They can put in the bill enough money to move a baseball team to a new stadium, but they can’t put a small percentage of that money to pay for federal first responders to be able to have livable wages, Fuckin embarrassing.
My name is Murry Taylor. I wrote Jumping Fire: A Smokejumper's Memoir of Fighting Wildfire. I had 27 seasons as a jumper, 6 others reg. firefighting, and 20 years as the Duzel Rock Lookout for Cal Fire here in Northern CAlifornia. I also authored the novel Too Steep and Too Rough, an upclose and personal look at what's wrong with the Forest Service here and most all the West. The book addressed the issue you mention about a national standard for wildfire response. During my years on the lookout I saw season after season where new starts were NOT responded to, sometimes for a couple days. When locals asked the FS why that was the case, the standard resppnse was that the country was Too Steep and Too Rough. That term became a mantra for the FS out west. If they're really serious about reducing the cost of all these fires then they need to startt PUTTING THEM OUT WHILE THEY ARE SMALL. In the years from 2020 to 1023, the average US smokejumper made ONLY 4 fire jumps all season. In those years--some of the worst in history--the jumpers et on the sidelines, unused. We used to average 10. One year I did 17, guys have made 20 plus. Another way to cut costs (in my opiinion) would be to take a good look at how much is wasted on fire retardant, dropped with no support on the ground, doing little but knocking boulders and big logs down the hill. Millions are wasted on that and my guess is if a new FS Chief comes from that industry, that issue will NOT be addressed. It's all about IA if you really want to save money and burned acreage. As I understand it the State of Oregon (ODF) just adopted the old 10 AM rule, to staff fires by 10 AM the day after detection. THAT'S A GREAT START. It can be done. Just look at the Rogue River-Siskiyou N.F. and what they've done since 2020. It's written up in Smokejumper magazine, April 2022 issue, entitled Standing Tall, Making a Difference. You can find that by going to Smokejumpers.com, then search for that issue. They proved you can put almost all these fires out small but who is listening the them? Changes are in the wind but if they're to best succeed they need to focus on IA, IA, IA, fast and swift. Thanks to The Hotshot Wakeup for you work in helpihg fix the wildfire problems.
Amazing book you wrote, which is actually what motivated me to go into wildfire after leaving the military. Would be neat to hear your perspective on the podcast.
My take on the DOGE perspective, I see it from both sides. YES the boots on the ground are under paid, but the agencies that pay for them are disastrously ran and have shown complete fraudulent waste of tax payer funds in recent years. I say a DOGE hatchet straight through these agencies is in order, cut those thousands of GS15s making 150-200k a year working through zoom calls at there vacation home in boulder who produce nothing. I think funding the federal firefighter paycheck protection act at this point will be completely wasted by these federal agencies until we cut the fat.
And back to your point, totally agree. We owe it to the citizens in our communities and our nations natural resources to aggressively initial attack fires. And to tie this into the podcast I am in agreement with Tim Sheehy over national wildfire reform, but the latter half of his point here fails to recognize the fire paradox, which is the harder we fight fire the bigger they get due to fuel loads. He also sounds like he just wants to pump up the Fire Industrial Complex, I don’t think we need more technology in the industry to super detect fires and have AI drones on them in seconds. Unless we also plan to follow that up with just as aggressive fuel treatments, timber harvest, and prescribed fire.
Excellent points here. And nothing makes me happier than to here Jumping Fire got some into wildland fire. Thankfully I get that quite a bit. Yes, you're spot-on on the difficultly involved with trimming the waste in the Wildland fire industrial complex. As for the comment that putting out fires will lead to more bigger fires later, this is my take. Yes, it was wrong-headed to put so many fires out in the past. I was part of that. But we have to look at where WE ARE NOW. With climate change these fires--if not put out quickly--will urn the entire National forests of the West in the next 30-40 years. With aggressive IA we can (maybe) extend that to 100 years plus, giving the land more time to recover and reset to a more natural fire occurence pattern. The Feds need to put out all these fires in May, June, and July, because that's we they can put them out. If they don't put the early one out then they come to August with wornout crews, scattered all over hell, and the sky full of smoke so that air operations can't work. Like I said, given these new longer fire seasons there will be plenty of fire on the land. thanks for you input here, lots of good points. And you might like to read Too Steep and Too Rough since you liked Jumping Fire.
Great point. I think we can agree that letting anything go July-September with our current fuel loads will lead to unnatural stand replacing fires every time. Aggressive IA and Aggressive fuel treatments until we can get a handle on things is the only way forward.
Thanks for the update. I get painfully little information from managers above. I appreciate you talking to as many people as are willing and sharing what you find.
I hear you but if we are strict about only putting out fires when they are small does that not lead to catastrophic fires because of unmanaged forests? Perhaps if more money was devoted to actually managing forests then it wouldn't be a matter of putting out or not putting out fires based on their size. Either way I think we lose as a community for at least another year.
They can put in the bill enough money to move a baseball team to a new stadium, but they can’t put a small percentage of that money to pay for federal first responders to be able to have livable wages, Fuckin embarrassing.
