Nine Senators signed letter asking how to strengthen the federal firefighting workforce
Firefighters gather for a briefing on the Springs Fire on the Boise National Forest near Banks, Idaho, August 12, 2020. Kari Greer photo for U.S. Forest Service.
Nine U.S. Senators signed a letter requesting that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conduct an assessment of hiring and retention of federal wildland firefighters at the five federal agencies responsible for wildland fire. Those agencies are:
Forest Service
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Land Management
Fish and Wildlife Service
National Park Service
The Senators, almost 10 percent of all Senators, asked that the GAO make recommendations for how these agencies can improve wildfire prevention and suppression efforts by strengthening the federal firefighting workforce.
Excerpts from the letter:
Wildfires in the West are now a near-constant threat and we can no longer afford to rely on just 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.
[…]
Assess whether OPM should create a new, separate job series and pay scale for federal wildland firefighters to ensure their pay is commensurate with state firefighting agencies and reflects their training requirements and the hazardous conditions they must endure.
The Grassroots Wildland Firefighters had some input into this effort. This is a rapidly growing organization that is becoming a factor in implementing changes that could benefit Forestry and Range Technicians whose primary job is fighting wildland fires.
This is the organization’s mission:
The Grassroots Wildland Firefighter Committee is dedicated to promoting and advocating for Federal Wildland Fire personnel titled Forestry Technicians and Range Technicians. Our mission is to advocate for proper classification, pay, benefits and comprehensive well being. Our mission is to educate the public, generate support and provide solutions to our federal representatives through policy reform.
The three-page letter written by the Senators is below. To scroll to the additional pages, click on or hover your mouse over the document then click on the down arrow at bottom-left.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://wildfiretoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Letter-to-GAO-Federal-Firefighting-Workforce.pdf” title=”Letter to GAO – Federal Firefighting Workforce”]
Between 2011 and 2019 five people were killed while taking the test
Taking the Work Capacity Test
The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center put together the following information about serious incidents and fatalities that occurred while taking the Work Capacity Test, or Pack Test. Many agencies involved in wildland fire in the United States are required to administer the test to employees who respond to wildfires. There are three levels depending on the amount of physical activity required for the job. On-the-line firefighters are required to take the Arduous Level, known as the Pack Test, carrying 45 pounds for three miles in less than 45 minutes.
Do you think the Pack Test version of the Work Capacity Test required for many wildland firefighters in the United States adequately measures the capacity of a person to work as a wildland firefighter? (the test is carrying 45 pounds for 3 miles in 45 minutes)
Investing to increase the capacity of the federal workforce to plan for and respond to wildfire
Riva Duncan, now retired from the Fire Staff Officer position on the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon, is scheduled to testify before Congress Thursday April 29.
The House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, led by Chair Joe Neguse (D-Colo.), will host an oversight hearing titled Wildfire in a Warming World: Opportunities to Improve Community Collaboration, Climate Resilience, and Workforce Capacity.
The Subcommittee describes one of the topics of the hearing:
Congress and the Biden administration have an opportunity to better incorporate climate change into federal land and wildfire policies by protecting naturally resilient landscapes, prioritizing funding for community collaboration and protection, and investing to increase the capacity of the federal workforce to plan for and respond to wildfire.
Courtney Schultz, Associate Professor of Forest & Natural Resource Policy, Director of the Public Lands Policy Group at CSU, Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University.
Beverly Law, Professor Emeritus, Global Change Biology & Terrestrial Systems Science, Oregon State University
Minority witness to be announced
When:
1 p.m. EDT, Thursday April 29
Written testimony:
Written testimony from the witnesses will be posted at the Committee’s website shortly before the hearing begins. Ms. Duncan’s is 13 pages long.
How to watch live:
You can watch it right here. When the hearing begins, click on the Play button on the YouTube screen below.
After the hearing is over, it should be possible to replay it above, or on YouTube.
Charles Scottini had been hospitalized for six months
A firefighter who had been assigned to a wildfire in Colorado in 2020 died today after battling COVID-19 in a hospital for six months.
