Wildfire Today

B.C. wildland firefighter killed after she was hit by falling tree on a fire

Kelly AnderssonJuly 15, 2023July 15, 2023UncategorizedDevyn Gale, Revelstoke BC13 Comments

A young firefighter who was killed by a falling tree in British Columbia’s southern Interior on Thursday is being remembered by friends, family, and community leaders as a kind and selfless woman committed to protecting the province and those who call it home. The CBC News reported that Devyn Gale, 19, died after being trapped beneath a tree that hit her while she was clearing brush near a fire in a remote area outside Revelstoke, B.C.

The Guardian reported that Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has paid tribute to Ms. Gale, and the western province requested an extra 1,000 international firefighters. In a post on Friday Trudeau wrote, “The news from British Columbia – that one of the firefighters bravely battling wildfires has lost her life – is heartbreaking. At this incredibly difficult time, I’m sending my deepest condolences to her family, her friends, and her fellow firefighters.”

Gale’s crew was working on a fire outside the town of Revelstoke, about 310 miles (500km) northeast of Vancouver. Revelstoke Royal Canadian Mounted Police said she was clearing brush in a remote area when she lost contact with her team and was discovered caught under a fallen tree.

Revelstoke B.C. map — Revelstoke, British Columbia

Fatalities are relatively rare among Canadian firefighters, and some say it’s in part because Canada’s firefighters do not carry fire shelters as is required in the U.S.

The last such death in British Columbia was in 2015, when firefighter John Phare was killed after he was struck by a falling tree during a fire on the province’s Sunshine Coast. Five years earlier, Tim Whiting and Brian Tilley, two airtanker pilots, died in a plane crash near the town of Lytton.

Davyn Gale’s brother Nolan posted a tribute online early Friday. “Yesterday, while working a fire, my sister Devyn was struck by a tree and killed,” he wrote.

“I’m grateful for everything she’s done for me and others, completely out of kindness with no expectation for reciprocation. She truly didn’t deserve this. Devyn was an amazing sister. She was so kind and thoughtful. She was careful, considerate, hardworking. She was smarter and better at what she did than she gave herself credit for.”

The firefighter was airlifted to a hospital but succumbed to her injuries, a police statement said.

Canada is on track for its worst-ever wildfire season, with record fires also burning in large swaths of eastern Canada, and wildfire emissions have hit record highs.

In Quebec, the Canadian military is being deployed to help with emergency evacuations in the north of the province, the federal emergency preparedness minister said on Friday. In British Columbia, some 2,000 firefighters are battling more than 350 fires, and authorities have requested an extra 1,000 international firefighters to help tackle blazes that have burned 1.2m hectares of forest in the province so far this year, far above the 10-year average of 76,000 hectares.

Gale is the first wildland firefighter to die in B.C. in almost a decade. Fellow firefighters, community leaders and government officials offered condolences from across the country after her passing. “When we think about public service in our province, when we think about commitment to the people of British Columbia, it’s hard to think of a more dramatic example of sacrifice … than putting your life on the line,” B.C. Premier David Eby said, speaking from Vancouver on Friday. “This is a young woman who had her whole life ahead of her. She obviously loved the outdoors and had a strong calling to public service, to stepping up for her friends and neighbors. The whole community is reeling. The province is in mourning for her death — that someone so selfless could die during this kind of work. On behalf of all British Columbians, I want to say thank you to her.”

The Gale family has said that donations in the name of Devyn Gale can be made to the Revelstoke Community Foundation — more info’s available from info@revelstokecommunityfoundation.com

THANKS and a tip of the hardhat to P. and Matthew.

Senators finally on board with firefighter pay

Kelly AnderssonJuly 13, 2023July 13, 2023Wildfirefirefighter classification, firefighter pay, Tim's Act14 Comments

In his ongoing efforts to support wildland firefighters, U.S. Senator Jon Tester yesterday backed the bipartisan Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act to preserve competitive pay for wildland firefighters.

As part of his 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Tester championed $600 million in temporary pay boosts for wildland firefighters, but these pay increases — for more than 10,000 Forest Service and DOI firefighters — will expire at the end of this fiscal year. The temporary raise boosted firefighter pay by $20,000 — or 50 percent of annual base salary, whichever was lower — and that funding runs out at the end of September. The IIJA, known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, was signed into law by President Joe Biden on November 15, 2021. About 16,000 federal firefighters received the temporary raises, according to Fed Manager.

