News and opinion about wildland fire
Mountain Rest Fire Station Engine 331
The engine crew from Mountain Rest Fire Station was one of the first to respond to the Creek Fire that eventually burned 379,895 acres to become the largest single fire in the recorded history of California.
The Captain of Engine 331 tells their story that began at 6:30 p.m. on September 4, 2020:
Click here to see all articles on Wildfire Today tagged “Creek Fire”.
A result of collaboration by state and federal agencies
The 379,895-acre Creek Fire that destroyed 853 structures last year northeast of Fresno, California was the largest single fire in the recorded history of the state. But there is a silver lining hidden deep inside the fire’s perimeter. In some areas, years of state and federal collaboration on fuels reduction projects paid dividends.
A video produced by the Alaska Interagency Incident Management Team describes an example.
The map below is zoomable.
Click here to see all articles on Wildfire Today tagged “Creek Fire”.
For some senior-level fire personnel their pay stops after working a certain number of overtime hours
Senator Diane Feinstein has introduced the Wildland Firefighter Pay Act, a bill that would raise the maximum limit on overtime pay for federal firefighters. The current limit affects higher level employees at the GS-12 and above level, and some GS-11s depending on if they are exempt from the provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act. Under the existing provisions if they work hundreds of hours of overtime they may reach the cap after which they earn no more money. In some cases later in the fire season employees who spent a lot of time fighting fires have been told they earned too much and were forced to pay some of it back.
The proposed legislation eliminates the existing annual and pay period limits and creates a new one that places the maximum annual pay including overtime at Level II of the Executive Schedule, which in 2020 was $197,300.
“The current overtime pay cap for these brave men and women is outdated and represents a significant hurdle in retaining our most-experienced firefighters,” Senator Feinstein said. “Lifting this cap would ensure that these first responders are fairly paid for their hard work while helping build a federal firefighting service that can meet the challenges of our ‘new normal’ when it comes to wildfires.”
The Forest Service estimates that up to 500 senior-level firefighters either stop participating or do not request pay for hours worked once they reach the pay cap. This has a significant effect on federal wildfire response capabilities.
Senator Feinstein’s press release did not mention raising the pay of the federal wildland firefighters who live paycheck to paycheck.
UPDATE Oct. 26, 2021. The Senate bill has a number now: S.138 – Wildland Firefighter Fair Pay Act, introduced January 28,2021; no other action has been taken. The House of Representatives version of this bill is H.R.4274 – Wildland Firefighter Fair Pay Act, introduced June 30, 2021, and has been referred to two committees. A hearing will be held Oct. 27, 2021 before the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands.
Mill Creek Hotshots, Idaho City Hotshots, Baker River Hotshots, & Feather River Hotshots
Fire crews and organizations have produced some excellent videos showing the highlights of their fire activities in 2020. We like to post them each year, and we used to be able to do it with one article, but so far this year we have found 28 — too many for one article. So this year we will do it intermittently over a two-week period.
Here is Volume 2.
Mill Creek Hotshots
Idaho City Hotshots
Baker River Hotshots
Feather River Hotshots
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized1 Comment on “And then a few become firefighters” President Biden spoke to firefighters today
From the White House today President Joe Biden made a brief address to the firefighters that were at the International Association of Firefighters convention.
During the four minute speech he said:
All men and women are created equal, and then a few become firefighters. So I owe you. The nation owes you. Especially when we keep asking more of you to deal with raging fires made more dangerous by the climate crisis.
When he was Vice President he spoke at the memorial service July 9, 2013 in Prescott Valley, Arizona, for the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who died June 30, 2013 on the Yarnell Hill Fire. From the C-SPAN recording, we made a video clip of his remarks and the slide show that followed featuring the 19 men. You can see the entire two-hour service at C-SPAN.
As Vice President Mr. Biden also spoke September 12, 2009 at the memorial service for the two firefighters killed on the Station Fire near Los Angeles, Tedmund Hall and Arnaldo Quinones.
Mr. Biden is a former Chairperson of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus.
Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories Uncategorized4 Comments on Getting firefighters back to work after COVID-19 Even with mild COVID symptoms, 30 to 50 percent of patients develop long term residual issues
Today Fire Engineering held a ground-breaking online conference, talking with physicians and Fire Chiefs to discuss getting firefighters back to work after they have been infected with the coronavirus. Hosted by Rick Lasky and Terry McGrath, the physicians talked about the effects of the disease and how it affects firefighters. The Chiefs discussed ideas and procedures for getting them back to work, and how to determine if they are ready — or should they be put on light duty.
You can watch the recording of the video conference at Facebook.
One practice being used now is to administer various medical or physical tests before they test positive, and then if they later test positive, administer it again to compare the results.
If you are interested in the effects of the coronavirus and how fire departments are dealing with it, the 91-minute Zoom conference can be extremely worthwhile and valuable.
If you can’t spare 91 minutes, at least watch Dr. Tim Harris, Chief Medical Officer at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Denton, Texas explain how the disease affects firefighters, from 9:40 to about 19:00. I transcribed some of the highlights from that section:
The difficulty with this disease is, with your young and vibrant workforce, you probably will have either mild or asymptomatic disease. Even within that mild or asymptomatic cohort, we’re seeing 30 to 50 percent of people with long term residual issues that when you stress them physiologically or mentally you’re going to see some degree of impairment.
The primary impairment is because the ace receptors on your lung and heart, we’re seeing people with lung fibrosis. You can’t breathe. The scarring is permanent, irreversible, and can only be treated with a lung transplant… But the cardiac impairment, 30 percent of athletes that develop COVID have long term cardiomyopathy — you develop heart muscle damage where the heart can’t pump as hard as it normally does so you develop systolic heart failure, or you have arrhythmia.
The other one that is also somewhat worrisome is the neurological impairment. And that goes to judgment. And judgment is very important in your job. You don’t want these people entering a structure fire with an impairment, whether it’s cardiac, pulmonary, or neurological… You want the brains, heart, and lung working so they can do their job.
Testing positive for the coronavirus could mean the end of a firefighter’s career. We don’t know what all of the long term effects are going to be, but irreversible lung damage is occurring now in some patients.
Much of the discussion was about, “How do we know what the path back to work is, are we looking at the right data,” said Russel Burnham a PA-C who treats firefighters at Front Line Mobile Health. “Asking ‘Are you OK’, is not the best method to determine if someone is fully recovered.”
Dr. Harris said the cardiopulmonary exercise test is a very valuable tool for determining the cardiac and pulmonary fitness of firefighters, before and after coronavirus.
Fire departments and federal and state agencies that employ wildland firefighters need to develop a post-COVID protocol to determine fitness to resume work.
