The wildland firefighting community in Oregon and beyond mourns the loss of one of their own. The Grant County Sheriff in eastern Oregon confirmed that SEAT pilot James Bailey Maxwell, 74, was killed while working near the Falls Fire near Seneca on the Malheur National Forest on July 25, 2024.
The BLM said Maxwell had dropped retardant on the Parasol Fire north of the Falls Fire and was returning to the base at Burns to reload. He disappeared just before 7:00 p.m. Thursday. Owned and operated by North Dakota-based Aerial Timber Applicators, the aircraft was reported missing and triggered a search by numerous agencies including a night-flying helicopter with the Oregon National Guard.
Search and rescue teams searched overnight and located the aircraft Friday morning in steep terrain.
Maxwell was a long-experienced pilot who’d spent 54 years of his life flying and had logged approximately 24,000 hours of flight time. He will be missed by family members in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.
Falls Fire ICP
The Falls Fire today is almost 70 percent contained at 142,30 acres.
The Maxwell family and firefighters are grateful for the support expressed throughout the community and online. Services have not yet been announced and the family requests time and privacy.
In a forested area west of Bend, Oregon yesterday, Sarah Jakober watched helicopters circling overhead. Soon she’d board one with other rappellers so they could practice jumping out of a perfectly good helicopter.
Actually, they don’t jump — from planes — like smokejumpers. Rappellers, affectionately known by some as sliders, climb out of a helicopter door, balance on the skids with their gear, then slide down their own ropes to a wildland fire below.
Grande Ronde Rappellers with a cargo drop last year
Jakober is in Bend for two days as part of annual recertification required by the USFS for rappel crews. Michael Kohn of the Bend Bulletin reported on this in a feature published by the Oregon Capital Insider (along with some DANDY photos by Andy Tullis).
Rappel crews typically fly into remote locations not easily reachable in the early stages of a fire by firefighters in ground vehicles.
Jakober is with the Grande Ronde Rappel Crew based out of La Grande. She told Kohn the job’s easier now than when she was a rookie seven years ago. “It was pretty scary,” she said. “I was hyper-focused on what I needed to do.”
The Malheur Rappel Crew (MRC), based in John Day, Oregon, is a Type 1 25+person crew specializing in initial attack and helicopter ops. The Malheur base is one of 11 in the USFS nationally. Rappelling as an initial attack fire response began in the Pacific Northwest and the region hosts five of the national bases, with rappellers coordinated at the regional and national level.
Malheur Rappellers
The Malheur airbase responds to smoke reports on the Malheur National Forest and the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness and includes four wilderness areas in its response zone. Big timber and very few roadways have required rappellers for initial attack; for 40 years there’s been a helicopter based out of John Day.
1997 Malheur Rappel Crew, John Day Airbase
The Malheur crew adheres to stringent fitness standards; without fail, the questions they always get include: “What are the minimums? What do I have to do to be considered for entry into the program?” Malheur rappellers are held to the USFS minimum physical standards, like every other program in the agency, including the pack test, which is carrying a 45 lb. pack over 3 miles in under 45 minutes. Beyond that, the rappel program includes the mile-and-a-half run, pull-ups, push-ups, plank tests, and the rappeller pack-out.
Minimum requirements:
1.5-mile run in 11:00 min or less (AVG: 9:40min) 2:00 min plank (AVG: 2:40min) 25 push-ups in 1 min (AVG: 36.5) 7 pull-ups (AVG: 10.4) 3-mile flat <90 min pack-out 85 lbs. (AVG: 55:45min)
These physical standards will be met by all members of the program on day one of the season — veteran rappellers, permanent staff, and rookies alike.
Grande Ronde ships at the La Grande base.
Rappel crews typically have a wide range of skills and strengths; Malheur crewmembers provide a list of quals from ICT5 to DIVS to FEMO.
This variety of skills and experience is typical at a rappel base.
