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News & Features
From the Idyllwild Town Crier weekly newspaper, 04.10.08 edition.
Federal
firefighters feel
no love from DC
By
J.P. Crumrine, Assistant Editor
Within hours after the U.S. Forest Service
(FS) released a report to Congress on April 1, firefighters were
calling the day “Black Tuesday.” The report has gained no support
within the firefighting ranks. They have lost confidence in several
senior agency officials.
“I’m appalled by it. Nothing has
changed. They’re manipulating figures. It’s equivalent to lying to
Congress,” said Norm Walker, former San Jacinto Ranger District fire
chief, who retired only days before the report’s release.
The FS submitted a report to the
Senate Appropriations Committee on its ability to recruit and retain
firefighters. Firefighting rank and file have been anxiously awaiting
the study for months.
Issues of pay, training and work environment are part of the fabric of
every public and private workplace. But Southern California appears to
be the epicenter for these issues affecting federal firefighters.
Region 5, which is all of California, is often considered the black
sheep of the Forest Service family.
The report’s authors found no data substantiating the “perceptions
around recruitment and retention in Southern California.” The findings
concluded that the region’s recruitment rate is greater than its
attrition rate.
More people want to join the FS fire ranks than are leaving, is the sum
of the report.
This is in stark contrast to Walker’s and others’ experiences. During
summer 2007, for instance, several FS fire stations in the San Jacinto
Ranger District were only open five days per week instead of seven days
because of difficulty in recruiting firefighters.
Preliminary indications are that three of the district’s seven stations
will be open only five days a week once fire season starts in a month.
A year ago, the Anza station was completely closed except for
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) staff.
A third of the engines on the entire San Bernardino National Forest
will be staffed only five days, according to Forest Fire Chief Mike
Dietrich.
“There is a very high rate of turnover on the San Bernardino, “ he
said. “We’ve raised it as a problem and challenge.”
The new captain of Engine 57 left the FS last summer for a
better-paying job with CAL FIRE. He had served less than a year. His
replacement accepted a position with CAL FIRE in December. So far, the
station does not have a new captain.
But FS officials argue that no hiring or retention problems exist. They
claim, “The attrition rate in Southern California is below national
averages.”
The FS firefighter attrition rate is 9.4 percent annually in Southern
California — Angeles, Cleveland, Los Padres and San Bernardino national
forests — compared to 13.4 percent nationwide for the entire
federal government. The entire federal government includes the FS,
National Parks and the Bureau of Land Management. The FS Region 5’s
attrition rate is 7.2 percent and the agency’s nationwide rate is 6.3
percent. The attrition rate in Southern California is 50 percent higher
than the whole FS.
Furthermore, 46.6 percent, or nearly half, of entry-level firefighters
leave the FS in Southern California. As Walker has noted in the past,
the FS’ investment in these people approaches $100,000 per person for
training.
For the entire FS the attrition rate at this level is half the local
rate. While the captain and district chief attrition rates appear low
at 1.1 percent, they are still higher than FS-wide attrition at the
same grade levels.
Wildlandfire.com,
a firefighter Internet discussion group, was full of thoughts and
reactions to the
report. Most commentators only used their blog name. The agency had
quickly passed the word that all press inquiries should be submitted to
public information officers at regional offices.
Since the report submitted to Congress is quite different than the
draft reportedly prepared in this region, firefighters are aghast at
headquarters’ behavior.
“The Black Tuesday announcement was a complete betrayal to the federal
wildland firefighting community,” said Kenneth Kempter, Southern
California Chapter director of the Federal Wildland Fire Service
Association (FWFSA). “After being promised that recruitment and
retention would be factually looked at ... it was put back to the field
that there were no recruitment and retention issues in California.”
The draft report addressed sensitive issues such as “portal to portal”
pay. In other words many states, including California, do pay
firefighters for their complete time working an emergency. But the FS
firefighters’ pay doesn’t start until they arrived on the scene.
The anguish and anger were exacerbated when senior Agriculture
official, Under Secretary Mark Rey, indicated that “mission creep” was
contributing to the Southern California disgruntlement. He was
referring to FS responses to emergency medical calls, something unique
in Southern California. But FS firefighters say this isn’t correct,
that FS firefighters in other states also respond to medical calls.
This mistake set the scene; firefighters believe that changes in the
report were intentional distortions.
Some changes were made to ensure that salary comparisons to CAL FIRE
reflected appropriate comparisons. For example, state shifts have
overtime built into them, according to Lenise Lago, Forest Service
budget officer.
The report concluded the Forest Service pays a higher hourly wage,
although CAL FIRE staff may earn a greater annual salary. But one
discrepancy that might skew these figures occurs when both agencies
respond to a fire, such as last October’s fire siege.
CAL FIRE firefighters receive pay for 24 hours each day at the fire,
including nights. Forest Service firefighters receive only 15.5 hours
of pay. This would lower the CAL FIRE firefighters’ hourly wage but
raise their total annual salary.
Meanwhile, FWFSA believes Congress is skeptical of the report’s
conclusions and willing to listen to new voices about the problem.
“The report is just a bump in the road,” said Casey Judd, FWFSA
executive director. He is organizing several visits between
firefighters and Congressional representatives during the May district
work period.
Rey and Forest Chief Abigail Kimbell left the hearing promising to fill
vacant firefighting positions, according to Lago. Idyllwild will know
the results within weeks.
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