DATE

Did anyone besides me get the FS Safety Tip of the day popup on IE? That gave me pause, I thought I'd been hacked.
The tip was pushed out from the WO to 27,000 FS employees and slowed the server to a crawl. Woooooops, they
didn't ask the FS computer geeks what unintended consequences might happen. Should ask the professionals before
hitting SEND.

Probably won't do that again.

Todd

This was interesting - although only indirect to fire suppression. Treatments that included thinning and fire
were better than thinning alone in providing better resistance to fire intensity and spread.

www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2010/sep/01/study-of-tripod-fire-reaffirms-the-value-of/

Here's a link to the article in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research

http://rparticle.web-p.cisti.nrc.ca

Jimbo

Well the new rankings are out for Fed workplace satisfaction, and the Forest Service is up to 56.3 from last years 53.3. ratings.
That's a 5.6% increase. I wonder if the WO is breaking out the champagne. Oh ...that puts the Forest Service at 203 out of 224
on the Best list. Maybe it's a little early for the bubbly.

Fish01

From Ab: www.bestplacestowork.org/BPTW/rankings/detail/AG11

3 killed when copter crashes in Idaho downtown

A helicopter chartered by a state wildlife agency plunged into a travel trailer and crashed Tuesday on a
downtown street in the small Idaho town of Kamiah, killing two biologists and the pilot.

Mr. H. Alan Zentz Obituary

A celebration of Alan's life will begin at 2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 2, at Stauffer Funeral Home Chapel in Frederick (MD).
Friends and family will be invited to share special memories during the celebration of Alan's life. Interment will follow at
Blue Ridge Cemetery, Thurmont.

He is missed. My condolences to his family.

GA Peach

Thoughts and prayers for family and friends. Ab.

From MG. Didn't include the AP link but Ab found the a yahoo article and pic below. Please include links, MG. Thanks.

09:50 PDT Irvine, Calif. (AP) --
Forget "Fore!"

"Fire!" was the cry of the day for a golfer whose off-target swing sparked a 12-acre blaze in Southern California.
The golfer at the Shady Canyon Golf Course in Irvine landed a shot in the rough Saturday.
On his next swing, his club snagged a rock, causing a spark that lit the rough ablaze and eventually attracted 150 firefighters to the scene.
Fire officials say the fire burned through the rough, into vegetation next to the course and over two dry, brushy hillsides.
No charges were filed against the golfer, whose name was withheld.

http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/blog/devil_ball_golf/post/Golfer-s-swing-sparks-25-acre-California-blaze?urn=golf-266447

Golfer's swing sparks 25-acre California blaze

You can use a golf club for all kinds of non-golfy purposes -- walking stick, fishing rod, club, to name three. And now we can add to that list -- firestarter.

Over the weekend, a golfer's routine swing in the rough at the Shady Canyon Golf Course in Irvine, Calif., struck a rock. Not so different from the way you play, right? Only this time, the impact caused a spark, and the spark set off a blaze that eventually covered 25 acres, according to the Steven Buck, General Manager of Shady Canyon Golf Course, and required the efforts of 150 Orange County firefighters, writes the Associated Press. (more story at the link including nice PHOTO...)

fair use disclaimer

SMOKE SYMPOSIUM! The Fire Smoke Coalition and the Wayne Township Fire Department in Indianapolis, IN are hosting a two-day Smoke Symposium. For a nominal fee of $50.00, firefighters and first responders will receive two days of comprehensive classroom instruction and hands-on training from the experts. For Midwestern departments, this is an excellent training opportunity focused on Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) gas in fire smoke. Click here for more information and registration. (The Fire Smoke Coalition is a division of the Cyanide Poisoning Treatment Coalition (CPTC), a nonprofit organization, focused on awareness, prevention, protection, detection, diagnosis and treatment of fire smoke exposure: www.FireSmoke.org )

GACC Boundary Maps Available (from the Hotlist under Help, Questions and Answers)

A while back there were a few fires posted that were located in areas where one Geographic Area Coordination Center responsibility area intruded slightly into one State or another. This led to some understandable confusion amongst our members (and us) on where the new fires should be posted.

When we first split our Hotlist IA forums last September, we thought it much easier to have our forums generally follow the GACC boundaries, but where they became complex, we'd deviate and instead, follow the closest State borders.

The main reason for that was our being unable to find any detailed (or free) maps we could post and share with our audience. Doing some more research, we were able to find a couple of sources who had some basic GACC boundary maps available and permission was given for us to modify them and make them available here.

The Common Operating Picture website is where I found one map. In addition to the GACC map, there is an abundance of other information and maps available. Using an included link to contact Matt Gibson to request permission to use the map, I was advised that it is a government maintained website and that the information and files there were public domain. My thanks to Matt and the rest of the folks at the Geospatial Equipment and Technology Application Group (GETA) for all the fine work they're getting done. I encourage you all to check out who they are, the information they have, and what they plan on doing next.

Another map source I found was my own email inbox where I re-discovered a link to a file sent to me by Zeke Lunder of the NorthTree Fire GIS Fire Intel department. NorthTree Fire is well known in the fire mapping world since one of the many services they provide is mobile mapping and cartography resources to incident management teams.

Early Sunday morning readers may have already noticed a few changes to the IA Forum titles and/or sub-titles. The new descriptions now better conform to the National Interagency Coordination Center boundaries. I kept the descriptions brief due to space considerations, but having good maps to refer to now should minimize future confusion.

The link at the bottom is a page on our website where you can find a complete list of our maps and links. I recommend downloading the desired Google Earth kmz files and saving them to your computer for faster use. The Google Maps file links can be also be saved as a bookmark in your browser.

My thanks again to Matt and Zeke for their help and expertise on this project. As always, our members' thoughts and comments are welcome.

Here's the maps link: GACC Boundary Maps

I received an interesting phone call last week from Trish Arnold. She was starting a new business and curious about advertising her services here at WLF. She explained what it is she's offering and how she became aware such a service was needed. I confessed I wasn't sure of how many of our audience may be interested, but due to our demographics, the potential was certainly there. She sent me the following to introduce herself to our readers. If you think she may be able to help you or someone you know, check out her website for more info. It's one of the most open and honest websites I've seen in a while.  OA (Ab Note: for those that don't know, this is Original Ab, SteveM)

My name is Trish Arnold. I own and manage SAS. As a 19+ year administrative assistant with Civil Service, I am very familiar with the red-tape process. Thus, as a personal favor, I started out assisting wildland firefighters in obtaining their entitlement to a Schedule Award (this is NOT a settlement). Through word of mouth, requests to help their friends, and friends of their friends increased. Consequently, in good faith, I decided to establish Schedule Award Solutions, LLC or SAS in hopes of extending my services to not only firefighters but all injured federal workers.

Ab,

I recently had an article come across my desk reference about an illness recently seen on a fire. It had something
to due with muscle breakdown and atrophy due to dehydration.

I've scoured all my email boxes and usual websites but I cant find this article anymore.

If someone has it, please send me a link. I'd like to forward it on to some friends of mine who teach Wilderness
EMS classes for use as a case study.

And on that note, with all the talk of EMTs on crews and EMS on incidents lately; I need to throw out a plug for
Northern Cairn in Petoskey Michigan. They taught my W-EMT class several years ago and I've gone back to them
for my Wilderness EMS refreshers. They have an upcoming Wilderness EMT/EMT-Intermediate class that still
has space in it.

For more information go here: www.northerncairn.com  Good classes (they teach the WMA material), great
instructors in a wonderful setting.

Thanks,

emt_mb
NREMT, WEMT

Rhabdomyolysis (Rhabdo-myo-lysis) or Exertion-Related Muscle Damage

Hotlist: Lessons Learned & Safety Zone subforum has a lot of what we've received on this:
www.wildlandfire.com/hotlist/showthread.php?t=9436

I believe the "Rhabdo" condition came to light in the wildland firefighting community in the mid-2000s following a hotshot accident (maybe a stumphole accident?). Ab.

More wlf.com archived links on Rhabdo:

www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2006/2006FieldSeasonEmployeeHealthRisks.doc
www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2008/med/calfire-safety-stand-down2008.pdf
www.wildlandfire.com/hotlist/showthread.php?t=13025
www.wildlandfire.com/hotlist/showthread.php?t=8290
www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2009/safe/SafetyAlert-HeatIllness0709.doc
www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2010/safe/tech-tips-heat-illness.pdf

Mellie, Your two statements below are written well! Sounds exactly like part of our brief from our suit that went to the U.S. Supreme Court years ago!

A few other posters below had stated the following:

"Randy Moore (R5 RF) held a conference call this morning with all R5 forest sups regarding this Fall's apprentice and
perm fire hire. He is looking at cancelling this Fall's apprentice and perm fire hire due to the lack of diversity applicants.
He has a request out for all forests to provide documentation of their outreach attempts. "

If Mr. Moore does cancel the hiring due to lack of diversity applicants as stated, he WILL open the door (he has opened the door either way now for complaints, by just making the statement) to numerous EEO Complaints, including violating Veteran's rights. His statement above would be the evidence needed in the EEO Complaint process that would go in favor of a complainant, allowing the complainant to prevail in the case.

This same type of discriminatory process (cancelling the hiring due to lack of diversity applicants) happened years ago, ALL individuals that filed a EEO Complaint prevailed! Why more people don't review history (and learn from it) bothers me! Why the hell does someone have to file a EEO Complaint to be treated fairly and be evaluated on their MERIT!? I remember a few years back when the firefighters motto was "Safety First" then the social engineering specialists (SES) appeared and it was changed to "Diversity First"! Keep in mind Randy that these positions you may cancel due to lack of diversity are Firefighting positions, not for burger flipping positions at a fast-food joint!

Be safe out there!

ARCH

Looks like you were looking for some history regarding a crew in Monterey. After some time spent tracking down
and talking to people who were either on the crew or on the district we were able to track down quite a bit of
information. If you check out the website under history you may find it informational.

www.montereyhandcrew.info

If anyone has any additional information and/or pictures please get in contact with the crew we would appreciate it.

HC

As you may recall, Linc Alexander is a legend in the airtanker world. Among other accomplishments during
his 37-year career, he wrote both Pilots Notes for Firebombing and Air Attack on Forest Fires in the 1960-70s,
which became the definitive manuals on aerial fire-fighting techniques the world over.

Fire Bomber Into Hell not only relates Linc’s story, but relates the drama of every pilot who sits in the same
dangerous seat. Readers will get the full inside story of Fire Bombing and as well as hearing about many great
adventures.

Much more information is available on the AAF website - www.airtanker.org. In a post on the AAF message
board, Linc dedicates this book to all the men and women who are involved in aerial firefighting.

The book can be ordered directly from Booklocker at www.booklocker.com/books/4869.html

For a brief period of time, Linc is also offering a special autographed version by emailing him at
linc_104@msn.com.

regards,

Bob Fish
Board Member - Assoc Aerial Firefighters

Linc is a legend. Linc, it's great you're sharing your story that has many commonalities with all AT pilots. Nice summary page HERE: Ab.

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the loss of Arnie Quinones and Tedmund Hall of the LA Co. FD on the Station Fire.
Please join us in observing a moment of silence for our fallen brothers.

Dave

Amen, Dave. Ab.

Ab

I have been a reader of your hotlist comments for some time and now feel the need to comment.

Ever since the Dutch Creek fatality (RIP Mr. Palmer), I keep hearing the same comment over and over again...
"we need short haul capability". I am here to say that short haul capability helicopters have a place and may be
beneficial in some situations but they are not the "golden apple" that most folks think they are. They are just
another tool in the toolbox.

Rocky Mountain Team B managed the Cow Creek Fire, located in the Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park in June/July
2010. This was a high elevation fire that was primarily a fly in/fly out fire. The team was able to do several things
on this fire in reference to medical care & patient evacuation that will hopefully be a trend in Region 2 as well as
across the nation.

Please find an AAR attached to this email that was sent to me. In the original email it was stated to share with
anyone as well as they were going to submit the AAR to Lessons Learned. I hope this gives folks an insight on
the use of short haul on wildland fire as well as the need to think "out of the box".

Thank you.

R2 Paramedic
James Payson

Emergency Evacuation Lessons Learned relating to Dutch Creek Mitigation Measures (145 K doc file)

Very interesting and informative reality check. Thank you, James.
LCEES = Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes, Evacuation Mitigations, Safety Zones, I've added it to our Acronyms page.
I also posted the AAR on the Lessons Learned & Safety Zone database subforum of the Hotlist. Ab.