Exactly!! Did you know a baseball player just won a 700...il say that again a 700 million dollar contract. What actual F?
My name is Murry Taylor. I wrote Jumping Fire: A Smokejumper's Memoir of Fighting Wildfire. I had 27 seasons as a jumper, 6 others reg. firefighting, and 20 years as the Duzel Rock Lookout for Cal Fire here in Northern CAlifornia. I also authored the novel Too Steep and Too Rough, an upclose and personal look at what's wrong with the Forest Service here and most all the West. The book addressed the issue you mention about a national standard for wildfire response. During my years on the lookout I saw season after season where new starts were NOT responded to, sometimes for a couple days. When locals asked the FS why that was the case, the standard resppnse was that the country was Too Steep and Too Rough. That term became a mantra for the FS out west. If they're really serious about reducing the cost of all these fires then they need to startt PUTTING THEM OUT WHILE THEY ARE SMALL. In the years from 2020 to 1023, the average US smokejumper made ONLY 4 fire jumps all season. In those years--some of the worst in history--the jumpers et on the sidelines, unused. We used to average 10. One year I did 17, guys have made 20 plus. Another way to cut costs (in my opiinion) would be to take a good look at how much is wasted on fire retardant, dropped with no support on the ground, doing little but knocking boulders and big logs down the hill. Millions are wasted on that and my guess is if a new FS Chief comes from that industry, that issue will NOT be addressed. It's all about IA if you really want to save money and burned acreage. As I understand it the State of Oregon (ODF) just adopted the old 10 AM rule, to staff fires by 10 AM the day after detection. THAT'S A GREAT START. It can be done. Just look at the Rogue River-Siskiyou N.F. and what they've done since 2020. It's written up in Smokejumper magazine, April 2022 issue, entitled Standing Tall, Making a Difference. You can find that by going to Smokejumpers.com, then search for that issue. They proved you can put almost all these fires out small but who is listening the them? Changes are in the wind but if they're to best succeed they need to focus on IA, IA, IA, fast and swift. Thanks to The Hotshot Wakeup for you work in helpihg fix the wildfire problems.
Would you be willing to come on the show and articulate this to the listeners?
Absolutely! You have my email address, just email me a time and how we can connect. There's much to share here.
Amazing book you wrote, which is actually what motivated me to go into wildfire after leaving the military. Would be neat to hear your perspective on the podcast.
My take on the DOGE perspective, I see it from both sides. YES the boots on the ground are under paid, but the agencies that pay for them are disastrously ran and have shown complete fraudulent waste of tax payer funds in recent years. I say a DOGE hatchet straight through these agencies is in order, cut those thousands of GS15s making 150-200k a year working through zoom calls at there vacation home in boulder who produce nothing. I think funding the federal firefighter paycheck protection act at this point will be completely wasted by these federal agencies until we cut the fat.
And back to your point, totally agree. We owe it to the citizens in our communities and our nations natural resources to aggressively initial attack fires. And to tie this into the podcast I am in agreement with Tim Sheehy over national wildfire reform, but the latter half of his point here fails to recognize the fire paradox, which is the harder we fight fire the bigger they get due to fuel loads. He also sounds like he just wants to pump up the Fire Industrial Complex, I don’t think we need more technology in the industry to super detect fires and have AI drones on them in seconds. Unless we also plan to follow that up with just as aggressive fuel treatments, timber harvest, and prescribed fire.
Excellent points here. And nothing makes me happier than to here Jumping Fire got some into wildland fire. Thankfully I get that quite a bit. Yes, you're spot-on on the difficultly involved with trimming the waste in the Wildland fire industrial complex. As for the comment that putting out fires will lead to more bigger fires later, this is my take. Yes, it was wrong-headed to put so many fires out in the past. I was part of that. But we have to look at where WE ARE NOW. With climate change these fires--if not put out quickly--will urn the entire National forests of the West in the next 30-40 years. With aggressive IA we can (maybe) extend that to 100 years plus, giving the land more time to recover and reset to a more natural fire occurence pattern. The Feds need to put out all these fires in May, June, and July, because that's we they can put them out. If they don't put the early one out then they come to August with wornout crews, scattered all over hell, and the sky full of smoke so that air operations can't work. Like I said, given these new longer fire seasons there will be plenty of fire on the land. thanks for you input here, lots of good points. And you might like to read Too Steep and Too Rough since you liked Jumping Fire.
Great point. I think we can agree that letting anything go July-September with our current fuel loads will lead to unnatural stand replacing fires every time. Aggressive IA and Aggressive fuel treatments until we can get a handle on things is the only way forward.
Thanks for the update. I get painfully little information from managers above. I appreciate you talking to as many people as are willing and sharing what you find.
I hear you but if we are strict about only putting out fires when they are small does that not lead to catastrophic fires because of unmanaged forests? Perhaps if more money was devoted to actually managing forests then it wouldn't be a matter of putting out or not putting out fires based on their size. Either way I think we lose as a community for at least another year.
In his defense Biden thought the "can" he was kicking down the road was a soccer ball soooo...