I assume you have read the IRPG section on how to turn down risk. I had to do that 2 years ago but everything worked out OK. The IC thanked me for the education.
Fire
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I assume you have read the IRPG section on how to turn down risk. I had to do that 2 years ago but everything worked out OK. The IC thanked me for the education.
Fireline Handbook page 22, in the old version. New version, spread out in some places and distilled elsewhere, begins on the first page. First place I looked. There's some places of my own anatomy that I don't particularly care to step on.
Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
Lack of LCES is why 19 fireman died this year.
It ain't no joke. . . I would have walked too.
paccity
Addicted to ArboristSite
The corrective process is beginning. It looks like things are about to get political.
Is that good or bad?
I would say bad, but my experience is with a different agency.
Remains to be seen. I suspect short-term bad and long-term good.
RandyMac
Stiff Member
Stick to the printed manual, right or wrong, they can't argue with the book.
I have all relevant documentation in hand and am ready to defend my actions.
The news just reported a firefighter killed when a tree fell on them near Sisters, OR. They said it was a falling team. Both were hit, one survived.
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...y_wildfire_in_deschutes_n.html#incart_m-rpt-2
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...y_wildfire_in_deschutes_n.html#incart_m-rpt-2
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Metals406
Granfodder Runningsaw
That is one of the many, many reasons why I am pressing this safety issue.
RandyMac
Stiff Member
I have used the"Book" against a few employers, it cuts conversations short.
You will need to watch your back afterwards.
You will need to watch your back afterwards.
LarryTheCableGuy
Addicted to ArboristSite
To use The Book, one must first have read and become familiar with The Book. I daresay that part of the process will be easy enough. I will certainly be watching my back. The Busted are too often The Spiteful.
Another contractor killed on a fire in Oregon. This time it was a water tender driver. I drove a contract tender in 1987 but I always felt safe.
Wildfire Today | News about wildfire, including brush fire, grass fire, wildland fire, and forest fire
Wildfire Today | News about wildfire, including brush fire, grass fire, wildland fire, and forest fire
cwebefree
ArboristSite Member
Fuels reduction and history
(Okay, now I feel like a great bloody git, new here, hadn't seen that there are pages and pages replete with smoke eaters that are still doing it. Best to you guys)
I know y'all further west are getting it a month early,
I've someone who's like a sister out in Williams OR, another in Clackamas.
I had two major fires just up my drainage, here in the Pecos, in May & June.
My darn hunting grounds, those hills just a few miles north of me.
Reckon most folks know the basic history, that after The Big Blow Up, Big Ed Pulaski, Northern Idaho, 1910, at the dawn of the forest service that the policy was 100% fire suppression, culminating, in the 30's with the AM policy (all fires to be out by 10 the next morning).
Needless to say, in the fire dependent western forests, that was just about as stupid a thing anyone could do.
Fast forward to the madness that became more advanced fire & forest science, environmental dawning of understanding, The great Reagan "Get Out the Cut" Debacle and the loss of funding due to the policy failures of that culmination.
Whereas one could argue in a blowhard way to one side or another, fact is, back when I was a young sprat, I hired on as a thinner, CO, Northern Idaho, CA, NM,,,,blah blah, like a migrant worker. Back then, Carter years, thinning was done and paid for by the Gub'ment. It was called "Pre Commercial Thinning", in that the intent was to restore a stand so they could whack it down again, for pulp & lumber. The Environment was only a consideration in as far as there was corporate welfare to be meeted out to Big Timber. Stands thinned were rarely of a contract size small enough for your gypos, come the ten year turn around.
Then came Reagan and his idea to cut everything.
Not wanting to irk the Reaganagrandisers or nothin' but the contracts that went out under his administration did kick dust in the face of a lot of folks who joined or began groups like "Forest Guardians" and Centers For Biological Diversity.
Oh, let's not forget Earth First.
At the end of the day there was a herd of emotional twerps who brought lawsuits any time they smelled the fuel mix. A pity they outnumbered the many great environmentalists who were based in science and folks like the brilliant minds of NAU, etc. Tree Ring research not yet matured.
The Get out the Cut years were so successful that (arguably) too many forests were devastated, more so, however, Big Timber's bottom line had become so inflated by the crack of corporate welfare that when the Federales quit being able to "afford" thinning, road building, insanely low KBF prices, the stock holders of Big Timber squawked and it all came crashing down.
And all with an ample scape goat, the environmental community.
Which did deserve some excoriation, may there be no doubt.
So, now, there's little memory of the fact that, 20/30 years ago the hills were crawling with Thinners. We just didn't call it "Fuels Reduction" or "Restorative Forestry", we called it "pre-commercial".
In the 24 hour news cycle not many folks remember that we used to spend millions on thinning.
But here's what gets me in this world that has gone all Tea Party, I got Mine Beyond the NIMBY:
No matter how you slice it, no matter if you believe in Climate Change(d) (no smoke eater who's run then and now doubts it) or not, the fact remains that the conditions of our forests are a direct result of National Fiscal We The People Policy, we done messed it up through our representative democracy and to blame the government for who we done elected is kind of a cop out.
We also need to look at the simple math of things,
We are now spending about $3 Billion a year on fire suppression cost per acre (average of the last 20 years, as of 2010) for many fires is coming out at about $600 an acre.
