# 10.50 an hour



## wiley_p (Oct 4, 2004)

This weekend an Arrowhead Hotshot lost his life from a falling tree in CA. He will be missed. 10.50 an hour no health insurance, and no guarantee of a job each year. Things like this happen and I don't miss it so much. Very few people are even capable of performing the duties of a Type 1 crewmember. Its disgusting that the Fedral government still abuses the best wildland firefighters in the world like they do.


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## MasterBlaster (Oct 4, 2004)

I saw that on CNN this morning. Frigging bummer.


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## FSburt (Oct 4, 2004)

hey Wiley was he cutting this tree or did he get hit by a burned out tree that just fell over. I just worked a fire with that crew on the Sierra NF. Bummer to here news like that. I had some close calls this summer cutting on young dead White Fir snags, worst snags I have worked on they all break in half on the way down and fall right back on the stump.


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## SilverBlue (Oct 4, 2004)

I hope the family has the ability to collect something for the loss of this valuable person.


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## techdave (Oct 4, 2004)

Hi Wiley, I totally agree with you. I often see fire crews in our backcountry. Even the CDF/Corrections inmate crews do a heck of job, and what the hotshots do is off the charts. It really ticks me off to think that all the RE types in the offices will put in their career and pull retirement checks but these young crew members all too often end up dead or crippled or burned. I dont have a mgic cure, but I think as a start the non-prisoner state and Federal wildland fire-fighter seasonals should get preference points in hiring just like military, and expanded death and long-term disability pay over non hazardous employees. Nuf said, Dave.


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## wiley_p (Oct 5, 2004)

At the very least, not to mention a huge increase in pay. Why is it that a cfrewmember on an engine who sits in a staging area all day watching the column push from 10 miles away get 40.00 per hour yet the lead saw on a Type 1 crew who is punching line thru Manzanita up a hog back ridge for 10 hours straght, then firing out same peice of line and holding it with 2 other shot crews, this is a place that the pump slugs cant even exist in yet they get the pay, insurance and recognition as firefighters. Its why I left, and why I will never embrace the bull???? that gets fed to me by our so called leaders.


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## techdave (Oct 5, 2004)

*Fire crews...pay disparity.*

Hi Wiley, I agree with your sentiments. I have not ever worked as a wildland OR a structural firefighter so I try to limit my statements, but I have always wondered about the same kinds of things as you mentioned. Example, Cedar fire....I was at a checkpoint/chow/refuel area at Hwy79 and japatul road one night. I was allowed to hang out by the S Deputies because I was in my volunteer (non firefiter, I do trail maintnenance) uniform and had suitable id. I was trying to find out if my friends who live and work in the state park lost their homes, and if they were ok. It was dark like only the backcountry gets, so even with the generators and all, I was directing trucks ot the fuel point and explainng the lay of the land to non-locals. 
Now here comes a crew from Nevada, who had ridden in from a fire somewhere up like Idaho, in a BRUSH TRUCK(cool blue paint  everybody liked it ). They were about to go into almost mile high elevation, 30 plus year old chaparral OR 50-100 year old timber and fight a fire for relatively low bucks. meanwhile 30 miles away down the hill the careerists with the various city fire departments went on 10 relatively safe medical aid calls but are on track for a nice retirement. I got friends on them departments, and more power to them if they can get a good deal. But this society ought to do more for the wildlands fire fighters who are actually out there with saw or pulaski or macloed or mattock. 
I think this is mostly a topic of intrest to rural westerners, thanks for responding back to me, Dave. ps for all the people who dont live around here...even the seemingly simple wild fires get these folks. A few years ago we lost a young man from the Imperial Valley on a "minor" fire in Lakeside. he died from the heat on a 100 to 105 Farenheit day climbing a slope to engage a chaparral fire. May he RIP.


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