Federal Sizzling Shot Hearth Crews Going through Labor Scarcity As Wildfire Season Begins In Earnest – CBS San Francisco
BIG SUR, Monterey County (CBS SF / CNN) – When the willow fire broke out in the coastal wilderness near Big Sur, the Little Tujunga Hot Shots were among the crews who helped fight the fire.
By Monday morning, the fire had burned 2,877 acres and 56 percent contained, and there was little doubt how the Hot Shots’ expertise had helped in the difficult gun battle.
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Other Hot Shot crews battled the lava fire that raged in the woods of Lassen Volcanic National Park in Northern California on Monday morning.
But this vital resource is under threat as the forest fire season is just beginning. Veteran Hot Shot firefighters like Aaron Humphrey are leaving the service.
Humphrey was among the firefighters who responded to the deadly 2018 Carr Fire that ripped through Redding. He watched in horror as a fire tornado – Firenado – wiped out entire neighborhoods. It still haunts the former hotshot overseer.
“You are in a fog, expecting death or disaster around every corner … It has collectively killed my keen mind,” said Humphrey, 44, of the fire tornado.
“Hump,” as other firefighters and friends call him, oversaw US Forest Service hot-shot crews on bubble-generating hikes to dig fire lines, cut trees, and light fires to fight advancing flames. Hotshot crews of 20-22 lead fire attacks, and it’s not uncommon for them to hike 10 miles a day with packages of fire gear that can weigh up to 45 pounds.
Hump rose from being a seasonal firefighter to the prestigious position of Supervisor at Eldorado Hotshots. He called it the “best job in the world”.
But he stopped a year ago.
After 25 years, Hump says he’s just the newest, mentally insane, underpaid hotshot veteran to leave, at a time when the California wildfires are worst.
Hotshots go for better pay
The pay gap between state hotshots, most of whom are employed by the US Forest Service, and firefighters for other jurisdictions is staggering.
Forest Service Union vice president David Alicea, California, says federal hotshots make $ 13.50 an hour for the first year.
“Yes, you can work overtime, but we’re grinding them through the meat grinder,” Alicea told CNN. “We abuse them because we are under staff shortage and they don’t get their rest periods. They are fired when the fire season is over and they choose not to return. “
These usually young, seasonal firefighters are some of the ones who leave. But all levels of firefighters go further, including the top managers who have the most experience.
“We have seen human resource challenges due to issues such as pay, remote and hard-to-fill positions, a competitive job market, and the physical and psychological stress on fire fighters year-round,” said Regina Corbin, a US forest service spokeswoman told CNN via E-mail.
Corbin said Region 5, which also includes California, is converting temporary seasonal jobs to permanent full-time positions to improve recruitment and retention.
She says the problems are not new and apply to other federal fire fighters.
Alicea agrees.
“We’re at the bottom of the engine crews,” he said. “I know three or four forests that are not occupied.”
He estimates they’ll be short of 35 key hotshots in California this summer.
Senator Dianne Feinstein urged the US Forest Service in a May hearing on how to prevent hotshots from being lost to other places with higher salaries.
“We have 19 million hectares” [of California forestland] under federal jurisdiction, “Feinstein said at the May 26 hearing on Capitol Hill. “The state salary is $ 70,000 that Cal Fire pays a state firefighter. The United States Forest Service pays $ 38,000. “
During the hearing, US Forest Service chief Vicki Christiansen confirmed that the average annual wage for a US Forest Service firefighter is $ 38,000.
“Government, local, and private entities can range from $ 70,000 to $ 88,000 a year, and their benefits are better,” she said.
On Wednesday, Senators Feinstein and Alex Padilla, Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona and Steve Daines from Montana wrote a letter proposing a plan to increase federal fire service wages. They are asking the Financial Services Subcommittee and the State to include this in the 2022 Financing Act, according to the letter.
Fires are getting worse and worse
Experts fear another terrible forest fire season – possibly worse than 2020, the most active fire season California has ever seen. The ongoing drought in the west is also fueling the fires, just one of the ways climate change is making the crisis worse.
The recent fires are part of a larger trend in California.
The seven largest forest fires in the state’s history occurred in the past four years, according to Cal Fire. The Carr Fire, which changed Hump’s perspective on his work, was ranked the twelfth largest fire in the state’s history.
