This link was in today’s Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities news roundup from Nick Smith
Kevin Mecham: An open letter from a Forest Service Firefighter
“The catalyst of this letter is the line of duty death of friend and co-worker Daniel Laird and the WO and RO’s management of its Forestry Technicians. Our current management structure and its subsequent repercussions on our Firefighting workforce are not new problems. Line of Duty deaths are not new problems. But Dan’s death and the Agency’s structure have shone a glaring light on the implications of our current leadership organization. As these tragedies and issues hit closer and closer to home for the “boots on the ground” it makes the weight feel even heavier. …”
The comments on this letter on the Wildfire Today website are also worth reading/considering. Region 5 Fire Organization is very different from many other regions in the Forest Service. And I have to agree with the one commenter (and I have also said for a very long time) that it is time to have a separate federal fire service and get that out of the Forest Service. The nature of the fires that we deal with today is no longer suitable for non-professional (aka militia) fire fighters. Of course, there is another example that involves California too – the California Department of Forestry is now “CAL FIRE”.