The House of Representatives passed their version of a continuing resolution last week, H.R. 933, that would fund the U.S. government through the end of the fiscal year which ends on September 30. Congress still has not passed a budget in four years, but at least this would prevent the government from shutting down.
According to a press release from Congressman Mike Simpson whose district is very close to the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho, the bill included “adequate funding for fire suppression shortfalls”. Here is an excerpt from the release:
…“Idaho and the West faced an intense fire season in 2013, requiring more funding than initially budgeted to protect communities and manage resources,” said Simpson. “While we do our best to predict a fire season and budget accordingly, some years are worse than expected, and it’s not until all is said and done that we can take stock of the costs and respond appropriately.”
H.R. 933 provides $570 million to address shortfalls in fire accounts. This includes $97 million for the Department of the Interior and $473 million for the Forest Service. With carry-over and reserve wildfire funds exhausted through budget cuts in recent years, the Forest Service had to borrow roughly $600 million from non-fire accounts to meet fire suppression needs in FY13, the largest transfer in recent history. With the entire fire season accounted for, the continuing resolution fully restores these accounts.
“If we continue to rob land management accounts to pay for fire suppression, we are going to see fires that are bigger, more catastrophic, and much, much more expensive,” said Simpson. “This funding makes those accounts whole so that the agencies can do the work necessary to improve the health of our forests and rangelands. More work needs to be done to remove hazardous fuels buildup and prevent catastrophic fires, and so in addition to this funding we need to review or existing fire policy and continue to look at management reforms.”
H.R. 933 passed the House by a vote of 267-151. The current funding resolution expires on March 27, and the bill will now be considered by the U.S. Senate.
A report has been released about a tree felling accident that occurred in Idaho on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest July 31, 2012. You can read the entire report, but briefly, a Lodgepole pine being felled was 18 to 24 inches in diameter and leaning toward an open area where the chain saw operator hoped it would land. When the back cut was complete the tree did not fall since the weight of the limbs was pulling it 90° off the desired direction of fall toward a pump house with solar panels on the roof. The sawyer continued cutting, going all the way through the holding wood. At that point, the weight of the limbs pulled the tree toward the pump house where it landed, crushing some of the solar panels.
The U.S. Forest Service has released their Serious Accident Investigation Report on the fatality of Anne Veseth, which occurred on the Steep Corner Fire 56 miles northeast of Orofino, Idaho August 12, 2012. The fire was on private property and was being managed by the Clearwater‐Potlatch Timber Protective Association (CPTPA). Ms. Veseth, in her second season working as a firefighter for the USFS, was killed when she was struck by a falling 150-foot tall fire-weakened green cedar tree. The tree fell on its own and was 13 inches in diameter where it struck her.
Here is an excerpt from the just-released USFS report:
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“Analysis and Conclusion
“The cause of this accident was that a green cedar tree, weakened by fire, fell and struck a firefighter in the head. It fell with a force far greater than the design limits of any hardhat could withstand. This tragedy resulted from the chance alignment of certain conditions: an emergency response to control a wildland fire, which required the presence of firefighters in an area where fire‐weakened trees could fall on their own with little or no warning. The SAI team concluded that the convergence of these events – in a very specific way and with very specific timing – resulted in a fatal accident. Slight differences in any number of factors could have led to drastically different results.
“Firefighters faced the same choice on this fire as they do on almost every fire: engage the fire and expose firefighters to a certain set of risks in order to control the fire, or don’t engage the fire and don’t control it, knowing that such a decision often poses a wider range of risks to firefighters and the public. Firefighters made the same basic risk decision on the Steep Corner Fire as they do routinely on most fires: to engage the fire and attempt to control it, knowing that firefighters would be exposed to hazards during suppression efforts.
“On the day of the accident, after the implementation of safety mitigation measures, the firefighting professionals involved in the Steep Corner Fire reasoned the risks of engaging and suppressing the fire to be acceptable. After considerable review of the incident, including the leadership, qualifications, interagency cooperation, fuels, weather, incident management organization, and local policies, the SAI Team concluded that the judgments and decisions of the firefighters involved in the Steep Corner Fire were appropriate. Firefighters all performed within the leaders’ intent and scope of duty, as defined by their respective organizations. The team did not find any reckless actions or violations of policy or protocol.
“On August 11, the day before the fatal accident, two Forest Service resources decided to limit their acceptance of risk on the Steep Corner Fire. Both the IHC and the E‐31 crew identified necessary safety mitigations. The IHC chose not to engage. The E‐31 crew disengaged and indicated they would not return to the fire until mitigation measures were implemented.
