Tag: Tidwell

Secretaries Vilsack and Jewell discuss wildfire preparedness

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”

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.

air tanker CV-580 sequester Tidwell

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.

Tidwell

Report: USFS will have 500 fewer firefighters this year

The Associated Press interviewed Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Tom Tidwell and reported that there will be 500 fewer wildland firefighters working for the agency this year. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The agency, which is trying to absorb a 5 percent cut in its preparedness funding due to sequestration, plans to preposition firefighters and other resources in areas where fire activity is expected to be above normal.

The funding cut will mean about 500 fewer fighters and 50 fewer engines with crews. The agency will also have to rely more on aircraft that are not on contract with the federal government, and Tidwell said that could ultimately lead to higher firefighting costs.

“We will respond like we always have, whatever it takes for us to be prepared,” he said.

By “aircraft that are not on contract with the federal government”, Chief Tidwell probably is referring to borrowing again from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre or the state of Alaska some of their CV-580 air tankers — as long as they are not needed in Alaska or Canada. The CV-580 holds a maximum of 2,100 gallons and are modified Convair CV-340 or CV-440 aircraft manufactured between 1947 and 1954 which have had the piston engines replaced by turbo-props.

It has been 1 year, 3 months, and 13 days since the U.S. Forest Service issued their solicitation for next-generation air tankers, but no contracts have been awarded. The federal contracts for all large and very large air tankers expired December 31, 2013. Some of the expired contracts have been temporarily extended for a few months.

Thanks go out to Rick

air tanker Tidwell

USFS to allow more “fire use” fires

After temporarily banning “let burn” or “fire use” fires in California in 2008 and severely restricting them in all national forests in 2012, the U.S. Forest Service is returning to a policy of allowing more vegetation fires to burn naturally with only minimum intervention by firefighters. In a February document titled “Wildland Fire Response Protocol,” Tom Tidwell, the Chief of the USFS, laid out the policy to be used this year which allows line officers “to use wildland fire as an essential ecological process and natural change” in areas “identified pre-season as having low threats to values to be protected.”

This is a change from the USFS policy in 2012 when Jim Hubbard, the Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry, directed in a two-page memo that any fire strategy with restoration as one of the objectives must first be approved by a Regional Forester. According to an article in the San Francisco Examiner, Mr. Hubbard said, “It looked like a fire year that would exceed our resource capacity to respond. We didn’t have the resources to cover long-duration events.”

Later USFS Chief Tidwell did some damage control. In a guest commentary in the Denver Post he wrote, “…our fire-management policy has not changed” and that restoring the health of our nation’s forests continues to be a “cornerstone.”He said, “The Forest Service has the personnel and equipment to continue our policy of restoring the health of our nation’s forests,” and “A national guidance memo by Deputy Chief Jim Hubbard in no way represents a departure from our standard fire-response policy.”

The 2013 policy direction emphasizes cost saving: “Use only those suppression assets needed to safely implement tactics in support of reasonable objectives” and “release assets as soon as they are no longer needed.”

UPDATE March 14, 2013: in a statement released on March 13 Chief Tidwell said the fire policy has not changed, just the agency “guidance.”

Tidwell

New air tanker contracts in 2 months?

Check out FireAviation for an article about the possibility of new air tanker contracts being issued within the next two months.

It as has been 1 year, 2 months, and 22 days since the U.S. Forest Service issued a solicitation for next-generation large air tankers, but no contracts have been awarded.

Tidwell

Wildfire briefing, December 3, 2012

Firefighter killed in Clinton County, Illinois

A firefighter was killed Sunday at the scene of a wildfire that spread to a structure. Here is an excerpt from an article at KSDK:

A 45-year-old fireman with the Santa Fe Fire Protection District in Clinton County, Illinois, has been killed at the scene of a fire.

Timothy P. Jansen died of injuries sustained when he was struck by a fire truck in the 9700 block of River Road in Bartelso. The accident happened about 7:45 p.m. Sunday.

Jansen was among the first firefighters to arrive at the scene, which began as a grass fire and spread to a building.

