rehire due to something he wrote Facebook, won his case before the Merit Systems Protection Board. After the judge ordered that the agency reinstate him and give him back pay, the firefighter agreed to a $115,000 settlement from the FS.

Pedro Rios worked on the Klamath National Forest at Grass Lake Station on the Goosenest Ranger District. He had 12 years of firefighting experience with a private contractor and the FS.

In July, 2020, about six months into the COVID pandemic, Mr. Rios and his strike team were dispatched to Southern California. They did not quarantine before or after traveling. When they were told to return from what was considered a “hot zone”, and being on standby at a fire station where employees had tested positive for COVID days or weeks before their arrival, they were told that instead of quarantining for a week or more, they were supposed to “self-isolate” if they experienced symptoms after return.

Mr. Rios at that point thought of his son who in 2019 was life flighted to Children’s Hospital in Davis, California and kept for 2 days for labored breathing due to severe asthma. His fiancée also has asthma, but not to the same degree.

Worried about the impact his crew returning without quarantining would have on his hometown and his family, on July 8, 2020 he wrote a post on the Siskiyou Coronavirus Community Response Facebook page. He included a screenshot of the top management positions on the Klamath NF.

In the post, after explaining that the plan was for the personnel to return without a quarantine, he name-checked the Fire Staff Officer on his home forest, “so the public can voice their concerns to him as well.”

District Ranger Drew Stroberg led the effort to not rehire Mr. Rios for the next season even though his performance ratings were fully satisfactory and an employee relations specialist told the Ranger that Mr. Rios likely had whistleblower status. Mr. Stroberg was also advised that he had no choice but to rehire the firefighter.

While working with a crew at the Little Soda Fire on the Klamath NF in late July, 2020, Mr. Rios noticed a newly hired firefighter who was exhibiting symptoms of rhabdomyolysis. If left untreated, severe rhabdo may be fatal or result in permanent disability. After Mr. Rios took the necessary steps to ensure he received medical attention, the firefighter was removed from the fire and was hospitalized. The crew boss had failed to take action earlier after the firefighter was throwing up in the truck. The crew boss reported that Mr. Rios had a negative attitude. One of the crewmen testified in the hearing that Mr. Rios “saved the guy’s life,” was a good leader, and he did not have a bad attitude. In the court proceeding several witnesses in addition to Mr. Rios testified that the crew boss did not prioritize safety.

Michael S. Shachat, the Administrative Judge who oversaw the case for the Merit Systems Protection Board, said Mr. Rios’s Facebook post “broke no rules and raised legitimate concerns through the only forum he felt he had available to him to do so.” He also ruled that Mr. Rios had whistleblower status and that the Forest Service retaliated against him by preventing him from being rehired.

“I find that Stroberg’s frustration with the appellant’s alleged unprofessional choice to raise his concerns on social media and his comments to the appellant in setting ‘expectations’ for future conduct is itself evidence of a motive to retaliate,” the judge wrote. “Considering the record as a whole, I find that there is strong evidence of a retaliatory motive on the agency’s part, particularly with respect to Stroberg.”

In his decision, Judge Shachat ordered the FS to pay Mr. Rio the back pay he missed, with interest. In addition, he ordered the agency to place Mr. Rios in the same position he would have been in had he been rehired for the 2021 fire season. He also ordered the agency to remove Mr. Rios from any “DO NOT REHIRE” lists.

Mr. Rios told Wildfire Today that he “applied for 350 permanent positions with a stellar record of signed evals.” But now, “Although I have zero interest in returning to USFS I will continue to speak out against USFS Management in the hopes that my verdict can and will be used as a precedent and expose how limited USFS Management’s authority is and show if they try to retaliate EEOs can uncover their behind the scenes behavior regardless of how they try to pass it off to the employee and ER/HR.”

“I’d also like to point out,” Mr. Rios said, “[the crew boss’s] history of lack of safety for his personnel resulted in several employees being put on light duty after several dehydration issues. My case is just the best documented incident so far.”

