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Tom Tidwell steps down as U.S. Forest Service Chief

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags

(Originally published at 5:58 p.m. MDT August 21, 2017)

Tom Tidwell, the 17th Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, sent an email to all agency employees August 18 announcing that he was leaving his position, calling it stepping down. In a tweet sent out the same day the new Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, wished him well in his retirement.

In the photo above, Secretary Perdue is second from left and Chief Tidwell is third from the right. It looks like they are all outfitted for a smokejumper ridealong except for the Chief.

It is not surprising that Chief Tidwell is out, or will be on September 1. He was in the position for most of the Obama administration and the new regime is generally not fond of keeping anything or anybody around that reminds them of the former president. This is common; Chief Tidwell replaced Gail Kimbell who served for two years as Chief when George W. Bush was President.

McCain, Tidwell, Harbour at Wallow fire
Sen. John McCain, Thomas Tidwell (Chief of the Forest Service), and Tom Harbour (Chief of Fire and Aviation, USFS) at the 2011 Wallow Fire in Arizona. USFS photo.

The conventional wisdom is that the Forest Service Chief is one of the last remaining “career”, non-political, Senior Executive Service Agency Administrators leading a large Federal agency, but in recent years it has been handled politically. The folks currently in the White House thumb their nose at conventional wisdom or standard issue politics, so it would not be surprising to see a new Chief selected from private industry with little or no Forest Service experience. Especially after a large number of recent hires from outside the government and lobbyist groups in the Department of the Interior.

Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell
Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell testifies before a Senate Committee February 26, 2015

However two names that have been mentioned, Michael Rains and Lyle Laverty, have both spent time in the USFS. Mr. Laverty, not exactly shy about expressing his career goals, wrote an article that was published 11 days after our current President was inaugurated, titled, “If I were Chief of the Forest Service…” There is word on the street that the names of one or two retired USFS Regional Foresters have also been mentioned.

The position is not subject to confirmation by the Senate, so it is up to the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture, or his boss, to fill the job.

Below is an excerpt from Chief Tidwell’s all employees message:

…We have lived through some tough days responding to natural disasters and dangers that come from keeping citizens safe. We have been called to respond in a way that only the Forest Service can. We have grieved together, far too many times, for those who have lost their lives in support of our mission. By far these have been the most trying times for me. But I was always grateful for how you showed up to respect the sacrifices of others, to lend your support for grieving families, friends and co-workers, to help them begin healing from their loss. That, along with your commitment to our safety journey, to do what we can to ensure everyone returns home safely every day, is what carried me through those times. I know you will continue our progress on this never-ending Journey.

When I think about our mission and how emphasis may shift over time, one constant anchor remains: land stewardship and service to all people. We must live up to the responsibility to restore and sustain our nation’s forests and grasslands and ensure future generations inherit the same opportunities to receive the benefits many Americans often take for granted. The clean air, clean water, the biodiversity, the wildlife and fisheries habitat, the recreational settings and the economic activity that are essential to America…

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(Hours after we posted this article we found out that Tony Tooke has been selected to replace Tom Tidwell as Chief of the Forest Service.)

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Chris and Allen.
Typos or errors, report them HERE.

Forest Service Chief vows to protect communities “no matter what the budget”

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , ,
Tom Tidwell
USFS Chief Tom Tidwell before the Senate Appropriations Committee April 6, 2016.

Tom Tidwell, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, discussed the 2016 wildfire season in two venues recently. Earlier this month he testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee, and on Wednesday he talked with the Associated Press while he was in Denver for a conference about forest health.

In Denver Chief Tidwell discussed the outlook for the wildfire season, funding for fire suppression, and Smokey Bear.

Here are some excerpts from the AP article, and below that we have information about the committee testimony.

The upcoming wildfire season across the U.S. isn’t expected to be as bad as last year’s infernos, when a record 15,800 square miles burned, the nation’s top wildland firefighting official said Wednesday.

But parts of the nation should expect a rough season after a warm, dry winter or because of long-term drought, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said.

Southern California, other parts of the Southwest, Alaska and Montana are all vulnerable, he said.

“So where we anticipate the severity of the fire season will not be at the same level as last year, we still expect to have some areas that will be really active,” Tidwell said.

[…]

The overall bill for wildfires, including prevention programs and the cost of putting crews, equipment and aircraft on fire lines, is consuming a growing share of the Forest Service budget. That has forced cuts in forestry research, campground and trail maintenance and other areas, Tidwell said.

