Thread: Wildfire Crews hampered by language, illegal aliens

New report questions readiness of Northwest fire crews

08:01 AM PST on Wednesday, March 22, 2006
By TIM ROBINSON / KING 5 News

http://www.king5.com

KING5.com file photo
SEATTLE - Just a week ago, Texas firefighters were battling some of the worst wildfires in that state's history. Here in the Pacific Northwest, our fire season is just around the corner. A new report out delivers some disturbing news about the readiness of some fire crews.

When a wildfire gets going, it's an extraordinarily powerful force. And the forces that fight those fires have to be powerful, too.

You might be surprised to know that many wildfire crews aren't from the Forest Service or other government agencies, but from private firms.

A U.S. Forest Service study released last week has found some disturbing problems. One third of the private crews hadn't taken the required firefighting courses. Many were promoted without adequate work experience, and sometimes, non-English speaking crews worked under English-only supervisors.

Despite the bad marks, officials say things are getting better. Even though they are firefighters from private companies, it's the Oregon Department of Forestry that oversees the majority of private U.S. crews.

Officials say they are making improvements by focusing on more training. Officials are also increasing enforcement. They took nearly 100 administrative actions against private firms last year.

Officials say they've used less private companies over the past two years because the past couple of fire seasons have been slower.


http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/ ... be481.html


Report says private firefighting crews inadequately trained

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ecrews22m.html

By Craig Welch

Seattle Times staff reporter

Private firefighting crews from the Northwest are being sent to battle wildfires with improper training that is often led by businesses with financial motives to cut corners, a three-year internal investigation by the U.S. Forest Service has concluded.

The number of private companies in Washington and Oregon that provide firefighters for blazes in the West ballooned in recent years from a few dozen to several hundred. But state and federal agencies have not been able to make sure they can safely fight those fires, according to the report released Tuesday.

From 2004 through 2005, the Forest Service investigators found that nearly a third of the firefighters they reviewed had not taken required courses, had been promoted without adequate work experience or had few or no training records. In other cases, entire crews of firefighters spoke only Spanish but were sent to fires where commanders spoke only English.In many cases, training for these crews was overseen by contractors who made more money the faster they sent people to fire lines.

The Forest Service findings mirrored a Seattle Times report in 2003 that found private businesses were breaking rules, falsifying or selling training credentials and giving bogus fitness tests to get crews to the fire lines quickly. One company paid undocumented workers 50 cents each for two weeks of firefighting. Some private crews endangered themselves and other firefighters by arriving late, skipping safety briefings or drinking and taking drugs.

As the Forest Service report was released Tuesday, fire officials maintained that they have made improvements. "We're recognizing we initially weren't managing this program particularly well," said Neal Hitchcock, deputy director for fire and aviation for the Forest Service's National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. "What's changing for us, though, is we're really starting to do internal reviews."

Hitchcock said federal agencies now do more checks of training classes, inspect records more rigorously before awarding contracts, and are arranging with community colleges to assess prospective firefighters' English skills.

Rod Nichols, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry, which oversees the bulk of the country's private crews, said his agency stepped up enforcement, taking nearly 100 administrative actions against poor-performing crews last year. And because the past two fire seasons have been slower, fewer companies have been involved in firefighting.
But he and other officials also acknowledge that some changes — a system to review firefighters' training records and better monitoring of those conducting the training, for example — won't be completed until after this summer's fire season.

"We're expecting higher performance, but, of course, all bets are off if we have a severe fire season," Nichols said.

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company



These private firms are hired by federal and state government. This is our taxdollars at work here.

This article from 2003 provides background information on this issue

Risky business: Growth of private fire crews worries forest officials

By Craig Welch
Seattle Times staff reporter

CHEWUCH VALLEY, Okanogan County — While the Forest Service was retooling safety training after the deaths of four firefighters in this rugged valley two years ago, a new danger was quietly mushrooming in the woods.

Private businesses eager to get into the increasingly lucrative wildfire-fighting industry were breaking rules, skirting training and falsifying records to send inexperienced men and women to battle blazes, according to government records. Some churned out crews that fell asleep on the fire line or couldn't understand commands in English. Others arrived hours late to fires that then ballooned out of control.