Federal agencies request increased wildland fire funding for next fiscal year

Bill GabbertApril 17, 2022April 18, 2022Uncategorizedbudget, Department of the Interior, Forest Service22 Comments

The US Forest Service and the Dept. of Interior are asking for wildland fire budget increases of 37 to 47 percent

USFS Budget request for fire management resources, FY 2023.

The Biden administration has prepared their request for funding wildland fire management for fiscal year 2023 which begins October 1, 2022. Congress did not do their job and pass an actual FY22 budget for the Departments of Agriculture and Interior (DOI), they only passed a continuing resolution, which is basically the same budget as the year before.

There is nothing binding about these requests. Congress determines the federal budget, but the justification documents provide an insight into what the agencies say they need, after being filtered through the upper echelons of the administration. The requests also detail how taxpayer money was spent during the last two years compared to what they want to do next year.

US Forest Service

The Forest Service (FS) is requesting no change in the numbers of engines, dozers, helicopters, air tankers, smokejumpers, or prevention technicians, but they do want additional “crews” and “other firefighters”, totaling 1,650 personnel.

In 2017 the FS reduced the number of Type 1 helicopters from 34 to 28, and since then the size of the fleet has been stuck there in most years. There were 44 large air tankers on exclusive use contracts in 2002 and the agency is requesting 18 next year. Two studies said there is a need for 35 or 41 large air tankers.

Large air tanker use, 2000-2021 — Use of large air tankers on exclusive use contracts by US Forest Service, 2000 through 2021. Shown are the number of large air tankers on exclusive use contracts, the number of requests by firefighters for air tankers (divided by 100), and the percent of requests by firefighters for air tankers that were unable to be filled. Data from NIFC, compiled by FireAviation.

The requested budget for the entire FS for FY23 is $9.0 billion. Of that, $2.7 billion, or 30 percent, would be for wildland fire.

USFS Budget request for fire management, FY 2023.

In the current fiscal year, FY22, the US Forest Service (FS) received $916,140,000 for fire preparedness and salaries, which covers most expenditures related to wildland fire except for that which is spent on actual suppression of fires. For FY23 they are asking for $1,346,271,000, an increase of 47 percent.

The “Explanatory Notes” justification for the FS fire budget lists no previous or current expenditures for fuels management in the fire budget but wants $321,388,000 in FY23. This is because the hazardous fuels program will be shifted from National Forest System accounts to Wildland Fire Management beginning in FY23. But this will be an increase of $141,000,000, or 41 percent.

The total FS budget appropriation for wildland fire including suppression went from $2.3 billion and 10,219 FTEs in FY20, down to $1.9 billion and 9,685 FTE’s in FY22. The agency is requesting $2.6 billion and 12,938 FTEs in FY23.

The summary below of the entire FS budget shows a few interesting details, such as how the total spent on personnel compensation and personal benefits has dropped in the last two years. Travel costs nearly doubled while rental payments to GSA dropped about 80 percent. The average salary in dollars for GS personnel, about $59,000, is expected to remain relatively flat for the fourth consecutive year and the average grade decreased from 8.3 to 8.2 over the last three years.

Department of the Interior

The four land management agencies in the DOI with significant wildland fire budgets are the Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Fish and Wildlife Service.

The DOI is not requesting changes in aircraft numbers, but they do want increases in virtually every other category of resources, including all personnel (+309), Full Time Equivalent (FTE) positions (+528), smokejumpers (+4), engines (+6), and heavy equipment (+21).

DOI Budget request, fire resources, FY 2023.

In the current fiscal year, FY22, the DOI received $347,105,000 for fire preparedness and salaries. For FY23 they are asking for $477,159,000, an increase of 37 percent. For hazardous fuel treatment they have requested a 38 percent increase, an additional $84,380,000 for FY23.

DOI Fire Budget Request, FY 2023 Program Changes.

