Firefighter on the Bull Complex of fires, OR, Sept. 2, 2021, Inciweb.
The Grassroots Wildland Firefighters (GWF) conducted a survey of spouses of wildland firefighters that are connected with the federal government. The 1,841 responses included in the analysis found disturbing trends among the work force that until now may not have been clearly documented.
The primary goal of the survey was to measure the impacts that a career as a federal wildland firefighter (WFF) has on both firefighters and their families. The GWF is asking that the systems of support grow with the demands of the fire seasons.
Here are samples of their findings:
About half said they may have considered separating from their partner due to strain on the relationship caused by the job.
Only 11 percent often or regularly feel confident if something were to happen to their partner while on duty, they would be taken care of by their federal agency.
About 17 percent report partners have been injured at work resulting in a financial hardship.
When those in a dual fire career relationship were asked if they’ve left or considered leaving their own fire career due to the difficulty of having children, 79 percent of respondents the questions applied to, reported yes.
Below are documents released today by the GWF.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GRWFF-Highlights-of-Data-Summar2.pdf” title=”GRWFF Highlights of Data Summar2″]
The nine-page document below has detailed findings from the survey. (Look for the down arrow; hover or tap at the bottom to see more.)
[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/WFF-Partner-Survey-Data-Summary.pdf” title=”WFF Partner Survey Data Summary”]
Last week, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried submitted a budget request for fiscal year 2022-2023 that includes a $2,500 pay increase for 932 firefighter and firefighter support positions within the Florida Forest Service.
A vacancy announcement for Forest Ranger, position #42002179 closing today whose duties include forest fire prevention, detection, suppression and pre-suppression shows a starting salary of $29,080 annually, which works out to $13.98 an hour (based on 2,080 work hours per year). This raise would increase it to $15.18 an hour.
Nikki Fried, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
These numbers are similar to the pay for a federal wildland firefighter starting at a GS-3 in most of the United States. Their salary is being temporarily bumped up to around $15 an hour, but there is an effort to rebuild the pay system on the federal side, possibly with a more substantial permanent increase.
Applicants for the Florida job must swear that they have been a non-user of tobacco or tobacco products for at least one year immediately preceding application. They must live within 30 miles of the headquarters, in this case Chipley Florida, throughout employment in the position. Within 6 months of appointment they are required to obtain a Class A Commercial Driver License (CDL).
Over the last three years, Florida Forest Service personnel responded to an annual average of 4,672 fires that burned 147,169 acres, according to a press release from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
(Update Sept. 27, 2021: CBS has what looks like the entire transcript of the piece that aired Sunday night.)
Sunday September 26 at 7 p.m. EDT 60 minutes will broadcast a piece about the very large helicopters being used in Southern California this year. They interview Brian Fennessy, Chief of the Orange County Fire Authority about the Quick Reaction Force that has been partially financed with nearly $18 million from Southern California Edison since June 15 this year.
This group of helicopters includes two 3,000-gallon Boeing CH-47D Chinooks based in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, a Sikorsky S-61 with a 1,000-gallon tank in Ventura County, and a Sikorsky S-76 to provide intelligence, evaluate effectiveness of drops, and identify targets with a laser designator. They are all crewed 24/7 and can hover refill with water or retardant at night assisting firefighters whenever they are needed. The helicopters are operated by Coulson Aviation and have either internal or belly tanks.
On August 18 they were dispatched to assist on the Caldor Fire, working out of Amador County Airport, also known as Westover Field.
Chief Fennessy believes in prompt, aggressive, initial attack of fires.
Reporter Bill Whitaker said to the Chief, “If somebody calls 911 you hit it with everything you’ve got. You knock it out.”
“In case of fire break glass!” the chief replied.
This is not the first time a privately owned Chinook has been used in California. In 2020 one operated by Coulson Aviation worked under an 83-day 24/7 contract in collaboration with Southern California Edison (SCE) and the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA). Other Chinook operators used on fires that do not fly at night include the California National Guard, Billings Flying Service, Helimax, and Columbia.
The video below is a preview of the Sunday program.
Below is an excerpt from a CBS article about the helicopters:
“[Chief Fennessy said] the ability to lay retardant line, to continue to drop fire retardant after sundown, that’s a first,” he tells Whitaker. And there’s an added advantage: the fires usually die down at night because of decreased wind and increased humidity.
