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

(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”

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 Senate Committee

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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Federal wildland firefighters have been cut by 19 percent over two years

panelEarlier today we mentioned the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s June 4 hearing about wildland fire in which Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell and others testified. In the written testimony that he submitted Chief Tidwell said:

For the 2013 fire season, the available firefighting forces – firefighters, equipment, and aircraft – are reduced to those available in 2012. Nonetheless, we will have close to 13,000 firefighters available from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior…

On June 14, 2011 Chief Tidwell testified before the same committee, saying:

For the 2011 fire season, the available firefighting forces – firefighters, equipment, and aircraft – are comparable to those available in 2010, more than 16,000 firefighters available from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior…

That amounts to a 19 percent reduction in the number of federal wildland firefighters. With the fire season being extended by 50 days due to climate change, reducing the capacity to fight fires is perhaps is not the best strategy.

Another interesting fact mentioned by Kim Thorsen of the Department of Interior in the hearing is that the Department will double the number of Single Engine Air Tankers this year, bringing the total up to 27.

At the one hour and 23 minute mark, Chief Tidwell makes his case for acquiring some C-27J aircraft to be retrofitted as air tankers if the Air Force decides to get rid of them.

Below are some more excerpts from the written testimony:
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Senator blasts agencies for accomplishing fewer fuel treatment projects, fails to look in mirror

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is criticizing the federal land management agencies for not accomplishing enough hazardous fuel treatment projects, saying “the federal government can’t get this right”, and:

The message has not gotten through with respect to the choice: You can spend more modest amounts on the front end, with preventive kinds of efforts, or you can spend your time investing substantially more money trying to play catch-up as these infernos rip their way through the West.

The Senator is right, in that money spent up front to remove or reduce hazardous fuels can reduce the amount of money spent on fire suppression and minimize damage done to private property and infrastructure. It can also save lives.

In Colorado alone last year, six people were killed by wildfires, an issue we rarely hear being discussed as wildfire budgets are debated. When we’re talking about saving money and acres, how many dollars is a human life worth? Is it the Forest Service’s or BLM’s mission to manage fuels and fire management organizations with a primary objective being to prevent lives being lost in wildfires? It is a complex question, with plenty of responsibility and blame to be distributed to federal, state, and local agencies… and Congress.

The federal agencies know that fuel treatments can save money and help protect private property. And the Senator knows they know this. He should look in the mirror to discover part of the problem. The Senate and the House establish funding levels for the federal government, and the President signs the legislation. The agencies would love to accomplish more fuel reduction projects, but as the amount of money approved by Congress decreases, the first things to fall off the table are fire prevention and hazardous fuel treatments. After those are cut to the bone then the agencies have to start looking at furloughs, reductions in force, staffing fewer fire engines, and cutting back on the number of seasonal firefighters — some of which are occurring this year.

I don’t have any patience with politicians who issue strongly worded press releases (probably written by an intern) that blame an agency for cutting back on services while the politicians cut the budgets that caused the reduction in services.

The video below shows 16 minutes of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s June 4 hearing about wildland fire management. It features Senator Wyden and Chief of the Forest Service Tom Tidwell discussing budgets, fuel treatments, and next generation air tankers. It was edited to highlight Senator Wyden’s participation in the hearing. A video of the complete almost two-hour hearing can viewed on the Committee’s web site.


Below is the complete text of Senator Wyden’s strongly worded press release, including the bold highlights as it was written:
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Forest Service Chief could override air tanker protest

In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Chief of the Forest Service Tom Tidwell said he has the authority to override the protest filed by Neptune Aviation for being passed over in the awards for next-generation air tankers. Chief Tidwell said he will make a decision within the next couple of weeks.

He also said the USFS hopes to obtain the C-27J aircraft that the Air Force may decide to declare surplus, and the agency would outfit them with scaled down versions of the Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) retardant tank systems that are used in military C-130s, rather than conventional gravity-powered tanks.

More information is at Fire Aviation:

USFS Chief Tidwell testifies about next-gen air tankers

USFS Chief Tom Tidwell, 5-22-2013In addition to talking about the C-27J in his testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Tom Tidwell discussed at length the air tanker program, especially the contracting process for the next-generation air tankers.

During the hearing, which was primarily about the USFS budget, Senators Jack Reed (Rhode Island) and Jon Tester (Montana) asked many questions about the air tanker program. The entire hearing lasted almost two hours; you can watch a video of it HERE. You will see that there were three people in the audience, and only about five or six senators were present, out of the 30 that are members of the committee.

Chief Tidwell said he has the authority to override the protest filed by Neptune for being passed over for the next-gen air tanker contracts. If he does, it would be within the next couple of weeks and would be based on an “emergency” — a shortage of air tankers. On May 17 Colorado Senator Mark Udall issued a statement saying the protest should be overridden because Colorado lives and homes are at stake.

