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:
Continue reading “Federal wildland firefighters have been cut by 19 percent over two years”

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:
Continue reading “Senator blasts agencies for accomplishing fewer fuel treatment projects, fails to look in mirror”

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:

Secretaries Vilsack and Jewell discuss wildfire preparedness

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack meets USFS firefighters in Boise, May 13. USDA photo.

During a visit to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell (just 34 days into her new job) discussed the state of wildfire preparedness.

Secretary Vilsack said there will be 500 fewer firefighters and 50 fewer engines this year as a result of the budget cuts required by the sequester process adopted by Congress and signed by the President. Vilsack said the overall reduction is more than seven percent.

The Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Tom Tidwell, testified before a congressional committee April 16, saying:

We will have the resources we need.

Several news organizations reported on today’s visit. The Salt Lake Tribune wrote, in part:

In answering a question about whether firefighters would make it a priority to protect watersheds in Utah, [Secretary] Jewell said the cuts also are reducing what the federal land agencies spend on preventing fires and rehabilitating lands after a fire.

“You can’t do as much as that advance work as you would like or the post-fire remediation to maintain the integrity of those ecosystems,” Jewell said.

The Idaho Statesman:

Idaho Republican Jim Risch, who joined the two cabinet secretaries on the tour praised the firefighting agencies for doing as well as they can with less. But Risch, who voted for the cuts, offered little hope the secretaries will be able to avoid the robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul tradeoffs they face.

“”We got to accept the fact there is not going to be federal funding like there was before,” Risch said.

But in August, if all of the firefighting resources are already in place and more are needed to meet the threat Risch said he and other western lawmakers will put together a coalition to get the emergency funding that is necessary.

Jewell joined smokejumpers Sunday on a training flight five weeks into her tenure as Interior secretary. She also led the entourage over to the Boise Fire Dispatch outside of NIFC to see how the firefighters from federal, state and local governments work together on the ground.

The press release issued by the DOI and DOA included this passage:

Federal assets include more than 13,000 firefighters, including permanent and seasonal federal employees; more than 1,600 engines; up to 26 multiengine air tankers and two water scooper aircrafts; approximately 27 single engine air tankers; and hundreds of helicopters.

Note the “up to 26 multiengine air tankers”. The reality is, there are eight large air tankers on contract — seven 50+ year-old P2Vs, and one BAe-146. In addition to those, six of the seven “next generation” 3,000+ gallon air tankers that were just notified they would be receiving contracts are months or more away from being certified by the FAA and the Interagency AirTanker Board. Some of them may not be seen dropping on a fire until late this summer or even next year, if they are certified at all. The two scoopers mentioned carry less than 1,500 gallons. In addition, the USFS may again borrow some 2,000-gallon, 50-year old Convair 580s from Canada if they are available and not tied up on fires.

 

Thanks go out to Kelly

USFS Chief: “We will have the resources we need”

Chief Tidwell
USFS Chief Tom Tidwell testifies at Committee hearing. Credit Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee

Testifying Tuesday at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Tom Tidwell, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, assured the Senators that there would be an adequate number of firefighting resources available this year.

In spite of budget reductions that will cut 500 firefighters and up to 75 engines from his agency, Chief Tidwell said:

We will have the resources we need.

He said the Forest Service will rely on call-when-needed contracts for air tankers to fight wildfires, but said when they are activated they will cost “one-and-a-half to two-times” more than exclusive use contracts for air tankers that are on duty six days a week.

According to a March 22 report in the Durango Herald, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, in a letter written to Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, said contracts will be awarded “soon” for seven next-generation air tankers. Secretary Vilsack was responding to a letter Senator Udall sent to the Secretary in January requesting an update on the modernization of the federal air tanker fleet.

The U.S. Forest Service first issued a solicitation for next-generation air tankers 503 days ago but no contracts have been signed. They were almost awarded last summer but were held up by protests filed by two unsuccessful bidders. The solicitation was reissued in October of 2012 but no results have been announced.

During the second half of the western fire season last year, there were between 9 and 11 large air tankers on exclusive use contracts, down from 44 in 2002. If the USFS awards contracts for 7 next-generation air tankers, adding to the 9 Korean War vintage legacy air tankers, the agency may supplement the total with up to 8 old CV-580 air tankers if they are available from Canada and the state of Alaska. In addition, 8 military C-130s may be accessed if they are available and needed.

USFS didn’t change fire policy, just “guidance”

We wrote on March 10 that according to a February directive titled “Wildland Fire Response Protocol”, Tom Tidwell, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, changed the policy on “fire use” this year, to make it easier to use a less than aggressive suppression strategy on wildfires. In 2012 a two-page letter from Jim Hubbard, their Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry, required that any fire strategy having fire use or restoration as one of the objectives must first be approved by a Regional Forester, due to a shortage of firefighting resources.

In an undated statement on the USFS web site that appears to have been posted on March 13, 2013 (the articles before and after were both dated March 13), Chief Tidwell said their fire policy has not changed, just their “guidance”:

Statement from U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell on wildland fire policy

The federal wildland fire policy has not changed since 1995. Neither the direction issued last year nor my letter this year represented a shift in Forest Service policy for fighting fires. We always look at the conditions that exist around each fire season, our available resources, and then provide guidance to the field. It takes resources to suppress fires, and to manage them for resource benefits. We do have a set amount of expertise in this country but when we get a wildfire season like we did last year, we have to take some steps to manage just how much fire we can have on the landscape. So last year we asked forests to elevate decisions on wildfires to the regional forester. Based on this year’s projections, we no longer see that as a necessary step at this time.

In a related story, the Associated Press interviewed Chief Tidwell and reported that due to budget cuts there will be 500 fewer wildland firefighters working for the agency this year.