From information released by Laramie County Fire District 2:
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Charles “Chuck” Scottini. Chuck passed away peacefully with his family by his side on the morning of April 24th, 2021 after a long six-month battle with COVID-19. Chuck contracted COVID while on a wildland fire assignment in Colorado and was quickly moved to University of Utah hospital where he stayed for 6 long months trying to recover.
Chuck has been a Firefighter with Laramie County Fire District 2 since 1998, where he currently held the position of Assistant Chief. Chuck was our Mr. fix it, our mentor, and was a wealth of knowledge to the Fire service. He will be dearly missed by all. We will release information on a memorial service at a later time.
The Oil City News reported that earlier this week emergency personnel in Laramie and Cheyenne had honored Assistant Chief Scottini as he was transported from Utah to hospice care in Cheyenne.
Laramie County Fire District 2 was established in 1945 and protects about 1,100 square miles north of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Our sincere condolences go out to the family, friends, and coworkers of Assistant Chief Scottini.
A Facilitated Learning Analysis (FLA) found that 76 workers at the Cameron Peak Fire west of Fort Collins, Colorado tested positive for the virus and 273 had to be quarantined at various times over the course of the fire. Two were hospitalized, the report said. One was admitted to a hospital near the fire on August 24 and by the 31st was placed on a ventilator. The machine breathed for him while in a medically induced coma until he was weaned off October 7. In December he was released to a rehab center.
The FLA did not provide any details about the second person on the fire that was hospitalized.
NBC News reported August 29 that one BLM employee in Alaska died August 13 shortly after testing positive while on the job. Another was in critical condition at that time.
The U.S. Forest Service confirmed that 643 FS wildland fire personnel had tested positive for coronavirus as of January 19, 2021, according to spokesperson Stanton Florea.
Of those, 569 had recovered by then, Mr. Florea said, but 74 had not yet fully recovered or returned to work as of January 19. At that time there had been no reported fatalities in the FS tied to coronavirus, he said.
When we asked in January, the Department of the Interior refused to release any statistics about COVID-19 positive tests, hospitalizations, or fatalities among their range or forestry technicians who have wildland fire duties. Spokesperson Richard Parker wrote in an email, “We respectfully decline to comment further on this topic at this time.”
Four land management agencies in the DOI employ fire personnel, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Fish & Wildlife Service, and National Park Service.
Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen discusses last week’s budget hearing and the “wildfire crisis that is before us”
Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen. (Image taken from Forest Service video)
On April 21 Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen recorded another in a series of what she calls “selfie videos” in which she gives her take on recent activities within the agency. The Chief has done this on a number of occasions. They are informal and are sometimes recorded on a cell phone.
She began the most recent edition by talking about the weather, volunteers, Earth Day, Administrative Professionals Day, and telework, before shifting to her testimony April 15 before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. The purpose of the hearing was to discuss with members of Congress the proposed budget for the Forest Service for the fiscal year that begins October 1, 2021. It was pointed out critically on this website on April 17 that during the hearing she had two clear opportunities to accept or ask for more funding in two very important inadequately budgeted areas, fuels treatment and aerial firefighting.
You can watch the complete video at the bottom of this article. The Forest Service provided a “lightly edited for clarity transcript”, a portion of which is below. The Chief started talking about the hearing at 6:15. The transcript below begins at 7:10 after she introduced the topic in general terms.
…So, it was a really great hearing, it was my opportunity to really showcase all the great work that you all are doing. And if some of you aren’t familiar with the budget process, it’s a little bit complex, especially this year with this new administration coming in. They didn’t have the time to develop a full budget proposal. So, last week, what’s called the budget blueprint came out, and it’s just the high-level funding that the administration recommends to meet the priorities of the administration. You may notice, if you’re paying attention, there are some initiatives that bump up the Forest Service’s proposed budget in that budget blueprint. They’re high level, and there’s not a lot of detail, but it’s around our work to create resiliency for wildfire, climate change work and additional science resources.