The Obama administration has been pressing Congress to pay the cost of fighting the worst fires from natural disaster funds, rather than the Forest Service budget. Tidwell said the largest 1 or 2 percent of wildfires account for about 30 percent of the costs.

Congress has not agreed to the change, but it did approve an additional $520 million for fighting fires this season, Tidwell said.

[…]

With a chuckle and a smile, Tidwell defended Smokey Bear, his agency’s memorable mascot, from allegations of making things worse by portraying fire as evil instead of part of the natural cycle that kept forests healthy. Smokey’s original message, “Only you can prevent forest fires,” has been updated to “Only you can prevent wildfires.”

“Really, Smokey was just talking about those human-caused fires which actually occur at the wrong time of the year, not where the natural fire occurs,” Tidwell said. Those are the fires that the Forest Service still wants to stop, he said.

“Smokey Bear gets no blame for the situation we have today,” he said.

On April 6 before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Chief Tidwell discussed many different USFS responsibilities. In his introductory remarks, he summarized wildland fire at 38:50 in the video. (I could not get the video to play using the Chrome browser, but it worked with Firefox. This probably has something to do with the government using Flash to serve the video, a much-hated and insecure platform.) 

The budget request also will provide for the level of fire suppression resources that are needed to be able to protect not only the national forests but to provide the support for the states and our local firefighters. We’ll have the adequate number of large air tankers this year, we’ll have the helicopters, the hot shot crews that we need to be able to continue to provide that support when we work in conjunction with our states and local fires.

Later in the hearing, at 1:07:01 in the video, New Mexico Senator Tom Udall brought up the issue of fire borrowing, scavenging money from non-fire accounts to pay for fire suppression when the fire funds are depleted during a busy fire season. The Senator mentioned the Chief’s boss, Tom Vilsack, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture. The Secretary apparently had said that funds would not be taken from non-fire accounts to pay for suppression.

Senator Udall:

Secretary Vilsack has been very public in his disappointment about failing to pass the disaster cap adjustment. He has stated for the record that he will not authorize transfers for fire suppression. He said that most recently at the Agriculture appropriations hearing last month. That essentially bars the normal practice of fire borrowing as you know. As I said in my opening statement I share the Secretary’s frustration that we don’t have a cap adjustment in law yet and I hope this is the year that we will be able to enact a fix for the firefighting budget. But until that happens, we must be clear. We expect the Forest Service to use all of its existing legal authority to fight catastrophic wildfires. Chief Tidwell can you assure us that when the time comes the agency will use all available tools to protect the public and the nation’s resources from wildfires.

Chief Tidwell replied:

Senator we will continue to carry out our responsibilities on the ground to be able to protect the communities no matter what the budget. I share the Secretary’s urgency and as I shared with the Chair earlier, the longer this issue goes on the less and less discretion you have to be able to solve it… We will continue to work with the committee, and I am optimistic that so far with the projections that we should be OK with the level of additional funding you have provided. But as the season progresses we definitely will have ongoing discussions about informing the Committee about where we are with the rate of expenditures so that hopefully we can avoid that situation of running out of money for fire suppression this year.

The statement about protecting communities “no matter what the budget” reminded me of an article we posted on April 25, when Jerry Williams, the former Director of Fire and Aviation for the USFS, in 1995 talked about can-do, make-do, and tragedy.

After the discussion of fire-borrowing, at 1:09:05 in the video Senator Udall asked about the plans for utilizing the seven HC-130H aircraft that in 2013 began the process of being transferred from the Coast Guard to the USFS. They will become the first government-owned/contractor-operated air tankers in the United States federal government. All of them are receiving programmed depot maintenance and will need to have retardant delivery systems installed in addition to new paint. Most of them will also have the wing boxes replaced, a process that takes about 10 months and around $7 million per aircraft.

Tanker 118
Tanker 118, an HC-130H, at McClellan Airport. Photo by Jon Wright, July 25, 2015. In 2016 it will be replaced by another HC-130H that may have the new USFS-approved paint scheme.

In the meantime, this year, like last year, there will be one HC-130H available for firefighting based at McClellan Air Field near Sacramento. It will use a borrowed slip-in Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) since the Air Force, responsible for maintaining and retrofitting the seven aircraft, has not yet arranged to install the permanent retardant tanks.