Santa Fe Fire Chief Adam Maue said Jansen was standing on the back of a truck, pulling hoses, when he slipped off. The driver of the truck told the chief he did not know Jansen fell, so he backed up, striking Jansen.

Jansen was married and had two daughters. He’d been with the fire district for 15 years and owned a restaurant directly across the street from the firehouse.

Fire engine overturns en route to wildfire, injuring 4

A fire engine that was participating in a Christmas parade in Bedford, Virginia was dispatched to a wildland fire duirng the parade but didn’t make it to the fire. It overturned while rounding a curve, landing in Phyllis Carimi’s front yard.

Here is an excerpt from The News & Advance:

Lt. Todd Foreman, of the Bedford City Police, said he believed there were only four men inside the truck, all of whom were hospitalized.

Foreman said two were airlifted from the wreck — one to Lynchburg General Hospital, the other to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital. The other two were taken by ambulance to Lynchburg and Bedford hospitals.

Their conditions and identities have not yet been provided.

Chief of the Forest Service expects 12 million to 15 million acres to burn annually due to higher temperatures

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told a group in Boise Friday that in the future even more acres are going to burn and the cost of fighting fires will continue to rise. One of his answers to the problem, of course, is to increase timber sales by 20 percent.

As we pointed out November 23, so far this year the number of acres burned, 9,093,431, was the third highest total since national wildfire statistics have been kept beginning in 1960. Remaining at the number one and two spots are 2006 with 9.9 million, and 2007 with 9.3 million.

Rocky Barker wrote in the Idaho Statesman on Saturday:

Tidwell told the City Club of Boise that as many as 12 million to 15 million acres will burn annually now because of warming temperatures and drier years.

[…]

More than 30,000 homes have burned in the past decade, Tidwell said, including 3,000 just this year — homes in a Pocatello subdivision among them. Experts expect fires to keep claiming houses, but fuel-reduction steps can make communities safer and easier to protect, Tidwell said.

Federal budget cuts will make money more scarce, but communities are increasingly taking responsibility, he said. Flagstaff, Ariz., passed a $10 million bond to do forest restoration on private and federal land there.

The comments people have left at the bottom of the Idaho Statesman article are interesting.

Canadian Commission rejects changes to codes to protect communities

From the Edmonton Journal:

EDMONTON – A federal commission has rejected proposals to change Canada’s national construction codes to better protect communities from destructive wildfires.

The changes would have required builders in areas prone to forest fires to use less flammable building materials, to space buildings farther apart and to keep them clear of trees and vegetation.

[…]

The proposal for changes came from the National Fire Protection Association and an Alberta-based non-profit group called Partners in Protection.

The proposals were submitted to the commission before wildfires in May 2011 destroyed hundreds of homes in Slave Lake, Alta., and forced thousands of people to flee. The disaster cost more than $1 billion in damage, firefighting and relief costs.

Air tankers still on active duty

Two large air tankers are still on active duty, long past their normal mandatory availability periods. More information at FireAviation.com

Thanks go out to Dick

Canada fatality Illinois lodd Tidwell Virginia

US Forest Service Chief does damage control

As a government employee for an agency that provides essential emergency management services, you are not expected to say that your agency does not have enough resources to conduct their routine activities. But that is what Jim Hubbard, the Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry for the U.S. Forest Service was quoted as saying in an article in the San Francisco Examiner which we covered September 17. Mr. Hubbard, according to the article, said the USFS does not have enough resources to manage long-duration wildfires. This was the reason he gave for their policy this summer of full suppression of all fires, rather than letting some fires burn through remote areas for weeks or months with only minimum intervention by firefighters. In a two-page memo earlier this summer he directed that any fire strategy with restoration as one of the objectives must first be approved by a Regional Forester.

In the Associated Press article that was published on September 16, Mr. Hubbard was quoted as saying, “It looked like a fire year that would exceed our resource capacity to respond. We didn’t have the resources to cover long-duration events”.

Mr. Hubbard’s boss, Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Tom Tidwell, in a “guest commentary” at the Denver Post, is now doing damage control about Mr. Hubbard’s comments, saying “our fire-management policy has not changed” and that restoring the health of our nation’s forests continues to be a “cornerstone”. He said “The Forest Service has the personnel and equipment to continue our policy of restoring the health of our nation’s forests”, and, “A national guidance memo by Deputy Chief Jim Hubbard in no way represents a departure from our standard fire-response policy.”

