The Hotshot Wakeup covered this here.
For TSW readers, I think the important part is his observation below.
This wildfire bill may spark some concern about returning to the 10 AM rule… but it’s a response standard, not a suppression standard.
I’ll just excerpt what he has to say about that (there are other interesting things about the bill).
First, this Bill sets a 30-minute response time for new wildfires, but what that actually means is defined as the following:
RESPONSE TIME- The term “response time”, with respect to a wildland fire incident, means the period of time between ignition of the wildland fire and evaluation for purposes of suppression of that wildland fire, on the ground or in an aircraft.
To me, this sounds like a traditional size-up. They are asking to have eyes on the fire within 30 minutes by air or ground and have some sort of evaluation done for how to suppress the fire. Pretty straightforward. This bill would set a 30-minute standard for that action to take place.
It continues by saying this could be accomplished by any Federal, State, or local public safety officer or a public safety volunteer. If the fire is on federal land, it would be whoever has jurisdiction, including the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, USFWS, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, or the Fire Administration under FEMA.
Furthering clarification on how this would work:
Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary concerned shall establish a standard for the response time to any wildland fire incident occurring on Federal land administered by the Secretary concerned.
Goal- To the extent practicable, the response time established by the Secretary concerned for a wildland fire incident shall-
be not more than 30 minutes, and
include the deployment of fire suppression assets in a response time of not more than 3 hours.
The critical part here is “to the extent practical,” as these standards would be challenging to meet in places like Alaska, where fires can take hours to get to, and time-consuming refueling might be necessary due to the vast and expansive landscape.
The bill also calls for the wildfire agencies to essentially take an audit of available ground and aviation resources and determine if they are sufficient to meet the standards.
It asks the Agencies for “a description of the composition of the aviation and ground wildland firefighting fleet as of the date on which the report is submitted; and an estimation of the size of that fleet required to provide a response time of not more than 30 minutes for wildland fires occurring in the United States, including the deployment of fire suppression assets in a response time of not more than 3 hours.”
I assume they will say it will take a large amount of wildland firefighting and aviation resources to accomplish this.
It pretty basic. Instead of the Forest Service “watching” a wildfire to see if “positive ecosystem impacts” will take place, you make your response time as quick as possible. And, then put out the fire. No more “managed” wildfires; the landscape conditions simply will not allow. For the foreseeable future, the concept of “managed” wildfires simply will not work. Very skilled practitioners with literally thousands of years of experience are saying this. Yet, someone from an environmental science group argues otherwise and a “leader” seems to fold like a cheap suit. Good leaders take courage. Don’t be a “dot” person and never actually take a swing at reality.
As I have said before. I am not in love with a 10:00 AM policy. Forget about the name and see the intent. Simply put, first put out the fire as quickly as possible. No one that I have talked to is questioning an Incident Commander. We know they are so skilled and deeply appreciated for all they do. What is being begged for is good leadership from the very top. How about some real clear text in a letter to employees saying in 2025, our goal is to put out all wildfires as quickly as possible; no exceptions.
This is so shameful what is happening. Our forestlands are turning into brush lands and we know exactly how to stop this debacle, yet we never take a swing for fear of making an error or offending the tree huggers association. Well I have been a tree hugger for a very long time and I talk to the trees. They are really angry with us. For so long they have improved our lives and we reward the trees by letting them burn. That’s really sad. When will enough be enough? I wonder if the new Forest Service Chief will do anything to address this National Emergency? He better or why work for the once greatest conservation organization in the world. Gosh I hope he feels a calling to stop this mess and restore the health, resilience, and sustainability of our forests and remember that forest are more than just trees.
Very respectfully
Tone deaf… after all these firings????
You do remember the ole adage “Doing something over and over and over again expecting a different result?”
Not all fires are bad, not all trees are good. The fire deficit is real and is not going away anytime soon. As a matter of fact our fire deficit is exponentially getting worse each year we try to cage Mother Nature….. until one day….., we can no longer stretch….. and w.e.b.r.e.a.k….. We know for a fact that forested landscapes need good, beneficial fire and yes, we can use wildfire to meet land and resource management objectives. High severity conditions on our forests are not the same everywhere – – all at once – -all the time. Some parts of the country are in the sweet spot for natural ignitions while other parts are in high severity in need of a full suppression response.
Shameful that in a time of massive terminations, your ICP actually BeLiEVEs there is a fully functioning federal workforce with high morale that might be able to achieve said objectives.
This sounds a lot like what most people in the Forest Service have always complained about – top-down management that doesn’t recognize local conditions. But it would fit well with the rest of the blunt instruments this administration is using (mass firings, tariffs).
It would be nice to see some actual analysis of the alternatives – current policy that allows some fires to burn, and this proposed change. Acres burned (and related effects on the land), smoke effects, costs? It seems like the general question is whether more suppression would actually be a good idea in the long-term, or is it more “pay me now or pay me (more) later?”
Quoting from the article:
“It asks the Agencies for “a description of the composition of the aviation and ground wildland firefighting fleet as of the date on which the report is submitted; and an estimation of the size of that fleet required to provide a response time of not more than 30 minutes for wildland fires occurring in the United States, including the deployment of fire suppression assets in a response time of not more than 3 hours.” ”
Agency attempts to respond to this provision may well run into the same iceberg that has foundered similar legislative efforts: OMB. I’m guessing the amount of money (and therefore the FTEs) the current adminstration is willing to ask for on behalf of the agencies will fall well short of any credible estimate they might produce in response to this legislative language, and therefore that estimate would likely never see the light of day.
This is a solution to a problem imagined by people who don’t know how to solve the problem. The problem is not that there is too much wildfire, the problem is that there hasn’t been enough fire. In California alone, over 4 million acres burned annually to maintain the fire regimes of CA’s vegetation communities. But this is what was happening before EuroAmericans showed up and moved the native people off the lands we wanted beginning the long fire suppression era. Without more fire, we will not solve our wildfire problem.
We also have a development problem – we build flammable structures in vegetation communities historically maintained by fire. We fell in love with nature and living in it, but we vilify what maintains it. So we suppressed the fires in our neighborhoods for decades and every year the trees and brush kept growing.
How many firefighters, fire trucks, and aircraft does it take to respond in 10 minutes and have people/equipment on scene within 3 hours? That is the wrong question. The question is “how do we solve our wildfire crisis? Or “How do we minimize impacts of wildfires on homes, other infrastructure and, resources we value with minimal risk to firefighters?” Smart fire scientists have been working on these problems for decades. Don’t fire the scientists, ask them about their research.