The full budget won’t be out until the middle of May, so it was a little bit of a unique time to have a budget hearing because I really couldn’t talk about the administration’s full proposal because it’s not out yet. And, oftentimes, people ask me, “Chief, why don’t you just ask for all the money we need?” and the process is: we’re part of a big family, all right? The Forest Service is a part of a big federal family, and just to give you context, there’s $769 billion of discretionary funds for non-defense spending for all of the federal government. So, all of the appropriations committees in Congress divvy that out and those subcommittees then help decide based on the administration’s budget proposals how they’re going to prioritize and then how they’re going to negotiate with the other chamber—in this case it would be with the Senate—on a final budget construct. So, we’re part of that bigger federal family. We certainly talk about what we can do, I talk about our science, I talk about the challenges we face, but we’re a part, again, of that bigger family budget that is delivered as one administration and, in this case, right now, we only have that blueprint.
So, in the hearing last week, I got a lot of great questions about how we could invest in making a difference on the landscape and in serving the American people. I highlighted how Forest Service has really risen to the challenge in a very difficult year, how important it is that we steward the nation’s forests and serve the American people, the wildfire crisis that is before us, and that we really need to have a paradigm shift, quite frankly, in matching the work that we need to do to create more resilience on the landscape at the scope and scale to meet the challenge. I talked about the infrastructure and, of course, the resources that Congress gave us last year through the Great American Outdoors Act and how important that is in being able to provide a better experience for the American people, but also to provide critical jobs: jobs near national forests, particularly in rural areas, and we were really mindful of the job creation of that important investment that Congress had made.
So, it’s conversational; it was a virtual hearing, I did go into my office. I did it from my office, and we’re really figuring out how to even do hearings virtually. It will be provided in a link from this selfie video if you do want to take the time to watch it. It’s about an hour-and-a-half long but you can, of course, speed through the parts you don’t want to hear. And there was also, by the way, some really good engagement about our state and private mission area; you know, providing the capacity and the resources through our state forestry agencies and other partners for urban forestry and stewardship forestry, forest health and all the rest. So, really good conversations about state and private and our need and how we show up with our really important science in the Forest Service. So, one down, three more to go. The other three will likely be after the full budget comes out, so that will be a little bit of a regular way that we would do budget hearings.
Probably more than you ever wanted to know about budget and budget processes, but I know folks ask me, “Why don’t you just ask for more money, Chief?” and I want to give you a little bit of how the process works. So, I talk about the great work you do and how we’re a good investment and what the needs are on the ground.
I just signed my leadership intent letter for wildfire for the 2021 season, so that will be hitting all of your mailboxes. Look for that, and I think I’m going to try to do a little selfie video to give some highlights about the 2021 wildfire letter. For now, I’m going to call it a wrap.
I hope you all have a great day and a great rest of your week. Thank you for what you do. Stay safe and be well.
(end of transcript)
The “Leadership Intent letter” mentioned by the Chief can be downloaded here. Not much is surprising in the two-page document, but she does refer to COVID-19:
We will continue to use the foundational risk management practices that enabled success in 2020, including consistent mask use, small dispersed fire camps, remote incident management, enhanced safety protocols in our logistical contracts, and continued COVID-19 screening and testing of firefighters.
She also said vaccinations are good, safety is good, sexual harassment is bad, fuel treatment is good, and the Cohesive Strategy is good.
The investor group that owns the 747 Supertanker, Tanker 944, is shutting down the huge air tanker. In an email sent April 21 to officials in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and the federal government, Dan Reese the President of Global Supertanker gave them the news:
This week the investors that own the Global SuperTanker just informed me that they have made the difficult decision to cease operations of the company, effective this week…This is extremely disappointing as the aircraft has been configured and tuned with a new digital drop system and other upgrades to make it more safe and efficient.
Mr. Reese said in the email they are in discussions with prospective buyers, but it was unknown at that time if the aircraft would continue to be configured as an air tanker capable of carrying more than 17,500 gallons or if it would be used as a freighter.
Most of the company’s employees have been furloughed until the fate of the SuperTanker is known.