The Grande Ronde Rappellers include these staffed positions:
1 Base Manager (GS-11 PFT)
2 Foremen (GS-9 PFT)
4 Assistant Foremen (GS-7/8 PFT)
6 Squad Leaders (GS-6/7 PSE 18/8)
14 Senior Firefighters (GS-5 PSE 13/13)
16 Seasonal Firefighters (GS-4 or 5 Temp 1039)
About 80 wildland firefighters were certified this week on the Deschutes National Forest. The full story by Michael Kohn on this week’s recertification is [HERE] and is worth the read!
It’s been just over a year since the Grant County Sheriff in eastern Oregon kicked over a hornets’ nest and made national headlines by arresting and handcuffing a Forest Service burn boss for “reckless burning” while he was directing a planned and active prescribed fire. And the case is still under investigation.
“It is wrapping up,” Sheriff Todd McKinley recently told the Blue Mountain Eagle. He said he plans to forward the investigation to the district attorney “in the near future.”
On Oct. 19, 2022, Ricky Snodgrass was overseeing the Starr 6 Burn in Bear Valley, on the Malheur National Forest about 17 miles south of John Day and 7 miles north of Seneca, when embers blew over the Izee-Paulina Highway and scorched 15 or 20 acres of private land belonging to the family-owned Holliday Ranch.
Red angus on the Holliday Ranch in Grant County, Oregon
Snodgrass, 39, was the USFS burn boss managing the 300-acre Rx fire — the second Malheur NF burn within about two weeks — and those on the fire included not only federal crews but also Grayback contract crews and Oregon Department of Forestry personnel.
19. October 2022 — Burn Boss arrest: Starr 6 RxFire in Grant County, Oregon
Landowners called the sheriff to report the burn had started a spot fire and was “out of control.” With the burn underway and with long-running tensions escalating between the property owners and fire crews, Snodgrass also called the county sheriff — to help control aggressive traffic and to deal with harassment his crews had been subjected to. Much to Snodgrass’ surprise, McKinley arrested him on “suspicion of reckless burning” — and took him away in handcuffs while the fire was still burning.
Timothy hay on the eastern Oregon Holliday Ranch.
Firefighters who remained on the job brought the private land slopover under control in about an hour; they also maintained control of the prescribed burn on national forest land.
Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley
Snodgrass was driven to the county jail, where he was officially booked and then quickly released.
The Starr 6 Burn very quickly hit the news and ignited controversy — far beyond Oregon and the wildland fire community. The story was picked up by news organizations including the Washington Post, The Guardian, NBC News, ABC News, Reuters, and others.
It was one of the first prescribed fires initiated after new restrictions and guidelines were established in early 2022 — rules that followed a 90-day stop-work after New Mexico prescribed fires escaped — the Calf Canyon – Hermit’s Peak fire burned several hundred thousand acres and hundreds of structures early in 2022.
Forest Service Chief Randy Moore quickly vowed he would “not stand idly by” after this first-ever arrest, and that he and others would defend USFS employees. The head of the NFFE union said the sheriff interfered with a federal employee in the course of his duties.
Since his arrest a year ago, Ricky Snodgrass has been waiting to hear whether he might face criminal charges in Grant County. District Attorney Jim Carpenter will consider several possible options, depending on the evidence collected and how he assesses it.
Sheriff McKinley also may find out he’s been charged with a crime. Firefighters at the burn during the arrest warned the sheriff that if he detained the burn boss, who was in the middle of conducting a prescribed fire and acting in an official capacity in command of the personnel and their safety and also that of neighboring county residents, he could face charges of obstructing a federal employee during the performance of duties.
McKinley recently told the Blue Mountain Eagle that he doesn’t know whether charges might be filed against him. “I haven’t even been talked to,” he said.
Tony Chiotti, ace reporter with the Blue Mountain Eagle in John Day, wrote this in-depth report after the arrest, re-published on 10/26/22 by WildfireToday.