“C‐PTPA took these events seriously and subsequently addressed the recommended mitigation measures. Personnel became the “adapters” that allowed C‐PTPA and the Forest Service, two organizations with very different natural resource management mandates, to functiontogether. Mitigation measures included ordering more firefighting resources, adding line overhead and a radio repeater, and using contract fallers to fell hazard trees ahead of those digging fireline. The morning of August 12, the E‐31 crew decided to re‐engage when it became clear C‐PTPA was addressing their safety concerns. The IHC was already reassigned to anotherfire and did not return. In general, firefighters expressed their impressions that Saturday was a bad day but Sunday (before the accident) was much better, in terms of organization of the fire and mitigation of the hazards.”
(end of excerpt)
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The 38-page report only has two recommendations. One is to introduce the LCES (Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes, Safety Zones) concept into the National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s curriculum for use in disciplines other than fire management. The other is: “Occupational Safety and Health Office should develop a methodology for effectively teaching non‐fire workers the concepts related to hazard tree identification, scouting an area, and determining escape routes and safety zones for overhead hazards”.
An opinion
Several things about the incident and the report are troubling, but one item in the report stood out (emphasis added):
This tragedy resulted from the chance alignment of certain conditions: an emergency response to control a wildland fire, which required the presence of firefighters in an area where fire‐weakened trees could fall on their own with little or no warning.
Perhaps it is just an unfortunate choice of words chosen by the primary author which somehow was missed by the large number of people who probably reviewed the report before it was released. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they didn’t really mean to imply that firefighters are REQUIRED to perform an action on a fire simply because the fire is uncontrolled, even “where fire‐weakened trees could fall on their own with little or no warning”.
Someone might say that trees could fall during suppression action on most timber fires. Right. However on this fire, the large number of falling trees was identified the previous day, when a Hotshot crew refused to be assigned to the fire because of falling trees and many other unmitigated hazards, saying in a SAFENET report filed three days later that they “had huge concerns about the number of snags burning”. An engine crew left the fire for similar reasons that afternoon, but returned the next day after being assured that the hazards had been mitigated.
Firefighters are not REQUIRED to perform a task on a fire if there are known extraordinary hazards that cannot mitigated. We are talking about trees, grass, brush, or houses…. that will all grow back. Firefighters can’t.
(Originally posted at 2:00 p.m. MT, Feb. 12, 2013; updated at 5:44 p.m. MT.)
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a citation related to the fatality of Anne Veseth, a 20-year-old U.S. Forest Service firefighter from Moscow, Idaho who was killed August 12, 2012 while working on the Steep Corner Fire near Orofino, Idaho. The citation was issued to the organization managing the fire, the Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protective Association (CPTPA). The citation comes with a “Notification of Penalty”, fines totaling $14,000.
Ms. Veseth was killed by a falling tree, when one tree fell and crashed into another tree, causing it to fall in a domino effect. The day before she was killed, the Flathead Hotshots arrived at the fire, and after scouting it and assessing the situation, they concluded it was not safe to work under the conditions that were present. Then they left the fire after talking with the incident commander. Three days later they filed a SAFENET report, documenting the unsafe conditions at the fire.
The Citation for the CPTPA and the Notice for the USFS were both dated February 7, 2013.
The CPTPA citation was for the following:
Serious violation: For not providing a safe working environment; 8 of the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders were violated, and they did not mitigate 11 of the 18 Watch Out Situations. Proposed penalty: $4,900.
Serious violation: employees engaged in wildland firefighting were exposed to being struck by hazard trees while constructing fire line. Proposed penalty: $4,900.
Serious violation: Firefighters constructing direct fire line did not have fire shelters readily available. Firefighters constructing fire line were wearing denim and work pants not rated as fire resistant. Proposed penalty: $4,200.
The U.S. Forest Service Notice of Unsafe or Unhealthful Working Conditions was for the following:
Serious Violation: 7 of the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders were violated, and they did not mitigate 9 of the 18 Watch Out Situations.
Repeat Violation: employees engaged in wildland firefighting were exposed to being struck by hazard trees while constructing fire line.
If the violations are not contested they must be abated by various dates in March, 2013, and the fine must be paid within 15 working days.
The National Interagency Fire Center announced an award today.
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BLM firefighters Ben Oakleaf and Chris Swisher have much in common.
They’re both BLM smokejumpers. They both worked on the Midnight Suns Interagency Hotshot Crew in Alaska. They’re both highly respected in smokejumping circles. They’re both described by their supervisors as having a great work ethic and outstanding attitudes. They’ve been good friends for about a dozen years, starting when they met while working as hotshots.