747 Supertanker at MCC during sunset March 22, 2016. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
In an April 2020 letter posted on the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s website the Chair of the National Interagency Aviation Committee, Joel Kerley of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, wrote to Global Supertanker Services saying the Committee would not issue a seventh interim approval of the aircraft’s retardant delivery system:
The Interagency Air Tanker Subcommitteedoes not support any further interim approvals without correcting some issues originally identified in the 2009 test of the system that included failure to meet coverage level 3 & 6, retention of retardant in the system after drop, aeration of the retardant causing trail off, and inconsistent flight profiles affecting retardant coverage.
Due to the current national situation regarding the Coronavirus (COVID-19), NIAC will issue an eighth interim approval to GSTS. However, NIAC will not support, nor issue a ninth interim until GSTS successfully passes all requirements of the 2013 IABS Criteria. This must be completed prior to December 31, 2020.
Air Tanker 944, a 747-400, drops near structures on the Palmer Fire south of Yucaipa, California at 4:25 p.m. PDT September 2, 2017. Photo by Leroy Leggitt, used with permission.
Last winter Tanker 944 spent several weeks in Moses Lake, Washington getting routine maintenance and a conversion of the retardant delivery system from an analog controller to a digital version, a change that was requested by the National Interagency Aviation Committee.
Most large air tankers carry up to 3,000 gallons of retardant. The 747 is capable of carrying far more retardant than any other. When first introduced it was listed at 20,000 gallons. Then the federal government certified it at 19,200 gallons. More recently it was required to carry no more than 17,500 gallons. The second-largest capacity air tanker is the Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76 at 11,574 gallons. The DC-10 until a couple of years ago was allowed to hold 11,600 but federal officials now restrict it to 9,400.
The U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. agency that contracts for all of the large and very large air tankers used by the federal government, has been slow to warm up to the concept of tankers that can carry more than 5,000 gallons. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, CAL FIRE, accepted the concept of the 747 and DC-10 more quickly.
We asked the Forest Service for a comment on the demise of the 747. “The USDA Forest Service is aware of this vendors decision,” said Stanton Florea, Fire Communications Specialist for the agency.”The Global Super Tanker is on a Call-When-Needed (CWN) contract for aerial wildland fire suppression.”
In the interest of full disclosure, Global Supertanker Services has an ad in the sidebar of Fire Aviation.
Opinion of a Lead Plane Pilot
I asked a Lead Plane Pilot who has worked with Tanker 944 for his impressions of the aircraft. He is currently active and not authorized to comment publicly:
It’s a specialized tool, and as such it has a niche that it fills and in that niche there’s nothing else any better. That is, it puts out a huge amount of retardant in one pass, and that sometimes can be a great thing. It can travel halfway around the world and deliver product. Having said that it is also a specialized tool in that it isn’t very good at doing the little stuff.
I asked him about the retardant that sometimes trails off after a drop:
That trail off, that’s something they can beat them over the head with, but at the end of the day hardly anybody I know gives a s**t about it. Ok, well, it’s not a perfect tank.
Below is video of Tanker 944 dropping on the Holy Jim Fire on the Cleveland National Forest in Southern California in 2018.
First drop on a fire
The initial version of the Supertanker installed by Evergreen in a 747-100 made its first ever drop on a fire 12 years ago at the Railbelt complex in Alaska in 2009. When Evergreen went bankrupt Global Supertanker bought the hardware and the rights to the retardant system and installed it in a newer more powerful 747-400.
Assisted firefighters in Israel, Mexico, Chile, and Bolivia
In 2016 the 747 assisted firefighters in Israel, and in 2017 it spent several weeks working on fires in Chile. In one day, February 1, 2017 working out of Santiago, it conducted a total of 11 drops on 7 sorties. Six of the sorties were near Navidad and Matanzas 115 miles (185 km) southwest of the Santiago airport where many structures were threatened. The seventh was near Concepcion, 404 miles (650 km) south of Santiago. In total, 138,400 gallons (508,759 l.) were delivered to assist the firefighters on the ground.