The increase in forest fire intensity and acres burned in California can only be explained by considering climate change, according to a recent analysis of several peer-reviewed studies. Land management plays a role in this, experts say, but it alone cannot explain why the state fires have become so much more devastating.
In addition to more violent fires, a relentless drought, and another major fire season on the horizon, California is losing Hotshots, the rock star firefighters with a track record of successfully fighting these mega-fires.
“I had to be at home with my family,” Hump told CNN. “The stress I brought home (from massive fires) – I didn’t recognize myself anymore.”
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Hump, a married father with three children, ages 12, 10, and 8, now works for Pacific Gas and Electric as head of the utility’s security team.
Hump says he paid at least $ 40,000 more annually than he previously made as a hot supervisor. The money is sure to come as he now attends all of his children’s events and even trains flag football.
Not enough firefighters to form hot-shot crews
There’s a shortage of hotshots across the country, but California hotshots are hit harder, according to Jonathan Miller, chairman of the National Forest Service Firefighters Union.
“We saw some wear and tear on federal crews and machinery, but nothing like the scarcity in California,” Miller said.
Alicea says 15 California Interagency Hotshot crews don’t have enough members to be activated as a full fire department unit. CNN has received a CIHC document confirming this figure.
When a hotshot crew isn’t big enough, fires are harder to fight, says Hump. Smaller crews cannot split up into small squads as effectively or help teams with special missions.
Members with special qualifications must be referred to as the hotshot crew, nicknamed for fighting the hottest fires. These crews are trained to manage “strategic and tactical forest fires,” according to the US Forest Service website.
Two crews, Modoc and Horseshoe Meadow, operate as even less staffed fire fighting modules.
The Eldorado Hotshots could soon lose another seasoned manager, Captain DJ McIlhargie.
“I have five irons in the fire right now,” McIlhargie told CNN. “I’m looking for something that will help my family more. And my wife knows that I’m tired of waiting for the forest service to pay me a reasonable salary that corresponds to the other departments. “
McIlhargie, father of two boys, 7 and 10, lives an hour outside of Sacramento. He described feeling “wiped out” and “frustrated” as he battled the most recent series of superfires.
McIlhargie, 39, says there just aren’t enough firefighters to tackle massive fires like the one that devastated northern California last year.
He says the Eldorado Hotshots spent a month stopping the largest forest fire in California history, the August Complex fire that burned more than 1 million acres.
The years in the firefight wear down the hotshots from helmets to boots, says McIlhargie.
“My knees hurt every day,” he says. “My rotator cuffs are ratcheting and clicking from swinging tools and carrying canisters (used for explosives) and carrying saws and carrying your (rucksack) backpack.”
“Your freedom of movement in your hips is starting to decrease,” McIlhargie said.
More houses are on fire without enough hotshots
If vacant hotshot positions fail to be filled, firefighters interviewed by CNN said more houses will burn.
“It used to be hotshots for us to be in the mountains, in the hinterland to fight these fires,” said McIlhargie. “Now it seems that every single fire has an element of wild country fire and urban interface.”
Maeve Juarez spent a year as a Redding Hotshot in 2004.
The 41-year-old mother of two gave up her job with the US government as battalion chief in the Los Padres National Forest four years ago.
“I left because I took a better-paying job with the Montecito Fire Department that allowed me to spend more time with my children and be less stressed,” she said.
Juarez says the pay is significantly higher in her new role as Wildfire Specialist in Montecito.
Due to her experience, Juarez serves as the head of the fire department, a kind of general directorate of fire brigade troops of many authorities.
Juarez says the loss of hotshots, especially from supervisors, to other jobs is hampering California’s efforts to fight mega-fires.
“These superheroes know the terrain, what kind of scrub burns, and how an area burned in the past,” said Juarez. “They are a big part of our fire-fighting decision making, strategy and tactics.”
She added, “When a seasoned superintendent leaves, we lose that experience and they are our backbone.”
Hump remembers his heated decades, visions of firefights, falling trees, severely burned crew members and dying hotshots. He helped set up a memorial service in Arizona for the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who were killed in a fire eight years ago.
“It’s that sense of doom that every fire makes you lose someone you care about,” said Hump. “It’s scary. It’s hard to communicate with your family because you don’t want to scare them. You just hug her and you never want to leave. “
After leaving the demise of that deadly fire tornado in 2018, Hump looks to this July 4th to do something he’s never done before.
“I plan to teach my children how to fish,” he said. “I never had the time.”
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