The DOI is asking for a 33 percent increase in the Joint Fire Science Program, from $3 million to $4 million. This program had a near death experience during the previous administration.

Forest Service Chief’s letter covers fire use and work-rest guidelines for firefighters

Bill GabbertApril 15, 2022UncategorizedForest Service, pay, Randy Moore, resource benefit fire, work/rest78 Comments

The annual Letter of Intent for Wildfire

Randy Moore Forest Service — Randy Moore, 20th Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.

Forest Service Chief Randy Moore has released what has become in recent years an annual ritual, a Chief’s Letter of Intent.

This year’s version dated April 14 begins with a discussion about the 2021 fire year and the new emphasis on increasing hazardous fuels reduction work by two to four times current levels. (The full document is below.) Then he moved to other subjects.

Suppress, or not suppress fires

Tucked away in a paragraph about COVID is a sideways reference to fire suppression strategy: “Finite resources require making choices, including to commit firefighters only to operations where they have a high probability of success and can operate effectively with no exposure to unnecessary risk to meet reasonable objectives.” Three paragraphs later the Chief mentions “using fire on the landscape”, and then:

I recognize that can be controversial and cause concern. Therefore, we must have a clear understanding of when, where, how and under what conditions we use this tool. We do not have a “let it burn” policy. The Forest Service’s policy is that every fire receives a strategic, risk-based response, commensurate with the threats and opportunities, and uses the full spectrum of management actions, that consider fire and fuel conditions, weather, values at risk, and resources available and that is in alignment with the applicable Land and Resource Management Plan. Line officers approve decisions on strategies and Incident Commanders implement those through tactics in line with the conditions they are dealing with on each incident. We know the dynamic wildland fire environment requires the use of multiple suppression strategies on any incident; however, this year we will more clearly articulate how and when we specifically use fire for resource benefit. The Red Book will be updated to require that during National and/or Regional Preparedness Levels 4 and 5, when difficult trade-off decisions must be made in how to deploy scarce resources most effectively, Regional Forester approval will be required to use this fire management strategy. This is commensurate with Red Book prescribed fire direction during these periods.

Firefighter well-being

The letter from the Chief mentions that high stress working environments and extensive time away from families can affect a firefighter’s physical and psychological resilience.

To help address these very real problems, changes have been made to Chapter 7 of the 2022 Interagency Standards for Fire and Fire Aviation Operations (Red Book) that update work-rest guidelines to require three days of rest for every 14 days worked, excluding travel days, upon return to their home unit.

Pay and a firefighter job series

The paragraph about work-rest guidelines ends with two sentences about firefighter pay and a job series:

Work is also ongoing with the Department of the Interior and the Office of Personnel Management to develop a wildland firefighter series and improve pay parity to better recognize the value of the work done by our wildland firefighters. We will continue to provide information on these efforts as they move forward and will engage with our wildland firefighters to ensure their voices are part of this work.

COVID

The Chief wrote that the Forest Service “will align our COVID-19 mitigation strategies with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with respect to masks and testing of our firefighters.” There was no mention of requiring vaccinations. The text at the CDC link has statements such as, “Layered prevention strategies — like staying up to date on vaccines, screening testing, ventilation and wearing masks — can help limit severe disease and reduce the potential for strain on the healthcare system.”

The letter also says the FS will “continue with small, dispersed fire camps and remote incident management.”

Our take

With difficulties in hiring and retention, and the consumer price index rising by 8.5% over the past 12 months — the largest inflation surge in 40 years — a much broader discussion about pay and a growing unease and dissatisfaction in the firefighter ranks should have been job number one in the Intent letter. Thought should have been given to addressing the inability to fill jobs, skilled firefighters resigning, and positions being vacant for years. Some firefighters are considering this year to be a put up or shut up moment. For them it is important to know exactly where the Chief of the Forest Service, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Administration stand on allowing firefighters to earn a living wage, and what, if any, progress has been made to fix these issues. An honest Report on Conditions is needed — now. This letter, which is meant to be distributed down to the lowest levels, was a squandered opportunity. Maybe these problems have been addressed in another venue, but in this widely circulated missive, just quickly glossing over matters that are critical to the workforce, was a mistake.