It is unfortunate that we have yet another incident that highlights the inability of the US Forest Service to develop
an adequate response to a medical emergency. As an agency we still have no protocols or standard operating
procedures for use by our medically trained employees on the ground. Too many of our overhead have no
experience in dealing with medical emergencies or even the training to appreciate the intricacies of medical
evacuation. Our EMTs have a wide and diverse level of training and experience, but no direction. Over the past
several years requests have been made to improve training and the equipment available and still nothing has been
done.

Once again I strongly recommend that you make every effort to get your own training and equipment. There is
training available and time should be made early season to train crews and talk of the possibilities of what may
happen on the fire line or in the field.

Brian Kliesen
W-EMT / NREMT / 68W Combat Field Medic

Kibby and David Johnson,

Thank you for your posts regarding the use of helicopters for the medical evacuation of injured firefighters from the backcountry.

Having just returned from yet another assignment largely composed of "goat country" I again wonder why the Forest Service can't cross train with the Park Service to begin training a small cadre of short haul capable air crews and paramedics. Having this capability available at Heli Base (it does not take long to hook up a "belly band" to a chopper that is meanwhile available for other duties) maximizes the area medical coverage, especially in the case of the now more frequent Complex fires.

I have been using an unsatisfactory work-around in which an extrication package (rigid litter, backboard and a "real" trauma pack) is prepositioned at helibase so that it can be lowered by rope to folks on the ground. All type one crews and most type two crews have EMTs but they can carry only limited equipment. (I believe EVERY crew should be required to have an EMT.) Line EMTs cannot be everywhere and take time to arrive on scene, especially hauling litters etc. With the extrication package system the the folks on the ground can begin stabilizing and packaging the patient while waiting for the Parkies, or Military or CHP or some other short haul/hoist capable chopper to arrive. (Usually much more than an hour.) All this while we have a heli base with choppers nearby who know the fire and are dialed in with Air Attack and Air to Ground freqs. (Note, the medical helicopter that became disabled on the Deer Park incident never had commo with the folks on the ground.) Having flown medevacs for years, I would be very reluctant to bring a medical helicopter into a smoke filled environment with lots of iron moving thru the air. They are just too valuable an asset to put at risk.

In summary, a small cadre of short haul capable aircrews teamed with a paramedic and gear could quickly respond to incidents in a large geographic area and would be a proactive and cost effective solution to this ongoing problem.

Doc Smitty

Mellie

Come on you know the Agency doesn't hire based on quotas, it's "Goals".

There are so many problems with our hiring that we can't even start to fix until we get some people in charge with
some backbone. Why do you think they took the hiring away from the Districts and Forests? It's easier to fill their
quotas when the managers on the ground have no say so in who they should hire. We need to get these career
managers out of the agency and start building land mangers and base their performance standards on completing
the work on the ground and get away from how good they did at filling a quota.

The WO, RO and SO's are so out of touch with the people on the ground that it's no wonder why morale is as
low as it is. They used to support the districts now we are here to serve them so their lives are easier. Just hire the
best and the rest will fall into place.

Thrive for 205, but heading to 216

Mellie, you've proven that "verbose" is not synonymous with "articulate".

Thank you for clearly stating, in three short paragraphs, the exact position I've been unsuccessfully attempting to
articulate on this subject for the past thirty years.

Capt388

Mr. Johnson's post on the Deer Park FLA again brought into hard focus something I've been wondering since
the Dutch Creek tragedy in 2008: has the Forest Service explored adding short-haul operations to its helicopter
program?

Helicopters stationed at several large national parks have been using this tool to extract seriously injured people
from remote, LZ-free areas for years. Most operations require only minimal, (relatively) lightweight equipment
that's easy to transport. Short-haul diminishes or eliminates the need to move a critically injured patient, cut a
sizeable helispot or rely on non-agency aircraft to respond from distant hospitals or airbases. The NPS already
has a program with rigorous safety protocols and a proactive, well-established working group in place.

At Sequoia-Kings I have seen the timeliness of a short-haul response mean the difference between life and death
for several Park visitors. It would be wonderful if the same level of care could be reliably offered to firefighters
on the line.

Kibby

I think the problems with outreach, when linked with the problems with retention of quota categories, create a mix like we find with FMOs that should not be retained and so-called leaders (mediocre managers?) in leadership positions that get people killed. When we have quotas or pressures not based on ksa's, it's more likely we have an unsafe chain-of-command. When we cannot fire people based on lack of ksa's because it reduces those in our unspoken quota category, we're more likely to get people killed.

Often outreach to under-represented (quota) categories will not provide enough applicants to meet the unofficial, unspoken quotas unless a blind eye is turned to ksa's. Often we can't find the quota category applicants however hard we try. Often the good ones are amongst us, never having checked the race/gender boxes or letting us know they're in a desirable quota category.

Firefighters, work on outreach as you've been doing, hire based on ksa's, promote based on ksa's, fire under-performers based on ksa's. People do not want to be hired or promoted or retained based on gender or race. They want to accomplish the those things based on merit.

Mellie

Todd

The injured party was a smj, suffered an L-2, L-3 fracture and a sprained ankle. Was held overnight for
observation and released.

Silkbrother

Here's the media story so far:

www.idahostatesman.com/2010/08/27/1318098/firefighter-injured-in-idaho-blaze.html

Firefighter injured in Idaho blaze, hospitalized
- The Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho — U.S. Forest Service officials say a firefighter was injured while working to contain a wildfire
in central Idaho and will remain hospitalized overnight.

The man was struck by a falling tree while fighting the Jesse Fire, a small blaze burning seven miles northwest
of Salmon, and flown to a nearby hospital for treatment.

The National Interagency Fire Center reported Friday that crews were battling more wildfires in Idaho than in
any other state. About 312,600 acres - or roughly 490 square miles - of active fires were burning in Idaho,
the agency said.

No name released.

DC

Thanks for the heads up last night. We hope all goes well. Speedy recovery! Ab.

Greetings

I read with interest the results of the Facilitated Learning Analysis (FLA) concerning a recent incident on the Deer Park
fire in central Idaho involving a helicopter and a firefighter with a broken femur.

There are several similarities with this incident and the July 25, 2008 accident on the Dutch Creek fire on which Andrew
Palmer was killed.

A Senior Firefighter/Paramedic from the Sawtooth Helitack Crew made profound observation when he said

"The federal agencies still have an ethical and moral obligation to develop procedures that deal with the time
frames for providing appropriate medical treatment for their employees at their work place, where ever it may
be."

Fire leaders need to assure that they are making this a priority BEFORE placing firefighters in difficult positions.

Please take the time to read the summary of the Deer Park Facilitated Learning Analysis at wildfiretoday.com

David Johnson
Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
Fire Staff (Retired)

Thanks, Dave. Ab.

Hi -

Just a reminder that the benefit dinner for Tom Lane (dozer dude) will be held on

SATURDAY 9/18/10
from 5:30 - 8:00
at the Gianelli Winery out on Algerine Road in
Jamestown.

For those that don't know
- Tom was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago and is going through
chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The dinner will be catered and the
cost per person will be $25.00 and reservations can be made by calling or
e-mailing either myself Gayle Howey at 532-3671 Ext 409, or Deb Romberger
at 532-3671 Ext 332.

Checks can be made out to Gayle Howey and I will make
one payment to the catering company and to Tommy's fund at Wells Fargo
Bank. The final date to reserve a spot and send in your money is:
SEPTEMBER 8, 2010. There will be entertainment provided and Mark Twain
will make an appearance during the dinner hour. A silent auction will also
be taking place. There will be beer and wine provided for cost and soft
drinks and water available. Potluck hors d'oeuvres and desserts are needed
and please let us know what/if you can bring a dish.

For those folks that can't or don't wish to attend, donations can be made to
Tommy's account at Wells Fargo # 995 734 0244. The proceeds from the
dinner will go to the account.

There will also be a need for helpers to :

1. SET UP (2:30 day of 9/18) transport tables and chairs from the SO to
   the Winery and set up at the winery.
2. TAKE DOWN (8:30 evening of 9/18) ) tables and chairs back to the SO.
3. There will be various other tasks that evening that we will also need
   help with so if you can help in any way please send either Deb or Myself a
   message and we will plug you in.

I know that Tommy's family will appreciate seeing everyone and the support.

Cheers - Gayle

Good morning All.

We've had a request, the results of which will benefit wildland firefighters and also could benefit the Wildland Firefighter Foundation if you choose to donate your stipend. Please read the request below from Russell Research and see if you'd like to participate. We hope you do. It's a win-win. Ab.

Russell Research, an independent marketing research company, is currently recruiting professional Wildland Firefighters to participate in a short, 15-minute survey that can be completed at their convenience on the internet. The survey is designed to get opinions and awareness on firefighting clothing and gear for an apparel company who is considering expanding into the wildland firefighting market.

We would greatly appreciate the help of Wildland Firefighters and ask that you take a few minutes to give us your input. The answers provided are confidential and would never be identified with you personally. Please be assured, that this is NOT a sales effort, we are only looking for your opinions.

To show our appreciation, each participant who completes the survey will receive a $50.00 check or if you prefer you may choose to donate it to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation.

The link to the survey is: LINK REMOVED http://rmrsurveys.com/

Thank you for your consideration.

“What you heard is correct. However consider this. Pulling GS-9's into the equation may be the pill that kills this. Recruitment and retention at the 9 level is not an issue. That will skew the numbers and be detrimental to the current retention pay in R5”

Okay I understand that adding the GS-9’s to the equitation will alter the stats, but lets’ look at the unintended consequences here for a second by eliminating GS-9s from the equation.

• Current Pay Scale for folk working in the Rest of the US pay Scale. TABLE
• In the current system, if I am a GS-8 Step 7 and take a new job or a detail as a GS-9 I would become a GS-9 Step 6.  Therefore, I will be making $52.00 less a pay period for a base 80 paycheck.  That would be a total of $1352.00 per year more if there is no Overtime, or Hazard Pay.
• Proposed for all of Region 5, to use the Los Angeles Pay Rate plus 10% but limiting it to GS-5 thru GS-8. TABLE
• By not including the GS-9's and if you were on a forest that was LOCALITY PAY AREA OF REST OF U.S, the GS-8 captain will be in the LA Pay rate and make more and hour before the 10% than his/her boss.  Is someone trying to create inequality here?

I think the R-5 BOD should oppose this for the fact that it is not an across-the-board pay rate for all of fire in Region 5.  That should include the temporary GS-embryo to Director of Fire and Aviation, Joe Millar.  If you are in a Primary or Secondary fire position, you should be getting the special Pay rate.  Anything less is unacceptable. 

Maybe I am from the mold of not accepting halfa$$ work, but I would not settle for this if I had a vote.  

There are other options out there, and I am saddened that they did not bring a group of firefighters together for their opinion.  How about using the Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) 2010 General Schedule Locality Pay Tables (www.opm.gov/oca/10tables/indexLEO.asp) What, we can use their retirement system, but not their pay?

Thinking Outside the Box

Entire post with tables interspersed with excellent discussion points from "Thinking Outside the Box". Ab.
www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2010/fed/prop-salary-incentive-gs5-9.htm

The short answer is YES.

It depends on how long ago, the crime itself, etc. usually after 3 years from being free from parole or
probation you can be considered for a job. But, arson, etc.... some things would disqualify you... it
depends.

-MJ

"Randy Moore (R5 RF) held a conference call this morning with all R5 forest sups regarding this Fall's apprentice and
perm fire hire. He is looking at cancelling this Fall's apprentice and perm fire hire due to the lack of diversity applicants.
He has a request out for all forests to provide documentation of their outreach attempts. "

1. EVERY round of hiring gets requests from CR of documentation of Outreach attempts, this is not new.

2. Outreach documentation does not require keeping names, how would this even help them tell if there will be diverse candidates? All the documentation requires is statements like "We did 5 high school visits" to talk about the Apprentice program, and then list the schools...no names, racial info, etc. is asked for usually, I have never been asked for anything other than, "what did you do to outreach these jobs?"

3. How will Randy know in time to cancel, if they dont know the candidates until the SMEs get there and start going thru apps? They wont. This isnt going to happen that way.

3. This is RUMOR again. Like the Forest Supervisors and Rangers that were going to be watching over the SMEs last round (never happened).... dont believe everything you hear.

The Region needs more apprentices, the SMEs are all set to go to Sac soon to rate apps. Nothing has changed , it's just time to document efforts to reach every group with the outreach. Remember, The USFS still has court-ordered requirements to try to reach everyone. Not a decree, but still has to show we tried to let all groups know the jobs are there.

