Sunday, February 5, 2017

Battling the blaze of bureaucracy…

Viveash - 2000
(Santa Fe NF - New Mexico)
I’m proud to be a wildland firefighter: one of the many skills required of a National Park Ranger in the protection ranks back-in-the-day. Many friends and colleagues know that when I retired from the NPS I also left emergency incident management. I’d been the Safety Officer on one of the two Southwest Area’s Type I Interagency Incident Management Teams 1993-2000. When the team I’d been with those eight years was mobilized and sent to NYC/WTC right after 9/11, I second-guessed being totally retired from that aspect of emergency management. I felt I could still contribute, and have been going each year since 2002. However, now apparently emergency management may have left me.
           
Safety Sam & I at Soberanes (CA) - 2016
A little background: as a retiree I must have the proper training, skills, certifications and annual refreshers that employees have. I’m just not under the pressure to be as available for the call-when needed emergency dispatches. When the call comes, I am literally engaged in a “fire drill” as I must get hired as an A.D. (Administratively Determined) Casual Hire firefighter by the NPS, while I pack and get travel arranged (rental car, or flights via our dispatch center/zone). I’ve had incidents where I had to call back and unaccept an assignment because it was a weekend and no one was available to approve the hiring form. That seems to have been remedied over the past several years due some dedicated folks at Bandelier National Monument. Anyway, when the call comes, and I’m available, I love to go and still contribute. 
Me at Medical tent - Borrego Fire
(NM) - 2002

I’m not sure about the upcoming year, as A.D. firefighters have not been exempted from the federal hiring freeze. (02-08-17 UPDATE: A.D. firefighters have now been exempted from the hiring freeze). Permanent and seasonal firefighters have been exempted (so yes, we should still have Hotshot crews), but not the call-when-needed folks (like me). In fact, I’ve been told I am not to attend training (annual fire refresher) without which I won’t be certified for 2017 (my 30th year as a Safety Officer). I sure hope it doesn’t impact the Returning Heroes Wildland Firefighter program. They are primarily military veterans hired as A.D. firefighters: hopefully their nexus with the State will be their umbrella to keep on doing-good (“Three Cheers for Returning Heroes!”) http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/SFD/FireMgt/ADandReturningHeroesWildlandFirefighterProgramInformation.html
           
Part of NPS contingent
Post Planning Mtg; Carpenter 1 Fire
(NV) - 2013
Why do I like to go? There is the contribution factor previously mentioned (when you’re in your 70th-year there seem to be diminished opportunities for that). Also getting to work with young professionals in the fire and emergency medical services keeps you growing and learning. There is also the “Ol’ Gang” factor too. Sometimes you get to see folks you’ve worked with for decades, from an “alphabet soup” of agencies, departments & organizations. Yes, there is still the “adrenaline rush” that comes with every dispatch, but that only gets you through a few days. OK, there is also the “fiscal factor” looming too. The pay you earn makes those long (14-16 hour) days worthwhile after the rush is long-gone.
           
Sour Biscuit (OR) - 2002
Several of my former NPS colleagues have signed-up with local fire departments in their vicinity on an “as needed” basis, and are mobilized as cooperators: a win-win for all involved (they usually cost more)? As local resources they aren’t subject to the federal freeze. On the other A.D. side of the resources equation is the large workforce we receive at our wildland fires each year from state department of forestry employees in the southeast: they take annual leave from their state jobs and signup as A.D. firefighters battling blazes in the west (their primary fire seasons are before & after ours). That truly is a win-win, but now that is caught in the hiring freeze.

Hopefully this will get ironed-out soon; before it hurts people, property or our patrimony. Whether
Driving towards Silver Fire (NM) - 2013
driving or flying, I hope I can continue to scout, size-up and provide in-put to an incident’s plan, and be a positive party to the achievement of the incident objectives.


THANKS again to ALL that participate, 
or support those that do…



Chipper Crew, Little Bridge Creek (WA) -2014

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