In an April 5 hearing before a congressional committee, USFS Deputy Chief of State and Private Forestry Jaelith Hall-Rivera said, “I do think we are on pace [to meet the hiring goal of increasing the number of USFS firefighters by 1,300]. We are seeing a very high acceptance rate in our permanent and seasonal permanent firefighting positions.” Maybe Chief Moore is receiving similar rosy information about the state of his workforce.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Chiefs-Letter-of-Intent-for-Wildfire-2022.pdf” title=”Forest Service Chief’s Letter of Intent for Wildfire – 2022″]

Dispatch center in Bozeman, MT to close

Bill GabbertApril 15, 2022Uncategorizeddispatch, Montana, recruiting, retention13 Comments

Reasons cited include difficulty in filling positions

One of the three dispatch centers that serve the Custer Gallatin National Forest in Montana is closing. Bozeman Interagency Dispatch Center has been the smallest of the three and multiple factors over the last decade have created a situation where the center is not sustainable, according to information released by the Forest:

Fire seasons are generally longer and often intense, increasing the expectations from dispatch centers that directly support firefighters. Additional policy changes affecting aircraft dispatching and the cost of living to attract dispatchers to Bozeman, MT are also factors.

Over the last three years, Bozeman dispatch has tried unsuccessfully to recruit and fill the Initial Attack dispatcher position in several separate hiring events. The cost of living in Bozeman was cited as the biggest deterrent to accepting a position.

The Forest Service (FS) and the other agencies staffing the Bozeman Interagency Dispatch Center have decided that the Bozeman-based dispatch center “will transition to Billings,” meaning, Bozeman Dispatch will close.

Marna Daley, the Public Affairs Officer for the Custer Gallatin NF told Wildfire Today that the organizational chart for the Bozeman Dispatch Center had five positions supplied by the Forest Service — two permanent full-time, one permanent part-time, and two seasonals. Because of the difficulty in filling the jobs there, in recent years typically there were only two FS personnel in the office. Ms. Daley said with so many vacant positions at Bozeman, they often brought in detailers or used other methods to take up the slack.

As this transition is occurring, and with it being early in the fire season, only one position is filled, and that person has accepted a different job on the Forest.

dispatch center -- Great Plains in Rapid City, SD — Example of a dispatch center — Great Plains in Rapid City, SD. January 25, 2012.

The Billings Interagency Dispatch Center is staffed by workers not only from the FS, but also the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Montana Department of Natural Resources. The FS’s contribution will be three permanent full-time positions and one seasonal.

But in recent years both Bozeman and Billings have operated at low staffing levels with critical unfilled vacancies.

“Often throughout a wildland fire season dispatch centers need to operate seven-days/week, round-the-clock schedule to support wildland fire operations, which has proven difficult at current staffing levels,” the FS wrote in a briefing document about combining the two dispatch centers.

The FS described Billings as “A city with a broad base of socially and economically diverse systems including housing, schools, airport, healthcare, childcare, and family necessities associated with the cost of living…A fully staffed Billings Interagency Dispatch Center should also provide a better work-life balance for employees across the spectrum.”

The FS tentatively expects Billings Dispatch to be fully operational with the appropriate radio communications and additional duties on April 18, 2022. Field testing has been going on since March. The phone number to report a fire will be the main dispatch number, 406-896-2900.

Experienced wildland firefighter explains why he resigned

Bill GabbertApril 14, 2022April 15, 2022Uncategorizedpay, resignation74 Comments

“The agency is failing its firefighters on so many levels,” he said

Truckee Hotshots, hiking firefighters fire — Truckee Hotshots, hiking in. September, 2019. Truckee Hotshots photo.