-MJ

NNF,

I don't doubt what your saying. I heard similar information myself.

Here is my take: Randy Moore doesn't have the guts to cancel Apprentice Hire. Perm hiring doesn't even close until Sept 27th. What did they add a GS-13 Fortune Teller to the staff over on the island?

Not too worried about someone who is known for his flamboyant speeches, smoothing over a room for a few hours with his jib jab and then coming into a conference call and making threats. The LA Times would have a field day with this and the last thing Sec Vilsack needs is to be singled out again, now for reverse discrimination after this abhorrent treatment of a USDA employee last month. Cancel hiring because of lack of diversity? Yeah right, bring it on.

What everyone needs to have some say on that is way more important than R-5 conference call jib jab, is the following:

1. The mid-term elections coming this November. All I will say is vote. Vote for the people who supported you and your profession since 2006. If we lose Reps in Congress who support you, then we could be looking at furloughs, government shut downs and maybe even RIFs.
2. Second thing to worry about is fiscal year 11 and your Forest supervisor. Don't allow these Forest fiefdoms to chip away at R-5 Firefighting Capability by shutting down engines, crews and FPTs over the winter and moving employees to other work locations. Report these actions in our forum as soon as you can confirm it.

Any Firefighter who supports reducing resources so they (statistically speaking) have a chance to go to more fires is no different than the stuff found between your toes after a 16 hour shift.

Firefighters support Firefighters first, last and always. Divided we lose, united we will stand strong - CFMTTF

ms

"Randy Moore (R5 RF) held a conference call this morning with all R5 forest sups regarding this Fall's apprentice and
perm fire hire. He is looking at canceling this Fall's apprentice and perm fire hire due to the lack of diversity applicants.
He has a request out for all forests to provide documentation of their outreach attempts.

As we all know, you are not required to check that box which identifies your ethnic background. I think there must be
a law suit around the corner for lack of some group representation. What next??????????

NNF"

Isn't it about time we stop paying the piper for the poor black child, the under funded Mexican immigrant, the ones who can't read, write nor understand the English language? I don't expect the US Government to understand all this, hell, they MADE the problem.

Outreach? Spread the word, we're looking for the best of the best...to be firefighters. Oh, you don't make the muster, but yet complain because your particular race wasn't included? Maybe it's because you just plain weren't good enough! Communication in LCES!!! I'm not entrusting my life to anyone who doesn't understand a simple command on the fire ground, much less an MA at the station!

Wake up! This organization as we know it is rapidly self destructing, only to please the poor bas***s who couldn't find the hydrant end of a hose if it was embedded into their skull. I don't have anything against those of foreign blood or different skin color, but let's be real about this. ONLY THOSE QUALIFIED SHALL BE ADMITTED TO TRAINING. Back in my day, women were the scourge of the training class. One is now an Admin Chief for CalFire! Changes come and go, but let's be honest here...not everyone, regardless of skin color, racial identity, ethnic background, is cut out for this line of work.

I'll make no excuses for my thought process, other than if you've ever told someone to grab a Pulaski and the guy grabs the guy next to him (he's Polish)....well, enough said!

Retired!

D,

What you heard is correct. However consider this. Pulling GS-9's into the equation may be the pill that kills this. Recruitment
and retention at the 9 level is not an issue. That will skew the numbers and be detrimental to the current retention pay in R5.

This could be another way to avoid the portal-portal issue too by offering a 10% raise. With the current economic condition
of the federal gov. I highly doubt that this will ever fly. I, like many would like to see this go through but make it a true 10%
raise, not one that goes toward your base pay only.

Noname fire

AB,

Randy Moore (R5 RF) held a conference call this morning with all R5 forest sups regarding this Fall's apprentice and
perm fire hire. He is looking at cancelling this Fall's apprentice and perm fire hire due to the lack of diversity applicants.
He has a request out for all forests to provide documentation of their outreach attempts.

As we all know, you are not required to check that box which indentifies your ethnic background. I think there must be
a law suit around the corner for lack of some group representation. What next??????????

NNF

D,

This is what I heard:

"FIRE SALARY INCENTIVE FOR GS 5-9 – A formal request has been sent to the ASC Pay Policy Branch asking that the salary
incentive for GS 5-9 be made permanent. This request is based on desire to help us reduce our higher than 2% vacancy rate in these
grades. The same is NOT being requested for above GS9’s because the vacancy rate in leadership positions is not higher than 2%."

First I heard of 10% on top of LA locality "for all R-5". I don't think that is possible with these type of incentives. I do think it will be
a continued 10%, now adding the GS9's and on top of the locality each R-5 employee currently works under. So if approved, no
change to what our 5-8's are getting now. But you never know

However, what I find ironic about all of this, including D's conference call and info received above is R-5's written commitment in the
retention analysis to improve communications (except below).

Oh well, so much for improving communications. The meeting this information came out of was back in July. If they choose not to
have a commitment to communications, then the speculation will continue. Nice job RLT........

http://fsweb.fire.r5.fs.fed.us/retention/index.html (Internal FS Web)

"In addition to increased communication around key issues, the Forest Service will consider specific long-term actions."

LETTERMAN

No name -

Well at least I'm glad to hear that they did remove her from the position.
The most disconcerting rumor I've heard lately was regarding a R-6 heli-rappell base manager that cheated on his pack test
and remains in his job. In light of all the controversy surrounding rappelling I'm curious as to how this stands in a "Quality
Assurance Review". I checked the rumor on the safenet site and it's there.. go to safenet and click on USFS and it's on page
two - Work Capacity Test.

firewerl

Hey Ab,

Information from a conference call my forest FMO had, indicates that R5 submitted a proposal to OPM for all of R5 fire folks
GS5-9 to receive the LA pay scale plus 10% , effective sometime in 2011.

Does anybody have more detailed, or written information on this, and the likelihood of it being accepted?

From what I heard, it would be very close to what I read on your site a while ago- From “Letterman”, I think.

Thanks,

D

noname

Airtankers 33,
Airtankers 34,
Helicopters 26

Thanks, Steve. Ab.

Here's the document which describes the new national equipment identification system:

www.fs.fed.us/fire/equipment/equipment _id_system.pdf

Also for reference (and not to be confused with the equipment ID), here is the model naming convention. This is a new 3 digit system whereby the model number describes the engine. For example a model 326 is a type 3 engine, 2 wheel drive, with a 600 gallon tank. A model 643 is a type 6 engine, 4x4, with a 300 gallon tank.

www.fs.fed.us/fire/equipment/model-name-definitions.pdf

Hope this info helps.

DH
SDTDC

This may answer some questions:

www.fs.fed.us/fire/equipment/model-name-definitions.pdf explains the numbering for engine models

www.fs.fed.us/fire/equipment/equipment _id_system.pdf explains the system for unit numbers on individual engines

Both are dated January 2010

KSENGB

Is the new three digit number on the USFS engines a new system? I heard something about it referencing the ICS typing.

Thanks

Signed, “just curious”

Here's the message that went with it:

I was SITL(t) on the Hardy Fire which we were flying to map as the Shultz Fire (AZ-COF) got going.. This is
within the first hour or two of the Shultz fire. Photo compliments of Todd Foster. (0810) Hotlist thread

Many thanks to Todd for sending it in.

I got this message from Debbie M to add to the "You know it's slow when" thread on the hotlist page.

I have one to add to the you know its slow...When the wall paper picture is from August 2009!

Sometimes I wonder at this truly unique firefighting community, even in a s-l-o-w year. Thanks everyone! Ab.

Just thot of this....not sure why it didn't occur to me earlier....

I've been a fan for 7 or 8 years....started when I was still working and now - almost 4 years into retirement there is
hardly a day goes by that I don't check out 'They Said' or your hotlist forum. Even though I don't post often...

Maybe I have missed it but where do you get your operating $$s from?? You obviously run a large, active, site. Very
professionally, too. (with the help of several moderators, obviously.)

Anyway....is there some group or foundation I can send a few $$s as a contribution? I'd be pleased to do so!

You do a great job.....THANKS!

Regards - Jimbo

Jimbo, thanks for the question. Let me talk about this with my partner SteveM (Original Ab). Wildlandfire.com is moving to a larger server and revamping the website to meet www3 dynamic web standards. One of the issues is that the website is so large and historically rich that it will be time consuming to "rewrite it" to the new standards... but we don't want to lose anything. We have great volunteers for the hotlist and that's in a www3 format, but some things cost $$ and time to go back and update. Ab.

Doug and E-53 crew in the Sierras & SNF E-53: I bet the crew would enjoy seeing this on They Said. This might have been my last class. Engine 53 Crew at Granite Creek after Doug gave them a set of CPS books and a short introduction. Edith, Campbell's dog was in attendance also. The crew was checking out the initial attack zone and roads. Photos compliments of Doug Campbell who was on his annual family campout in the Sierras. (0810)

Thanks, Doug! I put them on the Engines 27 photo page. Ab.

Fortuna Fire station on the Six Rivers NF has recieved a new type 3 model 326 BME engine...with the new engine
numbering as well to meet national standards. Really nice engine.

Lead 51

It is a nice engine. Sure miss our old pump...

Thanks, Lead 51! I put them on the Engines 27 and Engines 28 photo pages. Ab.

45 minutes from now!

The unofficial LAC web site mentions a special report on Camp 16 and the burn over to be shown on
LA's CBS channel 2 at 11 tonite and again on LA's channel 9 at noon tomorrow.

My dish gets channel 2 and it shows news at 11 and I do not get channel 9.

Just thought I'd pass it along.

Rick

Ok so here's the story. We get called on our day off for a fire. I receive the call at 6 pm and need to be at the station asap! Normally the Supt. says he starts his time when he gets the call as well as the captains because they are calling the crew. This normally takes about 10 minutes to complete! We would then start the crew at 8 pm when they all arrive. Is this correct and is there any documentation on this?

I would like anything to clear this up!

Signed, Enjoying my days off this summer

viejo posted "There was a contract bus driver murdered in the Anderson Fire Camp during the '87 siege. I don't think the killer was ever apprehended."

It was 1999 and the driver's name was Richard Blood. I had been working the fires out of the Big Bar Complex at the time and, being prior law enforcement, I followed the case as it played out. As I understand it, the person "apparently responsible" became "past tense" during a non-fire related incident at about the same time that the forensic evidence landed in his lap. There are some posts in They Said and Family Said if you search the wlf site. We shouldn't forget people like Richard Blood. On the other hand, as information of these tragedies resurfaces we must remember that the actions of one apparent bad apple should not reflect upon their crew or agency as a whole.

As always... "Stay safe!" "Kicks"

Hi Kicks,
For clarity's sake we pulled the news archive out of the wlf.com files and it's here: Hotlist
Mellie is still researching the apparently unreported separate 1987 incident. Ab.

Delta Fire was before the siege of ’87 I agree-it was near the old Delta Point LO looking above the Sacramento River Canyon on I-5. 1985 sounds right. There used to be a sign on the freeway for motorists to see about the cause of the fire. The sign disappeared after the freeway was realigned in a major project.

The C-119 Tanker 135 (Hawkins and Powers) crashed in Castle Crags area in September 1987. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was later September about the third week. I took some photos of it a day or two before the crash of it at Chico as it was transitioning through to the north. I believe the aircraft broke up in mid air either making a drop run or just prior to it. This was a problem for the C-119’s and I believe this crash did end their use as airtankers.

“Another CDF BC”

dc is probably right. I'm old and my memory is not infallible. As I recall a wing broke off during a drop run on a fire
on the Sacramento River Canyon.

viejo

dc

The C-119-J was lost because it exceeded its allowable airspeed while in a dive and the twin tail booms separated from
the fuselage.  They were resembling it in a hanger in Redding late that fall, and the accident did coincide with "the siege".

Tim

Viejo, you said,

There was a contract bus driver murdered in the Anderson Fire Camp during the '87 siege. I don't
think the killer was ever apprehended.

The contract bus driver was killed in Anderson during the 99' fires. There may have been one killed in '87 as well
but that would be a pretty big coincidence.

FLM2

Viejo--

gotta disagree with your info about the C-119 crash.

The Delta Fire was in 1985 near Lamoine, and the C-119 crashed in 1987. It was on an IA order for a fire in, or near,
Castle Craigs State Park (just south and west of Mt. Shasta). Can't recall if it broke up in the air, or what the cause was.
But, it resulted in the permanent grounding of the 119's as air tankers.

dc

Strive for 205,

Yes, how correct you are that the <former FMO> will possibly get her promotion. She got the job by filing a hardship, which didn't surprise anyone (compulsive lying gets her places). She knew this was her only way of getting the job because she didn't have the qualifications for the position, but I cannot tell you why that decision was made to put her in that particular position for there were other fire jobs on the forest such as Fuels. I have other information, but will leave it at that. Manipulation is what she does best for she shows no remorse, no lessons learned, and I would bet the farm she will file another hardship to keep from kicking the can down the road. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

No Name

Ab.

