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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.
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| 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.
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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 30
th 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
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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 70
th-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.
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| 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
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| 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…
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| Chipper Crew, Little Bridge Creek (WA) -2014 |
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