Mr. Tidwell explained that with the predicted severity of this summer’s fire season, they decided to be conservative in their approach to managing long-term fires, and directed that Regional Foresters be involved in decisions that had the potential to tie up large numbers of firefighting resources.

Our take on this is that to an extent, Mr. Tidwell confirms that a shortage of firefighting resources was indeed an issue. The primary theme of his article was that forest restoration will continue. While saying there were enough personnel and equipment “to continue our policy of restoring the health of our nation’s forests”, he never actually said there were enough to run a successful fire management program. The article emphasized restoration far more than fire suppression — which is not surprising for an agency that primarily grows trees, and has been forced to run a fire suppression organization on the side.

This approach will only encourage those who have been saying for decades that the five federal land management agencies need to divorce themselves from their fire management organizations to allow them to marry-up as a Wildland Fire Management Agency.

Thanks go out to Kelly

Tidwell

Forest Service Chief testifies about wildfire budget and air tankers

The Chief of the U.S. Forest Service told a congressional committee on Tuesday that he expects the wildfire suppression budget to be “tight” this year and that he plans to rely more on the military’s eight MAFFS air tankers than the agency did last year.

In front of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Chief Tom Tidwell read a prepared statement about the FY 2013 USFS budget and then answered questions from members of the committee.

While the proposed budget fully funds the 10-year average cost of wildland fire suppression operations for FY 2013, Chief Tidwell said that based on current and predicted conditions, this year “it’s going to be tight for us to have adequate funding for fire suppression”.

Two senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Lisa Murkowsk of Alaska, gave their opinions and asked detailed questions about the availability of air tankers. Senator Wyden said that the USFS should speed up the adoption of new technology, and gave an example of a very large air tanker in his state that has seven times the capacity of standard large air tankers. He was obviously referring to Evergreen’s 747, Tanker 979, which holds 20,000 gallons. The USFS has not been interested in offering exclusive use contracts for any very large air tankers (VLAT) and has only made call when needed contracts available. Evergreen has said they cannot continue to make the 747 available on a CWN basis with a very uncertain income stream. Another VLAT vendor, 10 Tanker Air Carrier, did accept the CWN contract and is struggling to manage their two DC-10s with no guarantee of income.

Senator Wyden told Chief Tidwell that he wants Mr. Tidwell within 30 days to respond to him and a bipartisan group of Senators explaining what the USFS will do to consider “new technology” and the use of VLATs.

Chief Tidwell said this year the agency will contract for two scooper air tankers (presumably CL-215s or CL-415’s) for the first time. He said the recent request for proposals for “next generation” air tankers will produce three additional air tankers this year and four more in 2013. Adding the two scoopers and three next-gen air tankers would bring the total from 11 last year to 16 this year. This compares to the 19 at the beginning of 2011, the 11 at the end of 2011, and the 44 in 2002. Chief Tidwell said that under the air tanker strategy announced recently by the USFS, he expects there will be 18 to 28 large air tankers eventually under contract.

He said there will be 30 large Type 1 helicopters on national contracts this year compared to 34 last year, but not all of those last year were Type 1, so this year there will be a net increase in the number of gallons that can be carried.

Chief Tidwell also testified that he expects to rely more this year than last year on the Mobile Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) C-130 air tankers operated by the Air National Guard and the Air Force reserve. But Senator Murkowski confronted him with the fact that “the military does not desire to take on additional responsibilities with the C-130s”. She said “We need to be very cognizant of the stresses we are putting on the [Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve] system.”

Chief Tidwell responded:

The Department of Defense is not interested in expanding their mission to assist in this, but also at the same time they are going to continue to work with us to provide these air national guard unit planes when we need them after everything else is fully committed. It is part of our strategy to help bridge. If we have an active fire season we are going to have to rely on those eight MAFFS planes.

A video of the 110-minute hearing can be found on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s web site.

air tanker helicopter Tidwell