Before Nomex and before pre shrunk cotton you always bought pants to shrink to fit. City guys and farmers would roll them up and
make cuffs, but that didn't work on the woods or for firefighting. The cuffs would get full of sawdust or worse, hot ashes, so most
of the guys bucked their pants off above the ankles. The stagged off pants did not hang up as much and were more comfortable.

viejo

Pictures don't lie!

HotSHORTS photo

You don't know me......! :)

Indeed, we have never met in person. HAW HAW Ab.

info about fire in Russia near Chernobyl

Mellie, This is from NPR. A visiting researcher at HSU has some interesting research. BOB

www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=129195934&m=129196393 (4 min audio report)

HOTLIST reference thread

The people that put her there have retired... Ab.

From the HOTLIST Discussion Thread Siege of '87:

Fire Geek, ... not to hijack the thread... but a bit of info...

Several wildland firefighter deaths from norcal in my records for 1987 firesiege:

Donald H Gormley, CA. National Guard was killed in that accident (date unknown).
I have Bruce F Visser who was struck and killed by a motorcycle, 9-1-87.

some other unknowns
Klamath NF, CA, Unknown BIA Died of heart attack. 10-1-87
Shasta Trinity NF, CA, Unknown Contractor killed when his dozer rolled over him on the fire. 6-28-87
CA -CDF S-2 pilot Donn Johnson killed in tanker crash (unknown which fire or complex if any) 10-7-87
Shasta Trinity NF, - CA, Pilot and crew of C-119 killed, plane broke apart on retardant run: Bill Berg, Stephen Harrell, Charles Peterson (unknown date)
Six Rivers NF, CA, Unknown CCC killed when snag struck his vehicle. 9-5-87

There are 23 official NWCG recorded wildland firefighter deaths across the US that year.

But beyond those, I heard there was a (contract?) driver of a crew rumored to have been murdered. Maybe not in firecamp per se so no record and perhaps officially not on the fire?

I need to get with the retired AFMO of Lower Trinity and pick his brain. Bet he'd remember all the scuttlebutt over a brew.

In those days when firefighters died, if they were not fed employees we've lost track of them. No blame, just the way things were then with firefighters coming from across the US to the West or vice versa. In addition, many deaths or some deaths were not reported up the chain to NWCG and/or to the USFA.

Later.
m

There have been some recent developments (can't say what region) in which an FMO was just removed from her position and supervisory duties after a very short time. Even though this person is still in the system, this is a huge step in the right direction in dealing with dissonance and a complete disregard for others' wellbeing. In addition, to falsify fire experiences, to not accept responsibility and to claim victim status for being removed raises some red flags. The problem with that is everyone in fire knows everyone and can find out the truth in a hurry.

The question is where will the person end up next? The earlier posts on "Just Culture" reports on how to find empathy, tolerance, and forgiveness in our lives. People are very forgiving and understanding by displaying altruistic behaviors to others. But tolerance and empathy should not be the reward in this situation, because who can relate to that? There were obvious reasons this person was removed, but not everyone knows that and I can understand the protection of privacy, but to be removed for issues regarding supervision (not the first time either), we owe it to firefighters on the line to let them know that who they are working for is capable, willing and responsible for taking care of their wellbeing.

We have all worked for someone that was difficult, but in my opinion, this person shouldn't even be issued a red card.

No Name

Just Culture in a high reliability organization does not mean perpetuation of an unsafe system or lack of accountability. People who are not fit to be leaders should be removed and should not be allowed to occupy positions for which they are not fit. Some comments on Just Culture:  www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2009/lessons-learn/org-learning072009.pdf
Unfortunately, those who are not fit often are clueless that they fall short of the standard required, as SteveM (Original Ab) pointed out years ago: www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2005/competence.htm. Ab.

Subject: Appointment of CWCG IC & Deputy IC for CA-IMT #5

To: CWCG Board and CWCG IC's & Deputy ICs
From: Kim Zagaris, CWCG Chair
Date: August 19, 2010
Subject: Appointment of CWCG IC & Deputy IC for CA-IMT #5

On August 11, 2010 the CWCG Board of Directors held a conference call to review the CWCG Operations Committee's recommendations options for the for the replacement of Mike Dietrich as IC on CA-IMT #5 and options for Deputy IC's impacts. We would again thank Chief Mike Dietrich for outstanding leadership and service over the past 30 years and accept our best wishes for your new assignment.

It was recommended and approved by the CWCG Board of Directors that CA-IMT #5 Deputy IC Jim Giachino appointed as the IC and Carlton Joseph appointed as the CA-IMT #5 Deputy IC Trainee.

Congratulations and thanks Jim and Carlton for their ongoing support and leadership in stepping up into their assignments. We also like to thank the CWCG Operations Committee for their work and support.

Kim Zagaris
CWCG Chair

Good news. Ab.

This week the Klamath Hotshots were ordered through dispatch and addition of only one tiny letter added so much hilarity
to overworked fire personnel. The Klamath Hot SHORTS were ordered! Now I know this wouldn’t be according to safety
gear, but would these be Jethro-type shorts or like Reno 911 shorts?

sent by Just another fire wife

HAW HAW HAW. Ab.

IF

HOG,

Down here in Region 5 on my Forest we set it up like this:

Captain: Red Hat no stripes
FEO: Captain on duty, Yellow Hat Red Stripe under Engine #
Captain OFF duty: Red Hat White Stripe under Engine #
AFEO: Yellow Hat Red Stripe under Engine #
All FF's: Plain ol' Yellow Hat

Hope this helps.....

AK

Anonymous and all,

I am up here in region four, and the way we are configured as of now is a

• Captain 7/8 (red),
• FEO 7 (red/white),
• Senior FF 5 (which basically acts as AFEO on our mod, yellow/red), and
• 4 seasonals 3 or 4 (yellow).

Recently the type 4 mods received funding to add a GS 6 AFEO, taking place this fall, which means we lose one seasonal
but at least close a gap in the career ladder and have even more dedicated leadership and quals on the truck.

Thanks to all for the info, it really clears things up! Cheers!

HOG

HAW HAW, nice one! Ab.

As our last combat brigade has left Iraq and are on its way home, please let's take a moment to honor the fallen,
pledge support for our injured and to hold those troops remaining there as advisers in our thoughts and prayers.

I look forward to the day when all our servicemen and women can return home. No doubt some will become
excellent wildland firefighters.

Mellie

HOG,

You are close to being correct the color of helmets used by engine crews in the Forest Service in R5. Here is the
breakdown of the standard.

1. Captain – All Red
2. Engineer – Red with White Stripe
3. AFEO – Yellow with Red Stripe
4. Senior FF, Apprentices, Temporary FF – Yellow

The debate that continues is, when does the AFEO receive their red stripe? Is it when they are promoted to the position
or is it when they become Engine Boss qualified?

An R5’er

Hog - In reply top your question on helmet color/striping schemes:

When I was an R5'er we used pretty much they helmet scheme you described except that the AFEO had the yellow
helmet/red strip. The SR FF and all other FF just had straight yellow. We used that scheme for our wildland and our
turn out gear. I have been out of R5 for about 5 years, so not sure if that has changed, but the 3 forests I was on in
my R5 career all used that scheme.

R9 Engine Captain

Hog,

Most of the engines I've seen in R5 do not differentiate Red helmets if the FEO is Engine Boss qualified. I haven't
really seen Senior firefighters with a Red Stripe. AFEO yellow helmet red stripe. My opinion which ain't worth much
is it all becomes meaningless if two bodies get out of the engine and have red helmets. 7 day staffing means your
engineer will be engine boss 2 days a week and driving 3 days a week. Some AFEO's may be engine boss qualified.
What region are you and do they have a bunch of new jobs?

anonymous

HOG -

Current standards for FS engine hard hats:
Capt: Red hard hat
FEO: Red hard hat (no stripe)
AFEO: Yellow hard hat, red stripe
Lead-5 and seasonals: yellow hard hats

- nozzlehog42

So here's the question:

(Type 4, seven person engine module)

Captain: Red hard hat
FEO: Red hat w/stripe under designator
Senior FF: Yellow hat w/red stripe under designator
Seasonals: Yellow hard hat
AFEO:???????????

We are gearing up to add the new GS6 AFEO and are having a hard time finding info on what the
FS standard is for an AFEO's lid. Any help from the R5er's out there? Thanks! HOG

HOG, in R5 here is how its broken down:

captain : red hardhat
engineer : red hardhat
afeo: yellow hardhat (red stripes when that person is a qualified engine boss otherwise only yellow)
senior FF: yellow
seasonals : yellow

hope that helps

HOG,
>From what I remember,
AFEO - Yellow Hard Hat has red stripe
Senior F.F. - Just Yellow helmet/no stripe
The rest are correct.

-DB

Fire Geek

HAW HAW HAW on the photo! Ab.

-another pulaski motor, ref your 7/27 post

Assuming a new speaker-microphone (LAA0209, current production model) corrects the problem, the
connection to the 2.5 mm plug is probably intermittent. The entire accessory connector, at the end of the
coiled cord, is possibly still available as a separate part. You may also be able to purchase the coil
cord/accessory connector as a complete assembly. If so, there is an aftermarket vendor who can rebuild
the unit.

CA COML/COMC

So here's the question:
(Type 4, seven person engine module)

Captain: Red hard hat
FEO: Red hat w/stripe under designator
Senior FF: Yellow hat w/red stripe under designator
Seasonals: Yellow hard hat
AFEO:???????????

We are gearing up to add the new GS6 AFEO and are having a hard time finding info on what the FS standard
is for an AFEO's lid. Any help from the R5er's out there? Thanks!

HOG

Well here we go again
JS

OIG recently accepted the FS response to the "Forest Service's Firefighting
Succession Planning Process" OIG Audit. Recommendation 19 dealt with the
GS-401 series.

What does this mean? We should expect a letter from the Chief which
reinstitutes the use of the 401. ETA and any stipulations unknown.

RECOMMENDATION: 19
Immediately discontinue the use of the GS-401 series to reclassify staff for the six IFPM and
four FS-FPM fire management positions.

FS RESPONSE:
In its follow-up memorandum, dated July 14,2010, to the final report, the FS has determined that
it will continue use of the GS-401 job series for these six IFPM and four FS-FPM fire
management positions when appropriate. FS has spent considerable time working on the issue of
qualification standards for fire management personnel. After much deliberation, work with our
interagency wildland fire partners, and discussions with the Office of Personnel Management,
the Chief has decided to continue the implementation of the IFPM and FS-FPM Standards. This
action ensures that the FS is in alignment with its partners in the Department of Interior wildland
fire agencies and with OPM Classification guidelines. As such, FS does not concur with this
Recommendation to completely discontinue use of the GS-401 job series for these six IFPM and
four FS-FPM fire management positions because there are instances, due to the complexity of
the duties of the position, where GS-40 1 is the appropriately classified series. In other instances,
GS-462 is the appropriately classified series. In fact, forestry technicians in this series will
remain the majority of our workforce.

full pdf file: FS Firefighting Succession Planning (167 K pdf file)

To: Oh well I'm better now

Its funny that you mention that because a bunch of us NorCalers just got back from a southern Oregon fire assignment.
It wasn't amazing or noteworthy but we did cross the border. Maybe they were desperate??

JM

Thanks

Bushman 82

SAFETY BULLETIN : 24-Hour Report - Daven Place Fire (14 K pdf file)
(Burnover on Aug 15; Franklin Co Fire District #2, South of Kahlotus, WA)

WA-FEKN-Davin Place Fire

Please post.

Letter from OIG to Tom Tidwell and Recommendations and Summary of Management Decision
regarding 401 Series.

FS Firefighting Succession Planning (167 K pdf file)

Noname Fire

HOTLIST : CA... IA

Ab.

Bighead= local ff slang for upper management. I should add it to the list... Ab.

August 15th marks the 31st year since the 1979 Spanish Ranch fire. This 900 acre fire occurred in San Luis Obispo County in a remote area near State Highway 166. On this day CDF Fire Captain Ed Marty, Firefighters Steve Manley and Ron Lorant were overrun during a blowup and tragically lost their lives. Firefighter Scott Cox was burned severely and died 6 months later from his injuries.