A wildland firefighter who had worked his way into middle management of the Truckee Interagency Hotshot Crew has publicly resigned. A two-page letter laying out his reasons has been widely circulated, along with a copy of an email written by the Superintendent of the crew, Scott Burghard, discussing the loss of this experienced firefighter. Wildfire Today received both letters from third parties, not the two individuals named in the letters.

Chris Mariano was a GS-6 Squad Boss on Truckee until April 7, 2022. He said drafting the letter was difficult — the best part of his life was working as a hotshot on the Tahoe National Forest, writing:

I prospered — I was all in. I wanted nothing more than to be a hotshot, to be a leader, to care for the land and to be of service. While the sense of purpose and camaraderie remain, I now feel hypocritical to recruit or encourage crew members to work for an agency that is failing to support its fire management programs and thus the public.

The agency is failing its firefighters on so many levels. Classification, pay, work life balance, mental health, presumptive disease coverage, and injury/fatality support. There are efforts to correct some of these issues but for many it is too little too late…We are losing people at a terrifying rate at a time when wildfires burn longer, hotter, more frequently, and with devastating severity.

Mr. Mariano became an expert at operating drones, unmanned aerial systems (UAS), for the US Forest Service and was qualified as an FAA Commercial UAS Operator. He was the first UAS pilot in Region 5 (California) and was certified for UAS aerial ignition, test and evaluation pilot, inspector pilot, and was on a national instructor cadre for UAS aerial ignition. He had hoped to move into a full time UAS position with the Forest Service but as a GS-6 he was not officially qualified to apply.

“I plan to move into the private sector to continue training men and women to operate UAS,” Mr. Marino said, “and assist in the development of unmanned technologies to assist in wildfire suppression and prevention.”

Below is the letter from his supervisor, Scott Burghard, and following that, is a .pdf of the letter from Mr. Marino.

“Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Subject: Another IHC Resignation

“I am distributing the resignation letter of my Squad Boss Chris Mariano. Chris is the employee every supervisor dreams of hiring. His work ethic is unrivaled. His selfless commitment is unbelievable. He has battle tested, boots on the ground operational experience. He was instrumental in bringing UAS to the fireline and introducing technologies to a technologically stagnant environment. He is a creative problem solver. He is a strong communicator. He is intelligent, inclusive, dedicated, committed, passionate, professional… you name it. Chris is the epitome of what the agency should be cultivating as a leader… not losing. The fireline will miss him. The agency will miss him. I will miss him. And my job will be tremendously more challenging without him, and my crew will be less effective and capable because of it.

“Chris’s resignation hits close to home, and very hard. Watching the mass exodus of our operational knowledge is one of the saddest evolutions I have witnessed. Many of my fire assignments have transformed from operationally focused suppression tactics to exercises in preserving human life. We do not have the tacit knowledge, operational competence, or resource capacity to be effective with the scale of wildfire complexity we are facing. Because, we have not supported our Firefighters. We cannot fill our vacancies. In the rare circumstance we are successful at hiring we are replacing training and operational experience with a lower degree of aptitude. Fire behavior, fire size, and fire severity have increased exponentially over the last decade. In contrast, the agency response has been on the opposite trajectory. Every aspect of our wildfire suppression workforce is struggling to retain, recruit, and simply staff. On the ground and in the air. How are we allowing this to happen? Was the devastation of the last few fire seasons not a compelling illustration? How is the threat of entire ecosystems, communities and human life being incinerated not prioritized appropriately? When is the agency going to adequately address staffing, retention and the needs of its wildfire suppression programs? Wildfires certainly aren’t waiting…

“Chris is more than an empty seat in a crew haul. He is more than a vacant name on an org chart. He is more than a statistical loss. His absence will be felt. And the absence of the many somehow incalculable resignations will be felt. His resignation embodies every deficiency that will contribute to the biblical destruction ahead of us.

“Respectfully,

“Scott Burghardt
Superintendent Truckee Hotshots
Forest Service”

[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Letter-of-Resignation.pdf” title=”Letter of Resignation Chris Mariano”]