Update on federal legislation affecting wildfire management.
Continue readingLegislation introduced that would compensate families of fallen contract firefighters
(This was originally posted at Wildfire Today)
A United States Senator has introduced legislation, S. 1628: Fallen Wildland Firefighters Fair Compensation Act of 2013, that would provide for contract wildland firefighters to be covered for death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act (PSOB). Currently contracted personnel fighting fire from the ground or the air who are not regular federal, state, or local agency employees are not eligible for death or disability benefits should they be killed or injured in the line of duty. For example, air tanker pilots and contract hand crew personnel are not covered. This bill, if it passes, would change that. The current version of the legislation as it was introduced yesterday is HERE. The progress of the bill can be tracked online.
The current amount of the PSOB benefit is $333,604.68 for eligible deaths occurring on or after October 1, 2013.
This bill is long overdue. We encourage you to contact your federal Senators and Representative. Ask them to co-sponsor and vote for this legislation. Here is a link you can use to identify and contact your elected officials — http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
If you are in favor of this bill, you can sign a petition at Change.org.
Below is the text of the press release issued by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley:
****
“Merkley Introduces Legislation to Provide Benefits to Families of Fallen Firefighters
Legislation crafted after Oregon families were denied benefits
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley introduced the Fallen Wildland Firefighters Fair Compensation Act that would allow aerial and ground contracted firefighters to be covered for death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act (PSOB). Currently, these benefits are granted to state and local police, firefighters, EMTs and also federally employed wildland firefighters, but not contracted wildland firefighters, even though 40% of firefighters who battle blazes on federal land are contracted. Senator Merkley crafted this legislation after hearing from families of contracted Oregon firefighters who had been killed in 2008 and were denied death benefits.
“Every summer across Oregon, thousands of contract firefighters risk their lives fighting to protect our federal forests, grasslands, and lands,” said Merkley. “It is past time that we make sure that if the worst happens while on the job, the families of fallen firefighters are granted proper benefits.”
Typically, contracted firefighters account for 10,000-15,000 people each year. While these men and women work and train right alongside of and even receive direction from the U.S. Forest Service, in the unfortunate event of death or traumatic injury, contract firefighters cannot receive comparable benefits to federal employees.
This bill would give the surviving spouses and children of fallen firefighters the same survivor benefits that those of other firefighters and law enforcement receive.”
Senator introduces bill to compensate families of fallen contract firefighters
A United States Senator has introduced legislation that would provide for contract wildland firefighters to be covered for death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act (PSOB). Currently contracted personnel fighting fire from the ground or the air who are not regular federal, state, or local agency employees are not eligible for death or disability benefits should they be killed or injured in the line of duty. For example, air tanker pilots and contract hand crew personnel are not covered. This bill, if it passes, would change that. The current version of the legislation as it was introduced yesterday is HERE. It can be tracked at the Library of Congress.
The current amount of the PSOB benefit is $333,604.68 for eligible deaths occurring on or after October 1, 2013.
This bill is long overdue. We encourage you to contact your federal Senators and Representative. Ask them to co-sponsor and vote for this legislation. Here is a link you can use to identify and contact your elected officials — http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
If you are in favor of this bill, you can sign a petition at Change.org.
Below is the text of the press release issued by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley:
****
“Merkley Introduces Legislation to Provide Benefits to Families of Fallen Firefighters
Legislation crafted after Oregon families were denied benefits
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley introduced the Fallen Wildland Firefighters Fair Compensation Act that would allow aerial and ground contracted firefighters to be covered for death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act (PSOB). Currently, these benefits are granted to state and local police, firefighters, EMTs and also federally employed wildland firefighters, but not contracted wildland firefighters, even though 40% of firefighters who battle blazes on federal land are contracted. Senator Merkley crafted this legislation after hearing from families of contracted Oregon firefighters who had been killed in 2008 and were denied death benefits.
“Every summer across Oregon, thousands of contract firefighters risk their lives fighting to protect our federal forests, grasslands, and lands,” said Merkley. “It is past time that we make sure that if the worst happens while on the job, the families of fallen firefighters are granted proper benefits.”