Two other burnovers occurred during this fire. CDF HFEO Rich Corning was overrun high up on a ridge as he had just completed pushing a deployment zone for his dozer, he escaped injury. Santa Barbara County Dozer Operator John Faezelle was overrun on the lower end of the fire and suffered minor burns.

Corning discovered the site where Marty and his crew fell. Faezelle found Cox coming out of the fire area severely burned and despite his injuries, assisted in getting him to a spot where he could be helicoptered for treatment.

Many lives were affected by this event. Family members and fire personnel have had to cope with this loss since that tragic day.

A memorial is located at CALFIRE Station 20 in Nipomo, Ca. "Our loss never forgotten"

TP

Hopefully they informed everyone else too...

www.wildlandfire.com/pics/hand24/hand24.htm 

The first photo of the bear warning sign is making the rounds again. Last time in 2008. Still funny. I like the bear at the table, too. Ab.

• The U.S. is shipping technical equipment valued at $2.5 million to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Russian Federal Forestry Agency Airborne Forest Protection Service including personal protective equipment, fire-protective clothing, large water storage tanks, hand tools for firefighters, and other general purpose fire-fighting tools. Total overall U.S. support for this effort is estimated to be valued at $4.5 million.
• Two C-130 aircraft from U.S. EUCOM and a charter flight from California are scheduled to arrive in Moscow after 6:00 p.m. local time on Friday, August 13
• Two additional C-130 flights are scheduled to arrive tomorrow, August 14.
• A second charter aircraft is expected to arrive in Moscow on or before Tuesday, August 17.
• On August 12th, the U.S. Government and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) signed a grant for $50,000 to support the relief operations of the Russian Red Cross in Russia. Relief items include blankets, bedding, and food parcels for approximately 1600 victims.
• State of California Response: The State of California is coordinating with USAID/OFDA to deliver fire resistant clothing, which was identified as a key need by the Federal Forestry Agency Aerial Fire Service.

For other places around the world: www.cidi.org/ Ab.

Tipping back a few Stone IPA's for the Krassel ship 5EV today on the five year anniversary of the crash.

Long live the memories of Quin, Michael, Monica, Lilly.

MB

Hey Chogi

Many many a nite at the White Spot with Ernie, let the beer and white port flow.
He is forever in my thoughts. Ahh the good old days of Shelton , when we were all there.

LPF

Hoisting a cold one for Ernie at the virtue White Spot.

Chogi

BD

R4MET,

The roll-over you're referencing happened on the Wenatchee-Okanogan NF. It involved a crew-cab 
vehicle engaged in a very slow roll to its side. The accident seemed to be caused by a slippery native 
road-bed. No injuries were reported. This event happened on a fire incident and the crew responsible 
was an off-forest fire crew.

Yamaha44

• the possibility of criminal inquiries,
• events other than those of August 26-27, 2009, 
• fatalities, 
• pending civil litigation, 
• pending independent investigations and 
• speculation regarding attribution of fault or liability

Only members of Congress will be able to ask questions.

That means the "The Forest Service Fire Organization" and questions about a potential 
reorganization of "The Forest Service Fire Organization" should be on the table.

ms

Five years ago today we lost an American Hero. I can't believe that it has already been five years. Ernie passed away while serving as an Airspace Coordinator
on a fire assignment in Idaho. He was retired from the Olympic National Forest and enjoying life with his family as a Grandpa but he always had
time to help out in fire when there was a need. Ernie was one of those people who made a difference in this world from where he lived. 
He had no need to go to work at the SO, RO or Washington DC. Instead, the world came to him. He was a natural born leader with the
kind of wisdom you wished people had today. He was an inventor and he had a way of looking at things differently/ The loss is immeasurable.
I see the pictures of his grandkids as they grow up and wish Ernie was still around. 

Ernie Johnson was a legend, a leader, creative and innovative, funny and mischievous, loyal and strong, a storyteller and a listener.

In remembrance of a great man - I am suggesting the following:

1) Hug your family fiercely and tell them they make a difference in your life.
2) Smile at a friend at work and let them know you are working on things together.
3) Look at something at work from a different perspective and give it a try.
4) Invent something - be creative when you are seeking a solution
5) Tell stories to the youngsters on the crew or at the office that give them something to think about\
6) Love your life and make a difference from your corner of the world. 

Do any of the above and think - "This one is for you Ernie"........

Thanks
Ernie's friend...........

Hickman

Thanks, Hickman. Here's the Hotlist thread on Russian fires. One recent email from MG had a link to a video and transcribed interview from Mark Thiessen who routinely does photo essays on wildland fires and who did the 2005 National Geographic photos / article on Russian Smokejumpers. Ab.

As the keeper of knowledge I'm hoping you can help.  I'm looking for the document, not sure if it was a 
tech tip or what, regarding the use of banjo style canteens to carry drinking water on the engine.  If I
remember right it came out in 2005 but I can't seem to be able to find it.

Thanks.

Ben

I don't remember it and I'm on the road, so don't have my usual fast search capabilities. It preceded the Hotlist alerts subforum. It's not in the 2005 docs file on the wlf.com server. Anyone familiar with that one? Ab.

Good luck and welcome back! I am very happy with my decision and the process to reinstate wasn't difficult as long as you follow times frames and fill out your paperwork in a timely manner.

Welcome Back!!!

Driver 54

Bill Teie has done it again! Leadership for the Wildland Fire Officer is a study mixed with on-the-ground experience that covers the full range of leadership challenges Wildland Fire Officers face day to day and when on fire assignment, be it single resource IA or Extended Overhead assignment with the emphasis on being safe and effective. This is a real world book that did not allow “Political Correctness” to creep into the content, nor shy away from topics or issues that have the potential to rub some the wrong way.

With the issues the Wildland Fire community faces from the massive retirement of experience, public expectations and severe budget constraints likely to get worse not better in the near future, our next generation of leaders will need to develop at a faster pace than ever. This book contains much of the cognitive knowledge one needs to build a solid foundation as they develop into a leader at any level. The team Chief Teie assembled to develop this book has produced a quality product. Leadership For the Wildland Fire Officer is a good read that you will enjoy reading, not a dry hard to stay with subject matter book.

North Bay FC

Career status is gained after 3 years in career conditional appointments (which includes permanent and other
positions such as the SCEP program) Career status never goes away once you gain it - it's a lifetime ability to
apply for merit jobs. Can't say I've found anyone who knows how to pick people up without applying for an
open position.

Career conditional status is granted after (I think) 90 days in a career conditional position.
Career conditional status expires after 3 years though can be extended by federal employment of other
classifications.

How to tell what status you have/had... check your last SF-50 of your permanent type of position. If you enter
into a term/seasonal/other type of position remember to KEEP that SF-50 for the perm position! It's in a box
(around 20?) and I think perm is 1, career conditional is 2 and if you've got other numbers there, well it's term,
1039, seasonal, etc.

Hope that helps :-)
GISgirl

Thanks. Ab.

Dear Ab-

This is in reply to AL on They Said

www.nbc.gov/doiphonelist2/index.cfm?fuseaction=Empsearch.form&cfid=1010128&cftoken=17092029

Please feel free to call if you have any questions or concerns.

Shannon H

Many thanks, Shannon. I updated the employee link on the Links page under federal. Thanks AL for the heads up on the broken link. Ab.

If you held a career position rehire eligibility does not expire it is indefinite. Not sure if a person is still career-conditional
status if it expires or not. I quit and was eligible for rehire rights after 10 years and was rehired under that authority.
However, any leave that is on the books goes away after 10 years. I lost six years worth of sick leave because I wasn't
re-hired within the 10 year period. Missed it by about six months.

Here is a link to the CFR that talks about rehire time limits section D talks about the time limits.

http://law.justia.com/us/cfr/title05/5-1.0.1.2.38.html#5:1.0.1.2.38.4

Diana VC

Thanks much Diana. Ab.

There was a WT that rolled over in R5 (CA-BDF-Morton) several days ago. News article posted after family had been contacted said minor injuries. Hotlist for photo and article. Anyone have info of an accident in Washington or Oregon? Ab.

HOTLIST  THREAD

I am trying to find out how long rehire eligibilities are good for after you have left the USFS. I have heard 2 years,
I have heard 3 years, I have heard 120 days... I would like to know if this is going to aid me in getting back on a
green truck, do you know of anybody on this site that may be able to help me?

If so I'm all ears. Thanks for your time.

PJ

Readers?

Here are a few air tanker shots from the Station Fire last year, and a couple of the DC-10 at the Crown Fire last month.

Mike

Thanks Mike, nice. I put them on the Airtankers 33 photo page. Thanks also to Neptune Aviation for hosting the Airtanker photo pages. Ab.

We just got our new model 326 Fire engine on the Shasta-Trinity N.F, out of Big Bar.

ES

Thanks, ES, I posted it on the Engines 27 photo page. Thanks to National Firefighter Corp for hosting the Engines photo pages. Ab.

Ab-----

As a reminder, here is a chance for firefighters to actually vote for themselves. In about a week the decision for the Mother Teresa Caring Award will be made. Vicki Minor from the WFF is in competition for this award. We all know that when the WFF wins all firefighters win. Winning this award has the potential of bringing significant advocacy, potential funding, and attention to the WFF. This will help the WFF as they strive to serve all wildland firefighters in their time of need.

We would like everyone to take a moment and go to the website www.caring.org and on the left hand side click on Vote Here! 2010 Caring Award Nominees and then vote for Vicki Minor which will be a vote for the WFF and for all wildland firefighters. This vote will also show how united wildland firefighters can be when it comes to speaking up for themselves through the WFF.

Guy Pence, Public Relations
Wildland Firefighter Foundation

You probably received this too, but another pioneer fire researcher is gone. The flyer described at the end was not attached.

FC180
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Andi Koonce

Passing of a Founder of the International Association of Wildland Fire

We are sorry to note the passing of Andi Koonce on July 24, 2010 after a long illness. Andi was very instrumental in the early formation of the International Association of Wildland Fire, first by conceiving of a professional organization, and later by serving as one of the very first members of our Board of Directors starting in 1990. She helped to formulate the idea of a high quality, refereed scientific journal to help establish fire science as an international recognized discipline. And with the help of others, her energy soon resulted in the funding and development of what we now know as the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

Andi graduated in 1969 from Los Alamos High School, in Los Alamos, N.M. She went on to earn a B.S. in Political Science at Arizona State University in 1973, and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Oregon State University in 1981. Her areas of graduate study included forest science, forest ecology and forest pathology with Dr. Lew Roth (OSU) and Dr. Robert Martin (FS) advising her on her graduate research which examined the interaction between fire and dwarf mistletoe in ponderosa pine. Upon graduation, Andi went to teach at the National School of Forest Sciences in Honduras and directed a tree improvement program in tropical pines. When the Honduran school closed she returned to the United States and joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point to teach forestry courses. While there in 1984, she established the Fire Science Center which supported research and extension activities related to prescribed fire in the Midwestern. In 1988 she left academia and joined Forest Service Research as Project Leader of the Prescribed Fire Research Unit at the Forest Fire Laboratory in Riverside, Calif. This was a trail-blazing move for Andi as she became one of the first female US Forest Service project leaders in fire research.

In addition to her research, Andi was always a strong supporter of efforts to improve and increase the roles of women in fire research. When the US Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station eliminated several lines of research due to funding reductions in 1996, Andi joined the Fire and Aviation Management Staff in the Forest Service's National Office. She provided expertise in fire planning and fuels in this capacity for several years before moving to Milwaukee, Wis. to work as a fire staff specialist in the Forest Service's Eastern Regional Office. In this capacity she was able to provide technical expertise to the national forests in support of prescribed burning and fuels management in this 20-state area. After several years in Milwaukee, she returned to California where she was initially a Forest Pathologist on the San Bernardino National Forest, and later oversaw the Forest Health Protection Program for the four national forests in Southern California. Andi always maintained her interest in tropical forestry and her last research project involved fire damage in Caribbean pine plantations in Nicaragua.

Andi will be missed by many and the IAWF offers our condolences to her family and co-workers.

From Mary Beth Najera, Forest Resource Officer, San Bernardino National Forest; “As Andi would say, "Gentle Associates" please join us in gathering together to celebrate the life of Andi Koonce. The attached flyer has all the information needed for cards, contributions and directions if you are able to attend. Please help in passing this on to folks that knew Andi. Thank you for your help.”

Sincerely,
Chuck Bushey, President
International Association of Wildland Fire

Condolences. Ab.