“This is a welcome down payment on a sorely needed continuous investment in our federal wildland fire workforce. Wildfires will continue to impact millions of people across the U.S., and we need to ensure we have wildland firefighters to respond whenever the call is made.”
~ Riva Duncan, vice president, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters

Tester and other members of Congress plan to extend those pay raises and improve recruitment and retention. The new pay scale is more than the GS pay scale under which federal employees are paid. This not only creates a new hourly pay rate and overtime pay rate for wildland firefighters, but it will also be used for their retirement calculations. Currently applicable pay premiums (such as hazard pay and Sunday differential) would still apply.

The new bill requires the Forest Service and the DOI agencies to distribute daily pay supplements to employees when they are working on long-duration wildfires, working on prescribed fires, or deployed away from their duty station for pre-positioning. The daily pay supplement is determined by multiplying one hour of an employee’s basic pay by 4.5 and payments are capped at approximately $160 per day and $9,000 per year.

A bipartisan group led by Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado has now written to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee urging swift consideration of the bill.

“Firefighters deserve fair pay, support for their mental and physical health, and time to recover from their dangerous work. In a future with increasingly catastrophic wildfires, Congress cannot wait to ensure that the federal government has the necessary workforce to protect communities,” they wrote.

“Montana’s wildland firefighters put their lives on the line to protect our communities and public lands, and the least we can do is ensure fair and competitive pay for the work they do,” said Tester. He added that firefighters should be fairly compensated for the dangerous work they do. “This bipartisan bill will make that compensation permanent, and I’ll be fighting to get it across the finish line in Congress.” Tester chairs the Congressional Fire Services Caucus.

This new bill would make the temporary pay raise permanent. The Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act that was introduced yesterday would codify a base pay raise for those frontline responders. According to the Federal News Network, this new bill came after months of calls from advocacy groups. Though it’s not as comprehensive as Tim’s Act, it’s a good start. “Well, to say we aren’t disappointed that more reforms weren’t included in this bill wouldn’t be truthful,” said Riva Duncan. “But we have to remind ourselves how far we’ve come to get to where we are today. Now the ball is in the legislators’ hands for the WFPPA, and we will continue to remind them to do the right thing for the federal fire management workforce.”

“As climate change brings longer fire seasons and more extreme fire behavior across the West, we must remain steadfast in our commitment to wildland fire preparedness and response,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau during a visit to Montana. “Through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are strengthening our wildfire response efforts, providing increased certainty to allow land managers to better prepare for future needs, and ensuring our wildland firefighting workforce is given the respect, compensation, and training support they deserve.”

“It is critical that Congress passes this legislation as soon as possible,” said NFFE National President Randy Erwin. “If the provisions within this law do not pass by September 30, federal wildland firefighters will endure a pay cliff of a 50 percent cut to their base pay up to $20,000. If this happens, a mass exodus will begin that may be impossible to stop. Thankfully, there is a tremendous amount of bipartisan support for the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act. In addition to continuing existing practices on pay, the bill recognizes the 24/7 working life of wildland firefighters while on assignment, and it calls attention to the burnout and exhaustion that these firefighters experience throughout the year.”

The full text of the bill is [HERE].

Are we ignoring the smokejumpers?

Kelly AnderssonJuly 12, 2023July 20, 2023Opinionmurry taylor, smokejumpers48 Comments

Recent facebook post by Murry, re-posted with permission and slightly edited; he spent 26 years as a smokejumper followed by 22 seasons on a Cal Fire lookout, and he theorizes that much of the public land in the West has burned because we’re under-utilizing smokejumpers.

Guest post by MURRY TAYLOR

Since 2020 smokejumpers have averaged only 4.5 fire jumps each season. That’s a terrible under-utilization of an important firefighting resource. In the past we easily jumped twice that many, and some years four times as many. I’ve seen it many times while on the Duzel Rock lookout southeast of Happy Camp, California — fires were not staffed for a day or two and then went big and cost tens or even hundreds of millions while the jumpers sat unused.

There seems to be a lack of understanding among fire managers in the Forest Service about the capability of these jumpers. Dispatchers have said they didn’t put jumpers on a fire because the “trees were too tall,” or the “winds were too strong.” Clearly they didn’t understand that jumpers carry 150-foot let-down ropes, and they have a spotter in the plane throwing streamers, so they know EXACTLY what the wind is like over the fire.

The good news is that things seem to be changing for the better. Allowing jumpers to get back to 10-plus fire jumps per season would save big money and lots of acres. For those who think we need to get more fire back on the land, all I can say is, Don’t worry, there’s going to be plenty of that given the way fires burn now. The policy of putting ALL these early season fires out while small would be a big help. That way, when August — the toughest part of fire season — arrives, the handcrews wouldn’t be exhausted and scattered all over hell, and the skies wouldn’t be filled with smoke so that Air Ops are critically limited.

