I recommend listening to The Hotshot Wakeup’s interview with USWFS Chief Brian Fennessey last Friday. There’s nothing like hearing directly from the horse’s mouth. As we thanked the fire workforce a few weeks agao, he also attributes the success of this fire season to the workforce.. despite the challenges of a low snowpack and organizational changes, they pulled it off.
Take the mission and carry it out as best they can. And we feel like they did that. And in some cases, like I say, it was just unbelievable. The feedback I’ve gotten from type I CIMTs on how great it was to be sitting at the agency administrative briefing and looking another firefighter in the eye.
That doesn’t mean the line officer wasn’t there sharing resource values at risk and those sorts of things, but how well that went. Now, there’s occasions where we may have new FMOs, unit chiefs, where maybe that didn’t go as smoothly as it needed to. Not a surprise.
But the fact that there was so much fire on Department of Interior dirt this year, where we got to really exercise what this new organization was going to be like, and the fact that All of the horror stories that we heard in the winter and spring, what was going to happen and woe is me, none of that happened, I think speaks to the firefighters that are out there doing the job. We asked a lot of them, Tim. I mean, we asked them not only to continue to be FMOs and fire managers, but we asked them to be fire administrators too. And we didn’t give them much support.There wasn’t much to give at the time other than get through the season and You know, as best we could. And so we’re feeling pretty good about that, but at the same time understanding that we got a lot of work ahead of us as well.
Previously, THW had covered about some internal tension going on in the Forest Service wildfire space, with some folks supportive of the new organization, and other folks highly worried about the FS wildfire folks going over.
There were four areas specifically that Fennessey touched on that I want to engage with.1, Line officers’ authorities and budgets 2 What stays and what goes with USWFS in terms of project planning and litigation. 3.Why agencies can have a culture of “no”, and what happened to Service First? and 4. Communication problems and the broader issue of why problems don’t get fixed. As always, you are invited to listen and bring up your own topics from the interview.
I thought that this was interesting
But yeah, nine months, nine and a half months in, and it’s been one heck of a ride. Yeah. I’m just learning a ton, enjoying the heck out of it, being around firefighters and the energy and enthusiasm that so many of them have. We have a weekly staff meeting, not just my executive team,
but all the geographic area fire chiefs and the exec team. There’s probably 40, 50 people on this call every Thursday that goes for a couple hours and These are the leaders of the organization and getting honest feedback on what’s working and maybe what’s not.
I think the last show we talked about the cultural coalition that we have going, which is an internal group being facilitated by Mission Center Solutions and others that is bringing feedback from the field, from those that are living it every day and putting it right in front of us.
I don’t know if other parts of Interior and the FS have a similar process. For sure, in my experience, folks will tell things to third parties they won’t tell their bosses.
I’ll start with what he said about line officers being equals and not superiors.
Take the mission and carry it out as best they can. And we feel like they did that. And in some cases, like I say, it was just unbelievable. The feedback I’ve gotten from type I CIMTs on how great it was to be sitting at the agency administrative briefing and looking another firefighter in the eye.
That doesn’t mean the line officer wasn’t there sharing resource values at risk and those sorts of things, but how well that went. Now, there’s occasions where we may have new FMOs, unit chiefs, where maybe that didn’t go as smoothly as it needed to. Not a surprise.******But back to your original question, I would say give it a chance. I think those, many of the doubters on the DOI side would tell you today that, you know, they got it wrong. Actually, it makes sense and it’s working. I would tell the line officers to talk to the DOI line officers. Yeah, was it perfect?Probably not. But hey, we’re all in this together. We cannot do this without the line officers. They cannot do it without us. It’s all about partnerships and relationships. And the nonsense that goes on in between is just that. It’s nonsense.
Budget- Are Other Folks Dipping Into the Fire Budget?
I heard that for years too, even like I said, when I worked in the 70s and 80s. And I kind of, again, I don’t, Know this, but from my perspective, it’s like, listen, if you’re any federal agency and you feel like you’ve been underfunded for years, I mean, you figure out a way to work around that, right?
And I think over the decades, you know, that’s occurred. I mean, I attended the Hotshot, a portion of the Hotshot superintendent steering committee, I believe it was in Boise, you know, my first, second, third month, whatever, up there and I remember one of the superintendents describing how they believe that the budget process went, and I think there’s 60, 70, Forest Service hotshot crews, and that the piece of pie was cut evenly, so they each got their equal piece of the pie, but when it finally got down to them, many times there was no pie, or there was very little pie left, and this and that, and you ask, well, what happens?And I think… Nobody’s necessarily doing anything quote unquote wrong. They’re just doing what’s been done for many years. You know, they’re funding, potentially positions are being funded, projects are being funded out of fire that maybe weren’t intended for that. On the DOI side, we’ve been really clear about it. It’s like, look, because it’s all coming through us, even the prescribed fire monies or fuel treatment funding, you know, we will make sure that, you know, firefighters are doing, you know, fire Related work and not non-fire work. I mean, the public is expecting us to, you know, to spend it that way. Again, to the degree that, again.
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So, other than when I worked in reforestation and genetics on forests, I was always an “off the top” funded person in the RO and WO. In the RO, my budget came from the programs who did most projects and had most appeals and litigation through some kind of formula. In the WO probably the same for the NEPA staff. What Fennessey seems to be talking about is “charge as worked” for primary fire folks, thinking that they have enough work on their own (perhaps) that they don’t need to do others’ work (whether funded by them or not?) not clear. So it’s almost like there are two areas of concern… how wildfire funding gets to the ground and who else should rightfully get a chunk, and the charge as worked question. Since I don’t understand how Interior does or doesn’t do charge as worked, that part is confusing to me.
Next post.. where do USWFS and the bureaus meet in terms of project planning, NEPA and litigation?