And they were both surprised when they were named winners of the “Al Dunton Award,” which honors the late BLM pioneer in fire and aviation management.
“It was a surprise,” says Swisher, who jumps out of Fort Wainwright, Alaska. “I didn’t know anything about it until I was told that I won.”
“I didn’t even know I was nominated until the jumper manager called me into his office and told me. I was very surprised,” says Oakleaf, who is part of the Great Basin smokejumpers, based in Boise, Idaho.
Part of the reason Swisher and Oakleaf were nominated is due to their work in combining the first-year smokejumper training. For a dozen years, the Alaska and Great Basin rookie jumpers trained separately. That didn’t seem the best way to teach the ropes to the new jumpers, Swisher and Oakleaf thought.
“Combined rookie training was done in the past. There’s been talk about it through the years, about doing the training that way again,” Oakleaf says. “We both have great respect for the two BLM smokejumper bases. We thought combining the training would be a good thing to do.”
Smokejumper management agreed and Swisher and Oakleaf were given the challenging assignment to make it happen.
The combined rookie training took place in April of 2012 in Alaska. By all accounts, it was a huge success. Combined training is again scheduled for April of this year, in Idaho.
“They were analytical, deliberate, mutually respectful of one another’s opinions, and ultimately convincing that the timing was right to give this combined effort another shot,” says Hector Madrid, manager of the Great Basin smokejumpers. “They developed guidelines, the training syllabus, a logistics plan and selected a cadre that shared the same viewpoints about rookie training.”
The effort proved worthwhile, according to Bill Cramer, Alaska smokejumper manager.
“The end result was that we had a strong group of first-year jumpers who came ready to contribute. The training could not have been done any better,” he says.
Great Basin jumpers often help Alaska jumpers in the spring, the peak of the northern fire season. In turn, Alaska jumpers often “boost” firefighting efforts in the Lower 48 during July and August, when the fire season is busiest in the West.
Having the same training and familiarity with one another is a big advantage.
“The more we know each other and about each other, the more seamless it is when we integrate the crews,” says Oakleaf.
But it was more than the combined rookie training that distinguishes Swisher and Oakleaf. Their supervisors say the two excel in every aspect of the smokejumping program.
“He seeks challenges, he accepts responsibility, he always looks for ways to improve,” says Cramer of his colleague Swisher. “That’s what resonates with me. It’s not just what he did in 2012, but the way he continually performs his job.
“He’s humble, without reason to be,” Cramer adds. “From his perspective, he just shows up and tries to do his job the best way he can. He doesn’t think he’s anyone special.”
Madrid is equal in his praise of Oakleaf.
“Ben’s strength is that he leads by example. No matter his experience, he’s never been above or beyond doing a task. He has great firefighting and jumping skills. He’s the full package,” says Madrid. “His attitude is second to none. He’s never in a bad mood, never had a bad moment, no matter the situation.”
The “Al Dunton Award” was established last year. Dunton was a rookie smokejumper in Fairbanks in 1967. He managed the smokejumper base there from 1972 through 1984 and remained active in fire management throughout his career. Much of BLM’s success in fire management can be traced back to Dunton’s work and innovations. The award was established by the interagency smokejumper base managers and the National Smokejumper Association, with the support of Al Dunton’s wife, Mary, and other family members.
Last year’s BLM winner was Gary Baumgartner.
The respect level is high between the award recipients.
“On a personal note, (organizing) the combined rookie training was fun to do with Chris. We’ve been good friends now for a long time,” Oakleaf says.
“I think there are more worthy people than me,” says Swisher, “but I’m glad that Ben was chosen.”
Says Cramer of the two, “I wish we could put them in a copy machine and duplicate them. Of course, if we did, the rest of us might be out of a job.”
BAe-146 air tanker makes a drop on the Karney Fire. Inciweb photo.
Another volunteer firefighter has been identified as an arsonist. According to the Idaho Statesman, 19-year old Nathaniel Bartholomew pleaded guilty on Thursday to starting the 440-acre Karney Fire Sept. 17 in Boise County, Idaho.
Mr. Bartholomew was arrested the next day.
The charge he pleaded guilty to Thursday was one count of felony third-degree arson which could result in 10 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for March and could include restitution for some of the $2.3 million costs of the fire.
The fire destroyed one residence and caused the evacuation of 80 homes. A Type 2 Incident Management Team and 350 firefighters were able to keep the fire out of a subdivision with 275 homes.