There used to be a lookup for DOI employees (BLM, NPS, etc) on the links page.
It doesn't work now. Anybody know the new link?

AL

Please post. Current and future apprentices will like this.

Noname Fire

Apprentice Standards.doc (17 K doc file)
R3 FireHire Outreach 2010.doc (435 K doc file)

Does anyone know the origination of this term?

Fuels Guy

Mike,

After having had the pleasure of working with you on Team 1, teaching with you for the last seven years or so and
following you and Team 5 around buttoning up your incidents, I can say that you truly leave some big boots to fill.
You led with competence, intelligence, common sense, compassion and above all, respect and integrity. You and
your teams have had some of the hardest assignments anyone could face including Esperanza and the Station Fire.
The experience you have from dealing with those and other important incidents make you impossible to replace in
my opinion. I hope current and future ICs keep you on speed dial and have taken notes well. Wish you well in your
next adventure.

rrd

P.S. I also wonder who is stepping up to fill in behind Mike and the other senior ICs who have left or will soon leave.
Many boots will need to be filled.

"Also, always be aware of the aspect that you and your resources are on during various times of the day; critical slope/time relationships are the East aspects during the morning, flat ground &/or ridge tops around noon, and South to West aspects during the afternoon."

Still, my guess is that if the analysis were expanded to the 15 Southern California burnover fatality fires we have in Google Earth (admittedly incomplete, but which includes the 4 SoCal fires FC180 cited) at least half the fire fatalities (if not half the fatal fires) could be attributed to southwest aspect in the afternoon.

vfd cap'n

Ab, please post:

Apprentice-hire.doc (70 K doc file)

Noname Fire

Beginning of the letter with an upcoming important date:

To provide additional firefighting production capability, we are preparing a fall Region 5 Centralized Fire Hire for all vacant Apprentice and GS-0462-06 through GS-0642-09 and WG-10 positions. The purpose of this letter is to provide dates and actions required to make this a successful event. (snip)

Aug 16: Last day for applicants to apply to the OCR Apprentice vacancy announcement.

JUST CULTURE:

Just Culture is a human performance management system that recognizes that regardless of how highly trained or well intended, humans will inevitably make mistakes; and, even the most conscientious professionals will drift from full compliance with rules and protocols. Thus accountability for risk management is directed upward to the cultural and organizational levels where system design and values should be managed.

In a fully developed just culture, management accepts responsibility to design and implement safe operating systems and the responsibility to manage employee reliability. The ethic recognizes that managing safe systems and safe performance is a dynamic and continual process fundamentally dependent on the organization sustaining a reporting and learning culture. See also, the reference articles in the Appendix and especially, www.justculture.org.

Mellie

Hey Ab and All,

Thanks for all the great offers of a home for the Flag. Sgt. Gabriel Gamez is sending me the flag and I am going to
hand deliver it to the San Bernardino. I spoke to Chief 2 of the San Bernardino over the phone and he said they
would make sure it was placed for all to see. Thank you for all you do man.

CS

Glad the networking paid off. Please tell Sgt Gamez thanks. Ab.

I too wish you well Mike in your future endeavor. You my friend are true to heart, a leader in all respects.
You should have been the boss on CIIMT1, but that was not to be so we just had to live with the few times
we saw you on incident pass-overs or incidents on your home unit. Your humor during hard times was hard
to match, only Deputy Dick cold come close to. We'll miss you pal!

Jim - the computer guy

Mike,

Thanks for your years of service, professionalism and commitment to the troops.

It was a pleasure and honor working for you and with you.

Safety first and always Chief.

BDF Captain 19 Jody Smith and Family

justwondering,

Thanks for the feedback regarding sending firefighters to Russia. Figured it was something of that nature
and knew someone in this forum would have the straight skinny regarding the situation. Owe you a beer.

Passport and Redbag

From the Northern California Fire Behavior Advisory (which is un-credited)

"most fire fatalities have been on Southwest aspects during the afternoon"

I'm not sure this can be substantiated. For Example, Esperanza was a north aspect, Decker was an East Aspect,
Mack II was on a North Aspect, Bailiff was on a North Aspect, granted those are all Riverside County, CA but
I don't think that statement is accurate.

FC180

Ab ,

For They Said, I wish Mike Dietrich well as he retires from being an IC. He is truly a very professional,
competent fire officer and nice person. The uniformed fire service will miss Chief Dietrich as he spends his
time educating ICS to megavolts...

Mike was so good for so many people. I watched his caring work with the bug kill and drought problems
in the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains of the BDF San Jacinto RD. Former Forest Fire Chief Mike
Dietrich always set uniform color aside has he worked through the challenges but reaching great successes
with grant funding for the impacted areas.

I watched Mike run fires always knowing he would do the right thing for the right reasons. This was particularly
true on October 26, 2006 near Cabazon, CA. I was standing about 60' from Mike, Norm Walker (another
Jedi) and Dan Felix (another good guy) as the word came off the mountain of the death of the 5 valiant USFS
firefighters. Through it all, Mike was the stand up guy leading us all on as bad as that day proved to be.

I hope everyone realizes they won't really know how much they miss Mike Dietrich until they don't see him
smiling, talking in his German dialect and helping someone else, certainly not himself. Mike is not about 'I, ME,
or MY.' Instead Mike's leadership style is, 'WE, OUR and US.' Yep, those last words are Mike Dietrich. I
wish Mike well with SCE . Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

**Leadership**Competence**Integrity**Safety**Customer Service**

John R. Hawkins, Unit & Fire Chief
CAL FIRE & Riverside County Fire Department

Mike Dietrich

So sorry to see you go, been on fires that your have commanded and have appreciated the many hours of hard
work you and your team have put in. Again, Thank you for your service and best of luck to you.

Nor Cal Fed

Ab,

Upon returning from a ridiculously overstaffed fire assignment I caught up on the news to see that the Russians are in dire need of trained firefighters and equipment. Do we know if the U.S. is doing anything to help out? If not, I am sure that one of the readers here has the "juice" to get a phone call returned from the beltway. Imagine the great publicity for wildland firefighting with news video of a C5A unloading Americans in nomex coming to help out brother firefighters.

And yep, I will put my money where my mouth is.

Have passport and redbag.

Thanks for your service, Mike. Ab.

Apparently most Forest Service/CALFIRE shared ECCs and some stand alone Fed ECCs do have telephone
lines that are recorded. Obviously this is in response to the multitude of investigations from the Station Fire.

I truly wonder if Forest Service Line Officers are purposely trying to sabotage fire managements credibility with
our cooperators and the American public.

The Forest Service fire program needs immediate intervention that leads to a reorganization.

Good Grief

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
File Code: 1390
Date: August 4, 2010
Subject: Use of Telephone Recording Equipment in Dispatch Centers
To: Regional Foresters, Station Directors, Area Director, IITF Director, Deputy Chiefs and WO Directors

URGENT REPLY DUE AUGUST 10, 2010

A formal Office of General Council (OGC) opinion will be forthcoming regarding the recording of telephone calls in our Dispatch Coordination Centers on Forest Service owned or leased telephone lines. Recording of phone calls without all party’s prior knowledge and consent is outside of Department of Agriculture regulations and policy.

Recording of radio traffic is appropriate and encouraged.

The recording of phone calls must be shut down immediately and the data collected with those recording devices secured. Exceptions to this direction are limited to 911 telephone lines and emergency contact telephone lines for the public reporting emergencies when appropriate prior warnings are provided (ref FSM 6642.27). We require a positive response from you, by August 10, 2010, that action has been taken to shut down the recording devices on our phone lines, as described above.

Please send your responses to Patti Hirami at phirami@fs.fed.us.

/s/ James E. Hubbard
JAMES E. HUBBARD
Deputy Chief, State and Private Forestry

IF,

Tell your boss to call me anytime, I will be more then happy to tell him/her where to find these and many
more common sense policies that obviously need to be read on your unit, but for starters try pages 7, 8, 9
in chapter 1 of the 2010 Red Book titled "Federal Fire Program Policy and Guidance Overview", its a
great read for all of those who are sipping the cool aid.

Joel A. Lane
(c) 559-310-0774

Here are the rules you are looking for:

"Fight Fire Aggressively but Provide for Safety First"

"Keep Informed on Fire Weather Conditions and Forecasts".

Hopefully the person looking to remove the material that helps you to live by these rules will remember.

casky

IF

I overlooked the obvious.
Fire Order # 1: Keep informed on fire wx conditions & forecast.
If that does not get the boss's attention he/she should get an F- in safety

Fish01

IF

IMO your boss needs to receive an "F" in Safety. Not sure where your boss is coming from but if he/she
has any knowledge from history, (South Canyon comes to mind) people died from lack of knowledge of
the weather forecast and warnings.

6 minutes and Fire Weather forecast are in the Public Domain.. free to disseminate.

Does your morning report dispatch read it over the air? Very weird opinion from your boss.

Fish01

Hi,

My boss wants me to find a rule or regulation that either authorizes or requires us to post the daily Weather and/or
Six Minutes for Safety-Sit report at USFS stations. We have been doing this for years, putting up both every morning
for those that do not print out their own to read, such as modules, but if I cant find a rule or reg saying it's ok or at
least recommended, he wants them down off the bulletin board.

Any help out there? A chapter or directive from the FSH or FSM or even the Red Book would help....

IF

This is a reminder to your temporary employees who may be interested in applying to the Apprentice Program -
Applications are due August 16.

Each Forest will be making selections - some as few as 1 with others as many as 25. Applicants are encouraged
to apply to any forests they may be interested in. Applicants can identify up to 9 forests.

HR

Ab,

If for some reason Sgt. Gabriel L. Gamez flag can not be flown at the San Bernardino NF...
We would proudly fly that flag at the Wildland Firefighter Foundation...

Vicki Minor
Executive Director
Wildland Firefighter Foundation

Put him in touch with us, we will honor the request.

John Miller
Deputy Public Affairs Officer
US Forest Service / San Bernardino National Forest

Ab and all,

I don't know about clerical error on failure to include the dispatch tape, the ANF people might not
have known about the dispatch recording.

At CAL FIRE we field 911 calls and respond so everything is recorded to protect the employees.

With the FS some dispatch shops are stand alone like the Mendocino NF (i think?), some are shared
with us like the Modoc, the LP, etc, and I think some have an answering service or some emergency
arrangement after hours that records calls. I bet lots of FS employees don't know about CAL FIRE
recordings because its different place to place. If the system is on a phone system CAL FIRE owns,
it's recorded.

Could be as simple as the current ANF employees and the investigators didnt know about that.

Dispatcher

I learned last week of Mike Dietrich’s resignation as Incident Commander of CA Team 5. I believe he has agreed
to stay on the team until the end of their rotation this month. Does anyone from the team or anyone else have any info
on what CWCG plans to do to fill the position? Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think there is anyone inside or
outside the region that is qualified to take the reigns. That leaves the team and the region in a bad spot.

Signed,
Curious

There is someone very qualified who has been recommended to CWCG; at CWCG Kim Zagaris (Cal EMA) is chair. Ab.

It may have been Karen Watenmaker or Kari Greer, both are/were NIFC
contractors.

Tom

Hi AB !
I need help.

in 2002 I was one of the first responders to the Winter/Silver fires later to become Toolbox Complex

a lady had taken Pictures early on, sometime later I called her and she said someone stole her computer and it would be awhile before she could get the pixs back up..

Now for the life of me I cannot find Her or the Picx she once had.....I desperately need the Pic she took of me Standing on the Back of my engine.

I have A Fu manchu and am wild looking standing there, radio in hand. looking tough...lol....

it is important because I am now the Director of a Fire Training academy in Thailand and need it for Bragging rights.

can you help ?......Ill pay for any pics of me that can be found.....in all 38 fires in regions 5 and 6....from 2001 to 2006. BUT mainly that pic from Toolbox and the one of me holding off the fire at that secret bird of prey site at Dinosaur Monument... dam* near toasted my ass.... for three birds...lol.