Wayne Coulson, the CEO of Coulson Aviation, is a pioneer in night firefighting. His company built the fleet with its specially designed tanks that carry either water or retardant. Computers control the tank’s doors, opening and closing at precise GPS locations.
“We can fly the aircraft to those GPS points and the doors will automatically open and close between those points,” Coulson says.
Presumptive illnesses recognized for forest firefighters in Victoria, and in the U.S. a housing allowance and mental health program
11:51 a.m. MDT Sept. 23, 2021
A firefighter on the Dixie Fire in Northern California. Photo by Luanne Baumann posted on InciWeb August 11, 2021.
Important legislation has been introduced in Australia and in the United States that would have a very meaningful and positive effect on wildland firefighters.
Victoria, Australia
In Victoria, Australia a bill titled “Forests Amendment (Forest Firefighters Presumptive Rights Compensation) Bill 2021” extends the presumptive disease program to forest firefighters. It also includes “surge firefighters” who are government employees normally in other roles, but who perform firefighting duties during the fire season as part of their agency’s surge capacity as needed.
The presumptive disease program ensures that if a firefighter is diagnosed with any of the 12 listed cancers, they will not have to prove that it was caused by their employment, and it will be considered an on the job injury.
The cancers covered are brain, bladder, kidney, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, leukemia, breast, testicular, multiple myeloma, prostate, ureter, colorectal, and oesophageal. The employee must have been on the job for 5 to 15 years, depending on which disease they have.
If the legislation is passed, the presumptive right will apply to individuals diagnosed on or after June 1, 2016 if the diagnosis occurs during the course of a person’s service as a firefighter or within 10 years after they have ceased to serve.
This is an important issue that should also be addressed in the United States.
Lily D’Ambrosio, the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, explained the program in detail during the second reading of the bill. Here is a link to the legislation.
United States
In the United States amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), if they are approved and the bill is passed, would affect wildland fire in two ways.
A housing allowance would be provided to any federal wildland firefighter hired at a location more than 50 miles from their primary residence. The amount would be based on the cost of housing in the area.
And, a mental health awareness and support program would be created for federal wildland firefighters including:
A mental health awareness campaign;
A mental health education and training program that includes an on-boarding curriculum;
An extensive peer-to-peer mental health support network for federal wildland firefighters and their immediate family;
Expanding the Critical Incident Stress Management Program through training, developing, and retaining a larger pool of qualified mental health professionals who are familiar with the experiences of the wildland firefighting workforce, and monitoring and tracking mental health in the profession to better understand the scope of the issue and develop strategies to assist; and
Establish and carry out a new and distinct mental health support service specific to federal wildland firefighters and their immediate family, with culturally relevant and trauma-informed mental health professionals who are readily available and not subject to any limit on the number of sessions or service provided.
In addition, each federal wildland firefighter would be entitled to 7 consecutive days of leave, without loss or reduction in pay, during each calendar year for the purposes of maintaining mental health.
Both of these, a mental health program and a housing allowance, if approved would be huge. Along with salary, these two issues have a large impact on retention. Too many federal firefighters live in their cars because the cost of housing where they are required to work is more than they can afford on the money they make. The mental health issues, including very high suicide rates, have been well documented.
If these two amendments do not end up in the final signed NDAA legislation there is a backup plan. Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse, Co-Chair of the Bipartisan Wildfire Caucus, would introduce the Housing Our Firefighters Act and the Care for Our Firefighters Act.
Mr. Neguse is also planning to introduce in the near future bills to overhaul federal firefighter pay, benefits and classification.
The Grassroots Wildland Firefighters have been instrumental in getting these issues in front of committee staffers and politicians.
Another amendment in the NDAA would require a study of the risks posed to Department of Defense infrastructure and readiness by wildfire, including interrupted training schedules, deployment of personnel and assets for fire suppression, damage to training areas, and environmental hazards such as unsafe air quality.
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.
Tom Sadowski resting on a cot and a paper sleeping bag. Photo by Bill Gabbert, around 1971.
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.
Rick Bondar (L) and Tom Sadowski in 1972 working on what became the Basic 32-hour Fire Training for new employees.
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.)
Tom Sadowski in 1975. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
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.”
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:
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.
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?”
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.
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.
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.