Typically, contracted firefighters account for 10,000-15,000 people each year. While these men and women work and train right alongside of and even receive direction from the U.S. Forest Service, in the unfortunate event of death or traumatic injury, contract firefighters cannot receive comparable benefits to federal employees.
This bill would give the surviving spouses and children of fallen firefighters the same survivor benefits that those of other firefighters and law enforcement receive.”
Bill to reopen government includes $636 million for wildland fire
The bill to reopen the government included $636 million for wildland fire.
Continue readingNew guide for accident reports requires conclusions and recommendations to be kept secret
New guide for wildfire accident reports requires conclusions and recommendations to be kept secret, intended for internal agency use only.
Continue readingArizona legislature to debate benefits for first responders
After it was revealed that there was a large discrepancy between the survivor benefits for the families of full time and temporary firefighters on the Granite Mountain Hotshots, some members of Arizona’s legislature have been considering what, if any, action should be taken for the families of the 19 firefighters that were killed June 30 on the Yarnell Hill Fire, and for future fatalities.
A committee in the state’s House of Representatives is taking up the issue today. Alia Rau, a reporter for the Arizona Republic, will be live tweeting about the hearing Tuesday afternoon. You can follow her at @aliarau.
According to AZCentral, the bills the legislature is considering could cover an array of issues, including:
- Who reimburses fire departments that helped fight the Yarnell Hill Fire.
- Who helps pay for Yarnell infrastructure repairs.
- Who pays death benefits in wildfire situations.
- Whether seasonal first responders can participate in state retirement systems.
- Whether there is a way to retroactively provide benefits to the 13 seasonal hotshots.
“Before the Yarnell fire, nobody thought we were doing anything wrong. We didn’t hear fire coming in saying ‘Our hotshots aren’t covered if something happens.’ We didn’t have cities saying, ‘If something happens, we’ll be in deep trouble,’ ” House Speaker Andy Tobin said. “This has been a punch in the gut. Now it’s time to talk about what we’ve learned from it and what our policy should be going forward.”
Wildfire briefing, September 1, 2013
Rim Fire becomes fourth largest in California history
Our main article about the Rim Fire is updated daily but here are a few recent facts about the fire. On Saturday it continued to grow, adding another 3,000 acres to become at 222,77 acres the fourth largest fire in California history. Winds that shifted to come out of the west over the last two days have blown smoke into downtown Yosemite National Park, into the heavily visited Yosemite Valley. Compare these two photos of the valley; the one above was taken Sunday morning by a web cam, and the photo below we took on a day when the air was much cleaner. The fire is still eight to ten miles away from Yosemite Valley.
The 5,115 personnel assigned to the fire are fighting it by constructing direct fireline along the fire’s edge, and by indirect methods including burning out the fuel ahead of the fire. The smoke has limited the use of air tankers and helicopters for the last two days.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the fire may have been caused by activities at an illegal marijuana farm.
“We don’t know the exact cause,” Todd McNeal, fire chief in Twain Harte, a town that has been in the path of the flames, said on Friday. But he told a community meeting that it was “highly suspect that there might have been some sort of illicit grove, a marijuana-grow-type thing.”
“We know it’s human caused. There was no lightning in the area,” he said.
LA Times article about the Rim Fire
Julie Cart, who with Bettina Boxall wrote a series of Pulitzer Prize winning articles in 2008 about wildfires for the Los Angeles Times, has a new article about the Rim Fire. She mentions how firefighting policy differs between the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, but greatly over-simplifies to the point of distortion the concept of “fire use” fires which are not aggressively and immediately suppressed.
Reuters: how budgets affect fires
Reuters has an article about how federal budgets may be contributing to the occurrence of larger fires by reducing the number of fuel treatment projects and prescribed fires. They have a quote from Jonathan B. Jarvis, the Director of the National Park Service:
Part of the problem, experts and many fire officials say, is that funding has been low for the controlled burns and forest-thinning work that makes it harder for a wildfire to spread.