I asked for a little more info and got this back:

my request is only to find the Photographer who was there from day one...
I was one of the first on scene when it was still less then 150 acres.
I went all out for four days before relief arrived...about the time Winter/silver got its Toolbox Complex
rating I was made temp Strike Team Leader in Division B then ...just as the fire crowned over we had
Div A and C link up to B in the center to split the fire along the ridge line ....I was set up in the center on Higher Ground
as Weather/Radio/Safety and had three radios running....A and C and HQ......it was a Moment in my life that was just another day..
nothing special or significant that day......But what I didnt Know was it was soon to be my greatest...
and Now.....I regret taking that moment for granted....

some say life is made up of moments....
and yet when we try to share them so few have the capacity to believe
there are such selfless and Brave Men filled with the Courage of Heros
that a Picture is needed to validate the Claim......I Fight for whats right.
and to me what is right is not to battle a war but to end it with utter defeat.
thus....Why I fought Wildland Fires.

all I ask is point me somewhere...the Photographer was a Lady.
the computer she had the pics up on was stolen she said.
she said she had back ups but needed to get a new computer
I dont Know her name BUT the Pics were available thru NIFC and NWCG
then the Patriot act thingy.....and shazam ..zippo Bupkiss.

Thanks AB.

Greendragon.

Hey, anyone recognize the female fire photographer or know how to access them through NIFC? If so please share and maybe we can help Greendragon out. Ab.

Ab,

I hope that they have better luck getting the dispatch reports than we did. We asked for the FOIA and received all the reports
and depositions on July 6, 1994 the fire blew up in the afternoon between 3:30 to 4:30 the dispatch report that we received for
that day only had blow up on it nothing before or after. I know that there had to be supplies ordered or something besides blow
up. Would be nice to actually see what happened that day in dispatch.

Thanks,

Ken and Kathy Brinkley

My guess is that the Station Fire IC could see the morning fire behavior scenario in his head- if he was using CPS for fire behavior prediction. Sunrise would throw sun/heat on a steep east-facing slope, heating fuel and bringing slope and solar preheat into alignment- causing the fire to grow rapidly beyond control. My guess is that someone using CPS could see the writing on the wall at midnight or whenever they had a chance to think things thru. Seems like there was a window of opportunity to knock down the fire- a critical "time tag" tactic to halt spread caused by sun and slope- or maybe buy a little time or hook it.

Dispatchers get resources as fast as they can within the constraints they are given. If they haven't been ff, they don't know about fire behavior- or about CPS. They wouldn't know about the importance of time tagging an action. If the person or org providing the resource constraints doesn't know about time tagging a tactic, the resources used in the tactic could be too late to help.

If dispatchers were told to use aircraft from the nearby Morris Fire to keep costs down, it could easily have taken until 0930 hrs to get them there, well after the window of opportunity. Pilots needed to be rested, could of timed out on the previous Morris fire day meaning they couldn't be up at O-dark-30 to be ready to go at first light and still adhere to work/rest guidelines. If they're good to go on work/rest well before dawn, they still need to be briefed, walk around the plane with their checklist, load up, take a last pee,etc. Takes time. Starting early gets them there at first light. Otherwise, why it takes so long is standard stuff.

Extra pilots standing by, ordering extra aircraft from Calfire- all cost BIG bucks. What are FS managers to do if unable to deviate from cost containment in a critical moment? How do they recognize the moment? How do dispatchers? Maybe they all should be taught to recognize the term time tag tactic. It could signal the imperative to get the resources even if its costly. In hindsight bigger bucks were spent on the fire that got a LOT bigger.

How do we do it better next time?

Strider

Let's wait for the investigation and hearings. Anyone interested take a look at the Fuel Flammability Card N, S, E, W-facing slopes and when the fuel's most flammable (morning, around noon, afternoon) and language on Doug's website. Ab.

www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-station-fire-20100804,0,7487167.story

The Obama administration also invites Congress to order a broad inquiry after it is learned that dispatch recordings
from the early hours of the blaze were withheld from a Forest Service review team.

By Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times
August 4, 2010

A federal inspector general has launched an investigation and the Obama administration has invited Congress to
order a broad inquiry into last summer's disastrous Station fire after learning that dispatch recordings had been
withheld from a U.S. Forest Service review team. (ETC at link)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
making the rounds: OIG and GAO are now involved. Stay tuned.

Hi Ab,

I met an individual by the name of Sgt. Gabriel L. Gamez who is a helicopter fueler in the U.S. Army National Guard.
This gentlemen has done two tours in Iraq and on the 10th of August is going back for his third, so we got to discussing
job hazards of firefighting and being in Iraq, really no comparison, hands down the men and women who protect us
abroad are way more badass on a whole different level!

But trying not to get side tracked, he then mentioned he had an American flag flown over Iraq during Operation Iraqi
Freedom on a rescue mission over a war-zone for the fallen firefighters on San Bernardino Engine 57.

If you're thinking what I was thinking, you're probably like: Holy SH@#$%^T! This guy is dodging IEDs and mortar
rounds and random gun fire and still has time to think of U.S. Forest Service Fallen Firefighters!

I've always just been a Lurker as they call it on "they said" so I would like to have this gentlemen recognized on
wildlandfire.com "they said" that would be awesome.

Also long story short when he got back to the States, he tried to get the flag delivered to the San Bernardino to honor
the Esperanza fallen, but I guess it never happened due to he couldn't get ahold of the right people. That's where I come
in, he is mailing the flag and documentation to me and I am going to hand deliver it to San Bernardino for him.

I've never posted anything on your website and don't really know how to post anything but if you could make something
happen for this guy I would greatly appreciate it. You can leave me out of it entirely I just want a little thank you for him
from the Firefighters.

Thanks again,
CS
INF

Readers, anyone able to make this honor happen? Ab.

www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2010/safe/norcal-fb-forcast0810.pdf  (99 K pdf file)

Ab & All:

With the recognition of the anniversaries of the Mann Gulch Fire and "Iron 44" and the personal remembrances many of
you have with these and other tragic incidents, hopefully the recognition of those left behind will be at the forefront of many
of you and cause you to continue your support of the Wildland Firefighter Foundation.

While contributing to the Foundation is a worthy cause, so too is participating in the Foundation's annual Family Day each
May. Mothers, Fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters and all the loved ones who attend to pay tribute to their fallen
loved ones deserve our community's support by attending the Family Day events in Boise and letting those loved ones,
especially the kids who have lost a parent, know that they belong to a very special community and have the support of
that community.

Just a thought.

Casey

That was 1986? Spectacular country: You Tube Ab.

Ab --

Following along on TheySaid -- and I followed the link to cbs2.com in vfd cap'n-s 8/3 post. I'm not weighing in on
the Station Fire controversy(s), but that story page has a Related Link to a Slideshow titled "Firefighting Heroes:

When fire strikes they respond, risking their lives to protect us and our homes. They work long hours in the
most hellish of conditions. Sadly, sometimes they do not come home. This risk that they knowingly and
willingly accept for all of us makes them truest of heroes. Here we take an up-close look at what it's like
to be on the fire lines and pay tribute to our firefighting heroes.

Some good images here - and maybe a pulse check or circle-back to the biggest story -- firefighters from multiple
agencies doing what we do.

Press On !

STUMPIE

Be careful out there wherever you are. Stay heads up.
From Massachusetts:

Weymouth firefighter hurt battling brush fire
www.patriotledger.com/archive/x312166686/Weymouth-firefighter-hurt-battling-brush-fire

By Patriot Ledger staff
Posted Aug 04, 2010 @ 12:12 PM
Last update Aug 05, 2010 @ 05:02 AM
WEYMOUTH —

A Weymouth firefighter was sent to the hospital Wednesday after falling from a fire truck and suffering a head injury.

The unnamed firefighter was battling a brush fire on conservation land off Cara Drive in Weymouth when the accident
occurred Wednesday morning. He was on top of the truck adding foam to the water, which helps the water seep into
the ground where brush fires smolder, Deputy Chief Rick Chase said.

The firefighter, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries, was getting down from the top of the truck when he slipped,
Chase said. The firefighter was taken to South Shore Hospital by Fallon Ambulance Service.

The fire department did not release the name of the firefighter Wednesday because attempts to reach his family were
still being made.

Firefighters had been battling the brush fire for two days.

fair use disclaimer

Please take a moment to remember our fallen brothers....May We Never Forget

James Ramage, 63, from Redding
Roark Schwanenberg, 54, from Lostine, Ore
Shawn Blazer, 30 from Medford, Ore.
Scott Charleson, 25 from Phoenix, Ore.
Matthew Hammer, 23, from Grants Pass, Ore.
Edrik Gomez, 19, from Ashland, Ore.
Steven Renno, 21, Cave Junction, Ore
Bryan Rich, 29, from Medford, Ore.
David Steele, 19, from Ashland, Ore.

baja600

Iron 44 site in the Trinity Alps Wilderness of Northern CA. Ab.

Today is the anniversary of the Mann Gulch Fire, 1949, let’s pause a moment to remember the 13 firefighters who lost their
lives on the Helena National Forest, MT.

InformationDiva

Photo of tired firefighting troops

AL

What was the line officers' oversight responsibilities on IA of the Station Fire and what did they do?
Line officers (Forest Supervisor, District Ranger (and their staff)) have an obligation to meet the oversight
requirements of their line officers' jobs. What are their duties and did they fulfill them? Did any of them
go look at the fireground during IA?

(FS 5100 has just been rewritten in the last few years. Is this addressed anywhere?)

Mellie

vfd cap'n and ab are both right.

I hope the panels of experts that were scheduled for next week -- now postponed -- discuss how Forest Service Fire
Management is managed. I do think that many, far too many cooperators since May 2005 have been trying to figure
out what the heck is the Forest Service doing? It’s time for a change.

I hope someone will ask the panel members the following questions:

1. To all panel members: Was the Station Fire an example of Forest Service organizational failure. Did the organization
and its current design fail the fire organization and the taxpayer?

2. To a Cooperating Fire Chief on the panel: Would you support having Division Chiefs in your fire organization report
to a Biologist or some other non-fire professional within the department who does not have a high level of fire expertise?

3. To a Cooperating Fire Chief on the panel: Do you think the Forest Service would be better off with our Division Chiefs
reporting to and directly supervised by a department employee with a high level of fire expertise or by a Biologist or some
other non-fire professional within the department?

4. To any Forest Service Official in the Room: Would you support a review of the Forest Service Fire Organization to
determine if a centralized organization would improve effectiveness and lower operational costs.

5. To any Forest Service Official in the Room: In retrospect, do you think the letter sent out by a non-fire Line Officer
(Randy Moore) to R-5 Fire Leadership instructing them to order Forest Service resources to save the R-5 fire budget
was the right thing to do?

6. To any Forest Service Official in the Room: Is it possible that if the Forest Service reorganized the Fire Management
organization into a centrally managed organization, it could be more effective and could this reorganization save taxpayer
dollars?

Do you have any questions for would like the panel address when the panel convenes?

Letterman

Yeah, but in the "olden days" they figured they could get away with it and often they could. Now'a'days with the internet and almost instant information, anyone covering up would have to be pretty stupid if they figured anything but complete honesty would work. Ab.

We never update the Los Padres ECC. Ab.

Maybe, maybe not. The real question is was it by design or just an oversight? I know from seeing the stacks of material that have to be combed through and duplicated on a FOIA that it's easy to overlook documents and recordings on a very large fire. Could be an honest mistake with all the groups submitting a FOIA and looking for a fault-finding "hook" to rail about. Kind'a like swiss cheese holes leading to failure in complex high reliability organizations, only one mistake needs to be made by a clerk in this politically charged climate for the issue to blow up... All the times it's done thoroughly and impeccably don't counterbalance the mistake... Just my opinion on this one. Ab.

Dear Ab:

Just a quick note for the Wildland Firefighter readership.

The 3rd Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference will be held in Spokane, WA, October 25-29, 2010 (www.iawfonline.org/spokane2010/).

The theme of this year's conference is "Beyond Fire Behavior and Fuels: Learning from the Past to Help Guide Us in the Future".

Hope to see you there.
Marty Alexander
Program Committee Chair
3rd Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference
International Association of Wildland Fire

Thanks, Marty. Ab.

BP

www.adapx.com/resources/videos/capturx-solutions-public-safety

Feel free to send me a private message if you have any specific questions. There are many others on here who would also
love to help you.

Fire Geek

What are you using, how are you using it, and is it making the job easier. I want to use the Arc GIS (I think it is called
Capturex) with the digital maps and a pen that can read the maps and download to the laptop maps and then be sent to
whoever wants one as to what is going on out at the scene. Brings real time to what is happening. Plans gets info,
Political gets info, Chief gets info, Logistics get info, finance gets info: seems pretty hard to go wrong. My issue is the
cost to purchase and then the support to keep advancing it forward to more complexity.

Zimm

2 dead after air tanker crashes in B.C. Interior

Best regards,
Gordo

Sad news. Our thoughts and prayers for their families and friends. Ab.

Hotlist thread.