Jumpers and hotshots tell me that Yes, sometimes the fuels and new fire weather are factors in making fires harder to catch. But MOSTLY, they say, there’s always something that can be done to catch these fires if they are hit while small.

The Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon has taken a more aggressive approach to putting fires out when small. In the last three seasons they’ve had 192 fires and burned only 50 acres. This was achieved by pre-positioning jumpers during lightning storms, better utilization of rappellers, and contract fire resources.

I wrote a post on this topic a couple years ago. Over and over, while on the Duzel Rock lookout, I’ve heard that certain fires weren’t attacked early because the country was “too steep and too rough.”

Five years ago in Colorado

Kelly AnderssonJuly 8, 2023ArsonDanish, Spring Creek

From Wikipedia:

The Spring Creek Fire was a wildfire near Fort Garland and La Veta, Colorado in Costilla and Huerfano counties in southern Colorado. The fire burned 108,045 acres (43,724 ha) and was at the time the third-largest wildfire in Colorado history.

Origin and trial:

The Spring Creek Fire was started on Wednesday, June 27, 2018 near Fort Garland, Colorado and southwest of Parachute. Jesper Jørgensen, 52, a citizen of Denmark who was in the U.S. illegally (he had overstayed his visa), was arrested and charged with arson. He was camping in his truck and using a fire pit to grill food. Jørgensen claimed he was unaware of the open fire ban; he assumed the fire was fully extinguished, but was woken from a nap by the smell of smoke a few hours later. He initially attempted to extinguish it himself, and when he couldn’t stop it he called 911. The fire burned the western flank of the Sangre de Cristo foothills, on the south side of La Veta Pass. It was finally contained almost three months later on September 10 — after more than 140 structures were destroyed.

Shortly after his arrest in June 2018, Jørgensen was declared mentally incompetent, which delayed his case; he was facing 349 counts of arson. According to the Colorado Sun, in the spring of 2022 after more than 2½ years, a judge dismissed criminal charges because Jørgensen was repeatedly assessed as unable to stand trial. He was diagnosed with delusional disorder.

Senior Judge Gregory Lyman had hoped that Jørgensen would be deported if the charges were dropped. However, he said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no intention of doing that; after an unsuccessful attempt to have Jørgensen involuntarily medicated, Lyman said he believed the law required him to dismiss the case.

~ Thanks and a tip of the hardhat to Tatanka Hotshots (on facebook).

Staging Area … July 4, 2023

Kelly AnderssonJuly 4, 2023July 8, 2023Opinionstaging area58 Comments

Today we are continuing an occasional off-topic feature that Bill Gabbert deployed a couple years ago — had been meaning to revive this and JK reminded me. This post can serve as the beginning of an open thread in which readers can talk about issues that we have, or have not, yet gotten into. This is a literally off-topic thread. You have the floor.

The usual rules about commenting do apply, though. And remember, no personal attacks or politics, please. If you haven’t read the rules lately, they are posted HERE.

Annual Poll: Preparedness Level 5 this year?

Kelly AnderssonJuly 2, 2023July 2, 2023NIFC, UncategorizedPL5 poll, Preparedness Level13 Comments

I don’t know which year Bill Gabbert started this PL5 poll but I always enjoyed it and I’m reviving it.
When do YOU think we will move to PL5 this year? And, will there be a “Moses Letter” this year?

PL2 In 2018 on this date, Bill wrote that the National MAC Group had just moved the national fire level up to PL4 “due to increased significant wildland fire activity from central TX to WA state, the commitment of IMTs, and the potential for new wildland fires across multiple GACCs.”

The highest level is 5. Today on July 2 at the NICC in Boise, we’re at PL2.

NIFC has more information about Preparedness Levels, but here are the criteria for PL5:

This is the highest level of wildland fire activity. Several geographic areas are experiencing large, complex, wildland fire incidents, which have the potential to exhaust national wildland resources. At least 80 percent of the country’s IMTs and wildland firefighting personnel are committed to wildland incidents. At this level, all fire-qualified federal employees become available for wildfire response.

Please tell us what you think in our poll. Last day to vote is August 19.

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Sometimes when we’re in PL4 or 5 the honchos in Washington will distribute what’s called a “Moses Letter,” telling regional and local units to Let My People Go so they can go fight fire and save lives.

Exodus 8:1 — Then the Lord said to Moses, Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let my people go, that they may serve me.'”

Of course they don’t officially actually call it a Moses Letter and probably won’t quote the Bible if they do send one, but you never know — this country’s in a new norm now, for many reasons. For bonus points, let us know in the comments if you think the folks in the head shed will send a Moses Letter this year.

PL5

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Guest post by MURRY TAYLOR

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From Wikipedia:

Origin and trial:

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