In reading between the lines of Senator Testor’s statements and questions, he appeared to be chiding Chief Tidwell for not awarding any next-generation air tanker contracts to a particular business in his state, Neptune Aviation. Neptune has two BAe-146s with at least interim approval by the Interagency AirTanker Board, and two more that the company expects to have ready to go later this summer. Neptune did, however, receive contracts on the “legacy” air tanker solicitation for some of their P2Vs and one BAe-146. [UPDATE May 23, 3013; Neptune was recently able to add a second BAe-146 to the contract as “additional equipment”.]

I transcribed some sections of the dialog:

At 43:28, Tidwell: “We will have an adequate air tanker fleet this year. We are anticipating between 24 and 26 planes to be available. We currently have nine aircraft under what we call a legacy aircraft which is seven P2s plus two BAe-146As that are currently on contract. We are in the process of awarding contracts for seven more aircraft which we call our next generation which are the faster planes we are trying to move forward to, that carry larger payloads. In addition to that we continue to work with the Air Force and Air Force Reserve to make sure the MAFFS units, the C-130Js and Hs are available again this year as a backup. We’ve also taken steps to be able to work with Alaska and Canada to bring down their [Convair] 580 planes if we need those aircraft.

So based on everything we’re moving forward with this year I feel confident that we will have a set of aircraft that we can respond.

In addition to that we are anxious to see what the Air Force, the decision that they make, if the C-27s are surplus and they become available, and we would definitely like to have seven more of those aircraft to be part of our overall fleet. They would be government owned but contractor operated. We are moving forward to actually look at what it would take to take our MAFFS units and modify those to fit into the C-27s so if those planes become available that we will be able to move as quick as we can to build those MAFFS units for those C-27s. ”

Senator Jack Reed
Senator Jack Reed

(Senator Reed asked a question about next gen contracts. Are you confident that you will have those next-gen aircraft under contract and useful this fire season?)

Tidwell: “Mr. Chairman, we are working through the process of the contract for the next generation and we have received a protest, that we will work through that protest. I do have the authority to override that protest and as we go through the process I’ll make that determination to ensure that we have the aircraft we need to be able to respond to fires this year.

We estimate that with the C-27s it would cost about $3 million per aircraft to build the MAFFS units and then to make some changes on the aircraft to make them usable for our mission and take some of the military equipment and armor off those aircraft that is no longer needed for our mission.”

Senator Jon Tester
Senator Jon Tester

(At 1:03 Senator Tester asked about the status of the aircraft on the next-generation contracts:)

Tidwell: “Once we work through the protest and actually award the contracts it is our expectation that those contractors that have the new contract awards will have their planes ready to go withn 60 days for testing.”

(Senator Tester asked, after the tests, when will they “be ready to fly?”)

Tidwell: “It’s our expectation that when they complete the tests they will be ready to fly. The aircraft that are being considered they are all FAA certified already so there isn’t that problem, they don’t have to deal with that. So they have to get their tanking systems to be able to use our performance tests.”

Senator Tester asked if they took into consideration when evaluating the potential contractors if they would be ready to fly this summer. Tidwell said, yes, they were expected to be able to be ready in 60 days. The contingency plan, he said, is to bring down the [Convair] 580s from Canada and to use the MAFFS.)

Tidwell: “We’ve been asking for the C-27s so that we at least have part of our fleet that is government owned so there is a guarantee that we will have some aircraft. So this has been an ongoing problem with these contracted aircraft.”

Tester: “My problem is not with the contracted aircraft per se, and I’m not for privatizing government, but my problem is that there were better options on the table that could be taken up by the Forest Service from my perspective and they didn’t do it. And you know exactly what I’m saying and all that.”

Tidwell: “We have a set of procedures that we follow when we award contracts. I can guarantee that there has been a high level of oversight provided and the process of being able to protest and have another level of review, that’s the process that we have to follow. And because of that our folks go to great lengths to be able to make sure that we are making right decisions based on what the contractors provided us and we have to make our best decisions.”

Tester: “The bottom line is we need to get the biggest bang for the buck and I’m not sure that because of the fact that we don’t know if these planes are going to be operational or not, whether we got the best bang for the buck.”

Tidwell said that “within the next week or so” he will make a decision about overriding the protest or not.)

At 1:39, Tester questioned again whether the seven next gen aircraft have FAA certification. Tidwell said it is his understanding that six do, and one made some air frame modifications, so it may not have the FAA certification. Tester asked Tidwell to confirm and get back to him.

Tester asked about the status of the C-27 transfer. Tidwell said it is his understanding that the Air Force is doing a study to determine if they want to do the transfer or not. The study could be done by September.

Tidwell anticipates the payload of the C-27 to be 1,800 gallons. Maintenance would be contracted. He said it would cost between $21 and $26 million to convert seven C-27s into air tankers.