Private crews are now essential in the West's battle against flames — a war once fought primarily by government employees. The number of private 20-person firefighting crews sent by companies that contract with the government to fight fires around the nation more than tripled since 1998, from 88 to 301 this year. About 95 percent of those crews are based in the Northwest.

But some federal officials worry the quality varies dramatically from experienced, well-respected contractors to crews that present significant safety concerns. And government oversight has struggled to keep pace.

The problem grew so acute last year that Joseph Ferguson, a deputy incident commander for the Forest Service, wrote in an internal memo in November: "If we don't improve the quality and accountability of this program, we are going to kill a bunch of firefighters." Last year's fire season was a record breaker, scorching 6.9 million acres and costing $1.6 billion to fight.

With a new fire season under way, officials are still working to weed out contractors and private trainers who cut corners and put employees — or other firefighters — in harm's way. Several private crew operators are also urging the government to crack down on problem contractors.

In May, in a first-of-a-kind action, a regional firefighting group — composed of federal and state agencies — suspended a Twisp-based contractor from training any more Pacific Northwest firefighters. Employees of Charles "Bill" Hoskin, who has trained hundreds of private firefighters, told investigators that Hoskin put firefighters through a required 32-hour training course in 12 hours. He was accused of teaching Spanish-speaking firefighters with instructors who spoke only English, of selling red cards — the photo ID that shows carriers have met requirements to be a firefighter — to people he had not trained, and of giving firefighters bogus fitness tests. Hoskin, former chief of the Twisp rural volunteer fire department, has denied all charges of improper action and says he will be vindicated.

Last month, Rue Forest Contracting, of Mill City, Ore., agreed to $25,000 in fines after 23 of its firefighters were found with forged or phony training credentials. Investigators believe some were sent to fires with no training at all. Owner Larry Rue's attorney declined comment.
Last year, the Oregon Department of Forestry, which oversees fire contractors for Oregon and Washington under an interagency agreement, cited 45 private crews for various violations and banned 13 from firefighting for up to a month.

The reason: Firefighters showed up late to fires, skipped safety briefings, drank or used drugs at fire camp, engaged in sexual harassment, had falsified training records or were part of a crew with no English-speaking leaders, according to the department.

Oregon labor officials, meanwhile, said they were investigating 30 private firefighter-training or pay violations at any one time last year. Ferguson, the Forest Service incident commander who fought fires in Oregon, Utah and Colorado, complained in his November memo that Northwest private crews in 2002 were "the worst we've ever seen. Although there were two or three good to excellent crews on each fire, that was offset by 20 to 30 that were hardly worth having," Ferguson wrote. "It was apparent that training for most of these crews had been done poorly or not at all.

Bill Lafferty, head of Oregon's fire program, oversees most of the country's private 20-person "hand crews." He's beefing up enforcement but admitted that "we really don't know the magnitude of the cheaters in the system." "We're struggling as best we can," he said. "But we're barely scratching the surface."

Feast or famine

On a recent 90-degree day, firefighter Dustin Washburn, 21, rolled a boulder from the charred dirt and saw smoke rise from smoldering embers. He attacked it with a pulaski, an axlike firefighting tool, smothering the fire. This 20-person private hand crew was trying to douse hotspots on portions of a 34,000-acre blaze that still burns in the Chewuch River high country in Okanogan County. "Who was working this area?" asked Myron Old Elk, the crew leader for a private unit of Oregon-based Ferguson Management. "Get over here. It's still hot."

Private crews typically dig lines, knock down spot fires or burn areas to reduce fuels. They're supposed to get the same training as government crews. Many, such as this Ferguson unit, are run by respected, experienced hands. Old Elk has fought fires for a dozen years. Private Ferguson Management crews have battled blazes since 1981. "Myron's great," said Lonnie Click, a supervisor on this roiling blaze. "If he doesn't understand directions, he'll ask, then double-ask, until he gets it exactly right."

But the industry has grown so quickly that some new companies supply firefighters however they can. Contractors have hired illegal immigrants and paid them under the table, or deducted so much for food and incidentals that some earned only 50 cents in a two-week pay period, according to Oregon's Bureau of Labor and Industries. Underage firefighters "borrowed" Social Security numbers to fake certification.

Firefighters aren't allowed to work more than 14 or 21 days in a row without a rest day, but some private firefighters have rotated from fire to fire for 50 days straight, according to Forest Service memos. A crew removed from one Oregon fire for poor safety ratings last year showed up two weeks later on a nearby fire.