Chief Tidwell told the Committee he expects the seven HC-130H air tankers to be operational on the following schedule:

2016: one
2017: two
2018: four
2019: seven, all with permanent retardant delivery systems

Forest Service Chief testifies before House Committee

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 1 Comment on Forest Service Chief testifies before House Committee

The Administration’s budget outlook for the Forest Service, next fiscal year.

Tom Tidwell

On Wednesday Tom Tidwell, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, testified before the House Committee on Appropriations’ subcommittee, the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. The primary objective of the hearing was to discuss the budget for next year, Fiscal 2017. The text of the Chief’s prepared testimony is here, wherein he outlines some broad points about budget trends that the administration expects. Of course if or when Congress approves a budget the final version could be very different.

During the hearing there were naturally many questions from the representatives about the budget, but there were also discussions about grazing fees, transferring federal land to the states or other entities (spoiler alert, Chief Tidwell is opposed), initial attack of fires, the safety of using C-130 air tankers, and two representatives encouraged the Forest Service to take advantage of drone technology to provide real time intelligence about ongoing wildfires.

Below are some excerpts from Chief Tidwell’s prepared testimony about the administration’s budget proposal for FY 2017:
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Washington Governor and FS Chief discuss the firefighter fatalities

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , ,

This morning at 11 a.m. PT Washington Governor Jay Inslee and U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell conducted a news conference at the fire station in Chelan, Washington. They discussed the general fire situation in the Northwest, and mentioned the three USFS firefighters who were killed near Twisp, Washington the day before, on August 19.

Forest Service Chief testifies before Senate Committee

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,
Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell
Forest Service Chief Thomas Tidwell testifies before a Senate Committee February 26, 2015

Thomas Tidwell, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, testified March 26 at a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The primary purpose of the hearing was the Forest Service budget for Fiscal  Year 2016, but there were many questions from the Senators about other issues.

There were no earth-shaking revelations in the hearing about wildland fire, and few deeply probing questions from the Senators on the subject. Contrary to the recent annual hearings like this, there was no lengthy discussion about air tankers.

The video from the hearing is available at the Committee’s web site. The hearing begins at 12:30. I skimmed through all of it and identified sections that had some of the more interesting remarks about wildland fire.

From 1:13:15 until 1:19:30 Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon asked some fire-related questions, mostly about the fire borrowing problem.

From 2:05:15 until 2:07:19 Washington’s Senator Maria Cantwell asked that Chief Tidwell work with the Department of Homeland Security to make it possible to use drones, especially on fires. This is the first I have heard that the DHS is regulating drones. The Chief responded that they are working with the DHS and the FAA on the issue.

A surprising topic was the permitting system for photography on national forests, from 2:23:40 until 2:33:15. The Chair of the Committee, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, strongly made the point that the very poorly written and ambiguous proposed rule that would govern the use of still and video photography in U.S. Forest Service wilderness areas, needed to be fixed. We last wrote about this issue September 26, 2014. Among other disturbing features of the rules is that an application for a permit for photography can be denied if a USFS official decides that there is a “suitable location outside of a wilderness area” for the photography. Employees at the local National Forest get to use their photographic editing and filmmaking skills to make that determination, overruling the knowledge, desires, and experience of the photographer. Yesterday Chief Tidwell basically said the same thing, that if an alternative location is available, the photographer should use that, rather than the location identified by the photographer or filmmaker.

Credit goes to Senator Murkowski for strongly advocating that low impact photography in national forests should not be restrained by ridiculous Forest Service rules. She kept pressing for a date by which the revised final rules would be issued, and the Chief said “sometime this year”.

Below is a section out of Chief Tidwell’s lengthy written testimony related to wildland fire. Thankfully, he did not read the eight-page document.

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“….Managing Wildland Fires
Increasingly severe fire seasons are one of the greatest challenges facing the Nation’s forests. The Forest Service will continue to collaborate with its Federal, State, local, and Tribal governments, partners, and stakeholders on the implementation of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy to safely and effectively extinguish fire when needed, use fire where allowable, manage our natural resources and, as a Nation, live with wildland fire.

The Forest Service has one of the most effective fire organizations in the world and continues to keep almost 98 percent of the wildfires we fight very small. However, the few fires that do escape initial response tend to grow much larger far more quickly than ever before. In addition, the cost of fire suppression has soared in the past 20 years.

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