Water bomber crew confirmed killed

www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/08/01/bc-wildfires.html 

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38507618

VICTORIA, British Columbia — A wildfire in British Columbia has prevented a search and rescue team from
reaching a Canadian waterbombing plane that crashed while fighting the blaze, officials said Sunday.

The plane, which went down Saturday night, was carrying two crew members and their fate was unknown,
officials said.

Witnesses reported seeing the plane drop from the sky and seeing it crash," Dan Moskaluk of the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police said Sunday.

The plane was chartered by the provincial government from Conair in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Conair had
a second plane shadowing the one that crashed and was able to pinpoint the location of the site.

The first rescue crew to reach the scene got within 500...... more at the link...

Press the EASY BUTTON. Have fun.

Fire Geek

Ab,

The "Wonder Bread" paint scheme is rumored to have come from some IHC personnel who were bored
one night. I get this info from the person who happened to be PIC in T-121 at the time.

Some people's kids!

LMAO

Thanks for the bit of history, T. Ab.

We had a hot fast fire here in Eagle a couple days ago and I wanted to express to you all how honored I am to be a part of this community. I don't k now what was different about this one as I am in fire camps alot, but it was different. Maybe it was the cop cars and engines racing by my house and what looked like a a real dog fight with all the planes and helicopters or just the raw black smoke that engulfed our neighborhood but I found myself in the middle of the battle, I was helping neighbors move horses and animals from in side houses, I could see men and women in green and yellow in the black evacuating people and putting out hot spots, they were really heroes that day. As night fell it was calming down and people were out looking at the devastation. I was among them as well.. I cant tell you what went through me standing there with my neighborhood looking at the war zone. I was so dam proud of all the firefighters and equipment that were involved in that I couldn't stand it, People were amazed at how precise the retardant drops were and how professional every one was, only four homes were lost a couple barns and a few cars but it could have been just as easy 50 homes, people, horses and cows. 

Days later just looking at the black hill above me I still feel so honored and proud to serve this community as I do, thank you all so much for the hard work and dedication you have brought to the people you serve, I wonder sometimes if you all really know what heroes people think you are. I hope every one has a safe season and again thank you..

Burk Minor
Wildland Firefighter Foundation

and yea Boise Hot Shots that was me on the hill waiving like an idiot at you guys lol

I think this was the fire Burk's talking about. HOTLIST Ab.

I have been trying to get a handle on the issue of the HCN gas exposures, but it is getting confusing. 

• What is the issue about the gas?
• Where and when did this all start?

As a structural firefighter, HazTech, wildland firefighter, and the POC for the Hanford Fire Department HazMat team,
I think I have some info to pass along to better educate the wildland fire community. But, there seems to be a whole lot
of knee jerking, panic attack, and just plain BS misinformation running around. I am a bit lost on what to kick out that
will defuse the issue. If I can help let me know. As a structural firefighter to avoid inhalation hazards we have been
wearing SCBAs since the earth cooled 29 years now for me. The stuff in smoke is just plain bad, add hazmat issues
and it is deadly yes, education is the best teacher.

Zimm

Thanks, Zimm. Ab.

I am a retired Forest Service Fireman. My career spanned 5 decades or parts of them anyway.( 1967 thru 2002). I've enjoyed reading They Said for many summers since my retirement. Anyway to my point's. Was digging through an old bag of memorabilia the other day and found an old hard hat decal from my HOTSHOT days. I had the distinct pleasure of serving on the CHILAO HOTSHOTS, Angeles National Forest beginning in 1977. Note the spelling "HOTSHOTS" and that was 30 plus years ago. No disrespect intended, but alot of you folks probably weren't even a twinkle in your fathers eye then. If memory serves me there were 17 or 18 HOTSHOT Crews in those days including the Redding HOTSHOT IR Crew. (Inter-Regional) Which meant the Redding crew was the elite of the elite. Anyway I'm not sure on the overall issue with HOTSHOT Crews, but as in my day there are HOTSHOTS and there are crews out there. It all boils down to leadership!.

My second comment has to do with Fly Overs. Again, if my memory serves me in 2000 on the Lincoln National Forest Scott Able incident??? an Air Attack air craft crashed killing both the pilot and FS ATGS on board. Several days later a memorial service was held at the Ruidoso Performing Arts Center. As literally hundreds and hundreds of friends, family, and colleagues were assembling for the memorial, and I want to say it was at 11:00 am a P-2-V Air Tanker appeared over head and and performed a low level fly over-wingwag. I believe this brought tears to many of those in attendance. There were no fires in the area and no Air Tanker Base. How do I know of this event you ask?? Well I was there. Also, I was at the Alamogordo Air Tanker Base/Dispatch Center when the plans for this tribute was being organized. Again, this took leadership and courage to do the right thing!!

Last of all I read a lot of Agency Bashing issues on They Said. Almost all of it is over pay issues. As stated my career spanned some 35 years. I remember when CDF was called the Division of Forestry, then it went to the Department of Forestry, then Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, and now simply Cal Fire. When I started my career with the Forest Service I actually took a pay cut. My first summer I was making $2.98 per hour, and you know what---I was making more money than my friends working for the Division of Forestry. I can actually remember being released from mutual aid fires (CDF) because I or we (FS EMPLOYEES) made to much money. During my career many of my friends and colleagues have been Cal Fire employees. I can't ever remember us arriving on an incident and standing around and comparing paychecks---we were there to get a job done and we did. I can honestly say I choose my profession. If I had it to do all over again I wouldn't change a thing. As a matter of fact I can't believe I actually got paid for doing some of the things I did. But again that's just me. To sum things up--choose a career that pays you the big bucks---I personally enjoyed all the life's experiences and going home each night at the end of my day.

Well enough from an old retired guy.

hang in there

Some nice fire photos of the Callahan Fire 2008 on Fire 44. Thanks to Matt.

Also put a historic AT photo from '76 or '77 on Airtankers 33. Thanks, Tim. Ab.

www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2010/lessons-learned/hazard-tree-advisory.doc

Rep. Adam Schiff
With fellow Members of Congress:
Rep. David Dreier
Rep. Howard Buck McKeon
Rep. Judy Chu

August 10, 2010
10 am
Volosh Forum at Pasadena City College
1570 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA 91106

Last summer, the Station Fire ravaged the Angeles National Forest, burning 160,000 acres over 50 days. Thousands of homes were threatened, and two members of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, Captain Ted Hall and Firefighter Specialist Arnie Quinones, tragically lost their lives fighting the fire. In addition, the Station Fire suppression effort cost almost $100 million, a significant fraction of the Forest Service firefighting budget for the year. The initial attack on the fire was swift and aggressive, but over the first evening and the next morning, the fire escaped into terrain too dangerous to approach and spread quickly thereafter. Some former Forest Service employees, fire experts and local residents have raised questions about whether the responding agencies followed the appropriate protocols and made the right decisions on the first night of the fire, and the early morning of the next day.

Rep. Schiff has convened this panel with his colleagues to hear from representatives of the Forest Service and other responding agencies, as well as outside experts and critics. The panel will endeavor to shine some light on firefighting procedures and techniques, how they were applied during the Station Fire, and how they should be revised to improve outcomes in the future.

Invited speakers:

Panel 1:
William Derr, retired Forest Service employee
Don Feser, retired Angeles National Forest Fire Chief
Duncan Baird, homeowner, Vogel Flats Fire Recovery Alliance

Panel 2:
Jody Noiron, Forest Supervisor, Angeles National Forest
Will Spyrison, Division Chief, Angeles National Forest
Jon Tripp, Chief Deputy of Emergency Operations, L.A. County Fire Department
Battalion Chief, L.A. County Fire Department
Dispatcher, Angeles National Forest ECC

Panel 3:
Tom Harbour, Director of Fire and Aviation Management, Forest Service
Bob Cavage, President, Wildfire Research Network
Casey Judd, Federal Wildland Fire Service Association
David Gillotte, President, Intl. Assoc. of Fire Fighters, Local 1014
P. Michael Freeman, Chief, L.A. County Fire Department

I am pleased to announce that Antonio (Tony) Cofresi has been selected for the position of Regional Safety and Occupational Health Manager. Mr. Cofresi is currently an Industrial Hygienist/Safety Specialist with the U.S. Coast Guard, Homeland Security, Oakland, CA, where he has worked since April 2007. Previously, he was an Environmental Specialist with the U.S. Air Force located in Washington, DC. Mr. Cofresi is retired military having spent 20 years in the U.S. Air Force in the fields of Industrial Hygiene and Safety and Occupational Health. He has completed numerous Incident Command System courses and has experience leading high complexity industrial health projects and investigations. Mr. Cofresi earned a Bachelor's Degree from Southern Illinois University in Industrial Technology and a Master's Degree in Environmental Management from the University of Maryland. He is currently deployed to the Gulf where he is part of the Incident Command Team working on the oil spill and clean up. Mr. Cofresi is scheduled to report on August 30.

Please join me in welcoming Mr. Cofresi to our leadership team. Jim

Jim Peña
Deputy Regional Forester (R5)

Eight years gone from the earth, eight years watching out for us from across the river.

Steve, Heather, John.... we miss you.

-Rob

Indeed. Ab.

Been lurking for years and although tempted to comment at times I've always felt I could learn more from listening
than speaking. The time to speak finally came because I couldn't resist issuing a compliment to airtac on the 6/27
post. What a classy way to put this whole discussion in perspective.

I have tremendous respect for those who have taken the time to mentor me and provide opportunities I wouldn't
have otherwise had but its all just the employment/work/pride thing. The most important things are those airtac
mentions which extend way beyond what we seem to get wrapped around the axle about.

Thanks airtac - you made my day.

Still Listening...

Following the posts here over the past week or so makes me think folks don’t have near enough to do. Honestly, squabbling over memorial fly-over policy and spelling of fire terms … geeeezz! Here it is, nearly August, just days away from peak season with indices inching upward in the inland Northwest. There was a serious close-call engine burn-over in Yakama, WA just days ago. Put your Nomex on, lace up your boots, water up your line gear, and let’s get our heads back in the game people. Can you spell “LCES?”

Nozzel Hog

I am grateful to be part of a community that cares enough about one of its own to debate how they should be honored.
I admire those managers who are just following policy and I also respect those who would appreciate a fly over.

The discussion makes one ponder what the measure of success is in the fire business. Is it achievement to the upper
echelon in the organization and the resulting high three salary before retirement? Is it the number of jumps/rappels, years
as a Hotshot, OT, or position on an Incident Management Team?

Or is it relationships with others? Is it how many birthdays, anniversaries and quality time including summer vacations
one made with the family during fire season? Is it how good of a spouse, father, mother, or mentor one was?

In the big scheme of things, how important is anyone's contribution to the fire business? I believe the only thing that
will bring a family peace is their knowledge of an individuals relationship with their Maker, not if a fly over took place.

Respectfully,

airtac

flyover

Despite my commitment to end my part in the flyover controversy, a few have communicated some confusion about the apology I issued.

I apologized to Tim, John, and Kevin about making it personal, naming them, putting it below the waterline (honor, integrity, etc.). I apologized for at least partially going after “The Who,” not “The What” in this AAR. Not walkin’ the talk at all, pard.

On the flip side, I am not apologizing in any way, shape, or form for my expressions of disbelief at the manner in which this was handled, i.e., The What.”

I would still very much like them to work this out.

In the meantime, I'm gonna follow Dunton's 99.9% probable course of action of "Screw it, Hugh.Let's go have a drink and have some fun."

See you in Carson City, folks.

Best regards,

Hugh Carson

United we Stand,

Other things to cling to:

* The gratitude and relief division shows when your crew is assigned to him/her
* A safety/knowledge/work/skill level second to none
* Solving, not creating problems
* Intolerance of mediocrity within the crew

It's about what you do, not what they call you. I can go online and buy the exact shirt Drew Brees wears, but it doesn't help my passing. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, enjoy it.

Giving my Hotshot shirts to my grandkids (they all shrunk somehow),

The Fire Curmudgeon

Ab,

I had the pleasure of meeting earlier today Daniel Palazzolo at our US Forest Service Fire Station in Northeastern Utah. He is an 8 year veteran of the US Forest Service, most recently working on a Heli-Rappel crew out of the Payson National Forest. His sister contracted breast cancer and he is on a cross-country ride from Atlanta, Georgia to the Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to raise money for the Susan G. Komen Pink for the Cure Campaign. Knowing how our profession likes to take care of the own I am hoping that you post this on They Said to help spread the word and help Jason raise money for Breast Cancer Research. A web site where more information is about his ride for the cure is www.ATLtotheArctic.com. Thanks for your help.

Former North Ops AFEO