"There's a lot of money to be made here, and when there's a lot of money at stake, people figure out angles," said Scott Coleman, owner of Oregon's Skookum Reforestation, which for decades has provided contract crews.

The nation's private wildfire firms have grown out of Oregon's logging, tree-planting and forestry labor pool. As a result, Oregon now manages the bulk of them. For years, it was feast or famine. New contractors started after busy fire years, then disbanded during slow ones. But wildfires had grown increasingly unruly in the 1990s, just as federal agencies had downsized their own crews. So the government increasingly has turned to contractors.

After 2000, when firefighting help was enlisted from as far away as New Zealand, more contractors, including several from Washington, saw opportunity. Contractors typically charge the government $22 to $36 an hour per worker. The contractor buys vehicles, equipment and clothing, provides training and pays firefighters from $9 to $18 per hour.

New emphasis on training

Last year, 270 20-person private crews in the Northwest were paid $91 million. Several companies grossed $1 million apiece. "Overhead can be enormous, but if you have a good fire season and get sent out a lot, you bet there's profit in it," said Coleman, vice president of the National Wildfire Association, which has pushed to weed out unscrupulous contractors. "But if you don't train someone well, you're basically endangering his life."

Five federal agencies — the Forest Service, National Parks, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs — fight fires. The agencies renewed efforts to make safety the top priority after 14 Forest Service firefighters were trapped by flames during the July 2001 Thirty Mile fire in the Chewuch Valley. Jessica Johnson, Karen FitzPatrick, Devin Weaver and Tom Craven were asphyxiated by superheated gases after deploying their shelters.

Investigators determined crew leaders violated all 10 standard safety rules. The agency put new emphasis on training, communication, spotting hazardous situations and handling emergencies.
But among new private crews, training issues can be even more basic. Firefighters have bought fire IDs from former firefighters and spliced in their own photographs.

"Just yesterday, I got a call from a woman who wanted to verify that I'd trained these two guys who had '03 dates on their certification," said Harry Winston, who trains contract firefighters through First Strike Environmental in Oregon. "I hadn't. They'd scratched out '02 on their red cards and put in this year's date."

Don Land, who worked for Hoskin, the suspended contract trainer, was made an "engine boss" — a person who operates a wildland firetruck — without any training, according to the state Bureau of Labor and Industries.

Land was released from prison after a three-year sentence in 2001. He said that Hoskin hired him for the fire season. Land said he had not completed the required training and lacked even a driver's license, but was given the job of an engine boss. The state accused Hoskin of giving his students answers to written tests and allowing them to use a 5-pound weight in a fitness test that requires hiking with a 45-pound pack.

Hispanic crews now make up half of the Northwest's private firefighters, and contractors have been disciplined for sending crews with no English speakers to fires — a potential hazard when communicating risk. New rules require crew and squad leaders to speak both English and the language of the crew. But an internal Forest Service memo suggested that bilingual leaders on Oregon's Tiller Complex fires last year appeared to be there mainly for their language skills. Five crew bosses confessed to not understanding their leadership responsibilities.

Paul Broyles, who heads a safety committee for the National Interagency Fire Center, said the private crews he's seen varied from "fantastic to a hell of a lot less than good — and some were real safety concerns."

A contract crew on an Oregon fire Broyles worked last year was stationed to make sure a rolling inferno stayed behind a fire line. Instead, the crew watched as flames crossed the line, never informing a nearby elite "hotshot" crew of the danger headed its way, he said. The state and the federal government are strengthening oversight and tightening controls on documentation, said Broyles. Still, he said, "the assumption is, where there's one problem, there're probably more."

This year, Oregon plans to investigate private crews more heavily. The state now inspects training classes and expects to hire new compliance officers. But much of the training is designed to be self-policing.

Wildfire contractors form associations, which sign agreements with federal and state agencies. The association then guarantees that contractors meet regulations. Of eight such associations, some are vastly more qualified than others, said Ed Daniels, who oversees Oregon's certification and training. Qualifications to form an association: "Thirty-five dollars and a pen to sign a memorandum of understanding," he said. Hoskin was president of his association.
Seattle Times staff reporter Hal Bernton contributed to this report from Portland.

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company