“We’ve got to invest up front in terms of controlling and managing these fires,” said Jonathan Jarvis, director of the National Park Service from his smoke-filled post in Yosemite National Park. “Just waiting for the big fire and then throwing everything you’ve got at it makes no sense.”
In recent years, Jarvis said, the trend has been to shift money from fire prevention to firefighting.
Montana Supreme Court will decide case about firefighting strategy
The Montana Supreme Court will make a decision by November that could have an effect on how firefighters select a strategy for suppressing a fire. A Montana rancher who said firefighters’ backfires ruined his ranch won a suit against the state of Montana in 2012 which is being appealed to the Supreme Court. A jury awarded Fred and Joan Weaver $730,000 in a trial over the strategy and tactics that were used on the Ryan Gulch fire in 2000 – $150,000 was for the loss of timber, $200,000 for rehabilitation of pasture land, and the balance was for the mental suffering and anguish of seeing their ranch threatened by the fire. About 900 acres of the Weaver’s land burned during the fire.
The heart of the Weavers’ case was their contention that firefighters who usually fought fire in the flat, wet southeast United States used poor judgement in selecting and implementing an indirect strategy of backfiring, rather than constructing direct fireline on the edge of the fire. In the process, they argued, more land burned than was necessary, including 900 acres of their ranch.
We wrote an analysis of the 2012 court decision last year.
Recent articles at Fire Aviation
-
Coulson loses B.C. contract for Martin Mars
-
Photos and videos of aircraft on the Rim Fire
-
California: Castle Airport is now an air tanker base
-
Predator drone being used on Rim Fire
-
NASA test crashes a helicopter
Prescott’s Granite Mountain Hotshot crew nearly paid for itself
When the Granite Mountain Hotshots worked on federal fires the terms were established by their contract or agreement with the U.S. Forest Service. The Prescott Fire Department paid the personnel on the crew around $12 an hour according to The Daily Courier, but the department was reimbursed by the federal government at the rate of $39.50 an hour. Below is an excerpt from the article:
In fiscal year 2012, the city estimated that the crew brought in $1,375,191, and had $1,437,444 in operating expenses – for a difference of $62,253.
On June 30 of this year 19 members of the crew were killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire near Prescott, Arizona. A controversy is brewing in Prescott and the state of Arizona about the differences in compensation for the survivors of the seasonal and permanent firefighters on the crew.
It is not unusual for firefighting resources that are contracted to the federal government through local fire departments to be compensated at rates far higher than those at which federal firefighters are paid.
Thanks go out to Dick
Wildfire briefing, August 23, 2013
Firefighter dies in Portugal
A female firefighter was killed and nine were injured Thursday on a wildfire in Portugal near the small city of Tondela. Commander Antonio Ribeiro of the Serra de Caramulo firefighters said the crew ran from the fire but the firefighter who died fled in the wrong direction. Euronews reports that three firefighters have died this month. High temperatures and strong winds have contributed to the spread of 13 large fires in Portugal.
The national wildfire situation
Today there are 49 uncontained large fires listed on the national Situation Report in the United States, and that number does not include individual fires within complexes. There are currently 854,480 acres within the perimeters of those active fires. The national Preparedness Level has reached the highest category, PL 5, for the first time since 2008. And while it may seem like much of the west is on fire, the number of acres burned to date, 3.4 million, is much less than average, which is 5.6 million.
Competition for firefighting resources is occurring. There is only one California-based Type 1 or Type 2 incident management team available that is not assigned to a fire; 33 IMTeams are assigned nationwide. But surprisingly, there are no Area Command Teams committed.
We have 11 large and very large air tankers working right now on exclusive use contracts, and there are another 9 that the USFS has borrowed from the military, the state of Alaska, and the Canadian government. In 2002 there were 44 large air tankers on contract.
Forest Service runs out of money for firefighting
For the sixth time in the last ten years the U.S. Forest Service has run out of funds for suppressing wildfires. Even though the number of acres burned to date this year is below average, the USFS is having to divert funds from other non-fire accounts in order to cover the shortfall. This is due in part to reductions in the amount of money Congress allocates for the FLAME fund, which is supposed to fund firefighting while protecting other accounts. The Washington Post has more details.
Scott Olsen writes about a firefighter’s first day on the job
You may have seen the articles written last year by W. Scott Olsen, a professor of English at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota about “the war on wildfires out west, meeting shot-callers and looking at the operation from the inside”. He has just published a new article at the Huffington Post about a wildland firefighter’s first day on the job.
Granite Mountain 19
The issues surrounding the deaths of the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots June 30 on the Yarnell Hill Fire continue to make the news. Firefighters with the New York City Fire Department have raised $30,000 so far for the families of the 19, and they are hoping to add to that total. The Prescott Daily Courier asked the candidates for Mayor and the City Council to express their positions on the discrepancy between the benefits for the seasonal and full time members of the crew. And there is a debate about whether the city’s hotshot crew should be rebuilt.
Investigative reporter John Dougherty has two recent articles about the Yarnell Hill Fire: “Yarnell Hill Fire: The Granite Mountain Hotshots Never Should’ve Been Deployed, Mounting Evidence Shows” and “A Granite Mountain Hotshot’s Father Says the Blaze That Incinerated His Son Could’ve Been Controlled“.
Montana residents contribute for free coffee for firefighters
Residents near Lolo, Montana are contributing to a fund to provide free, good quality coffee for firefighters working on the Lolo Creek Complex. According to an article at KZBK, Samantha Harris, a barista at Florence Coffee Company in Lolo, said customers have been donating money to give firefighters coffee.
“We have a huge tab here so all the firefighters’ coffee is paid for,” Harris said. “Which has been really fun to tell them their coffee is free.” The tab is at nearly $300, she said.
Florence Coffee Company is at 11880 HWY 93 in South Lolo, Montana.
Photos of pyrocumulus
The Alaska Dispatch has some very impressive photos of pyrocumulus smoke columns caused by wildfires.
Goat manure fire stinks up town
A burning pile of goat manure is affecting the quality of life for residents of Windsor, Vermont. The pile ignited from spontaneous combustion Wednesday at George Redick’s 800-goat dairy. Windsor Town Manager Tom Marsh said he could smell the fire at his home which is five miles from the dairy.
Wildland firefighter bill reintroduced in Congress
A bill that would affect federal wildland firefighters, which is very similar to those that have failed in Congress several times in the past, has been reintroduced in the House of Representatives. Named the “Wildland Firefighters Protection Act”, H.R. 2858 would establish a “wildland firefighter occupational series that will more accurately reflect the variety of duties performed by wildland firefighters”. For decades federal wildland firefighters have worked in various technician or professional job series that are not specifically related to firefighting.
The bill would also begin a pilot program during which firefighters would receive “portal to portal” pay while they are assigned to an emergency incident.
Last year’s bill died in committee. This version was introduced by Rep. Diana DeGette from Colorado on July 30, 2013. No cosponsors are listed on the Library of Congress Thomas site.
Colorado creates Firefighting Air Corps
On Wednesday Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed a bill, Senate Bill 245, that created the Colorado Firefighting Air Corps. The Corps is organized within the Department of Public Safety in the Division of Fire Prevention and Control. There was no money associated with the passage of the bill, so until funds are appropriated, it will apparently exist in name only.
If the state does come up with some funding, according to the legislation:
The Division may purchase, acquire, lease, or contract for the provision of firefighting aircraft, facilities, equipment, and supplies for aerial firefighting; and retrofit, maintain, staff, operate, and support the firefighting aircraft or contract for the provision of those services.
In a related story, on Monday, Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman signed into law LB 634, the Wildfire Control Act of 2013 which authorizes the state to contract for one Single Engine Air Tanker (SEAT).
You may remember that one of the sponsors of the Colorado bill, State Senator Steve King, had an idea to help defray some of the costs of the program:
Can you imagine what advertising value would be if you had a Colorado Rockies sign on the tail of slurry bomber?
So we sponsored a competition for designs showing potential advertising and asked our readers to vote on their preferred choice. The one below by Jerome Laval is the leader in the poll, which is still open.
Thanks go out to Bean