The last couple years has blown that average by darn near an order of magnitude.
Now, I'm sure that fuels treatment makes a hell of a lot more fiscal sense.
It's time to say pretty loud and clear that we'd rather spend OUR money on thinning, fuels reduction then on crispy critters.
Besides, then I could have my old job back and quit being a land surveyor for my day job.
And on the environmental front, Center for Biological Diversity has come around, as have most science driven groups. Forest Guardians, who have since changed their name to Wild Earth Guardians, remain, mostly a bunch of idiots.
Not sure of link policy so I'll just give googleables for those that are weird enough (like myself) to read the science & scholarly (the first being what I think the most important)
Fuel Treatments and Fire
Severity: A Meta-Analysis
Historical Fire Regime Patterns in the
Southwestern United States Since AD 1700
Rising cost of wildfire protection
Baseline and Projected Future Carbon Storage and Greenhouse-Gas Fluxes in Ecosystems of the Western United States
Short- and Long-term Effects of Fire
on Carbon in US Dry Temperate Forest
Systems
All apologies for a bit of a rant.
Kind of passionate about it all.
(Okay, now I feel like a great bloody git, new here, hadn't seen that there are pages and pages replete with smoke eaters that are still doing it. Best to you guys)
I know y'all further west are getting it a month early,
I've someone who's like a sister out in Williams OR, another in Clackamas.
I had two major fires just up my drainage, here in the Pecos, in May & June.
My darn hunting grounds, those hills just a few miles north of me.
Reckon most folks know the basic history, that after The Big Blow Up, Big Ed Pulaski, Northern Idaho, 1910, at the dawn of the forest service that the policy was 100% fire suppression, culminating, in the 30's with the AM policy (all fires to be out by 10 the next morning).
Needless to say, in the fire dependent western forests, that was just about as stupid a thing anyone could do.
Fast forward to the madness that became more advanced fire & forest science, environmental dawning of understanding, The great Reagan "Get Out the Cut" Debacle and the loss of funding due to the policy failures of that culmination.
Whereas one could argue in a blowhard way to one side or another, fact is, back when I was a young sprat, I hired on as a thinner, CO, Northern Idaho, CA, NM,,,,blah blah, like a migrant worker. Back then, Carter years, thinning was done and paid for by the Gub'ment. It was called "Pre Commercial Thinning", in that the intent was to restore a stand so they could whack it down again, for pulp & lumber. The Environment was only a consideration in as far as there was corporate welfare to be meeted out to Big Timber. Stands thinned were rarely of a contract size small enough for your gypos, come the ten year turn around.
Then came Reagan and his idea to cut everything.
Not wanting to irk the Reaganagrandisers or nothin' but the contracts that went out under his administration did kick dust in the face of a lot of folks who joined or began groups like "Forest Guardians" and Centers For Biological Diversity.
Oh, let's not forget Earth First.
At the end of the day there was a herd of emotional twerps who brought lawsuits any time they smelled the fuel mix. A pity they outnumbered the many great environmentalists who were based in science and folks like the brilliant minds of NAU, etc. Tree Ring research not yet matured.
The Get out the Cut years were so successful that (arguably) too many forests were devastated, more so, however, Big Timber's bottom line had become so inflated by the crack of corporate welfare that when the Federales quit being able to "afford" thinning, road building, insanely low KBF prices, the stock holders of Big Timber squawked and it all came crashing down.
And all with an ample scape goat, the environmental community.
Which did deserve some excoriation, may there be no doubt.
So, now, there's little memory of the fact that, 20/30 years ago the hills were crawling with Thinners. We just didn't call it "Fuels Reduction" or "Restorative Forestry", we called it "pre-commercial".
In the 24 hour news cycle not many folks remember that we used to spend millions on thinning.
But here's what gets me in this world that has gone all Tea Party, I got Mine Beyond the NIMBY:
No matter how you slice it, no matter if you believe in Climate Change(d) (no smoke eater who's run then and now doubts it) or not, the fact remains that the conditions of our forests are a direct result of National Fiscal We The People Policy, we done messed it up through our representative democracy and to blame the government for who we done elected is kind of a cop out.
We also need to look at the simple math of things,
We are now spending about $3 Billion a year on fire suppression cost per acre (average of the last 20 years, as of 2010) for many fires is coming out at about $600 an acre.
The last couple years has blown that average by darn near an order of magnitude.
Now, I'm sure that fuels treatment makes a hell of a lot more fiscal sense.
It's time to say pretty loud and clear that we'd rather spend OUR money on thinning, fuels reduction then on crispy critters.
Besides, then I could have my old job back and quit being a land surveyor for my day job.
And on the environmental front, Center for Biological Diversity has come around, as have most science driven groups. Forest Guardians, who have since changed their name to Wild Earth Guardians, remain, mostly a bunch of idiots.
Not sure of link policy so I'll just give googleables for those that are weird enough (like myself) to read the science & scholarly (the first being what I think the most important)
Fuel Treatments and Fire
Severity: A Meta-Analysis
Historical Fire Regime Patterns in the
Southwestern United States Since AD 1700
Rising cost of wildfire protection
Baseline and Projected Future Carbon Storage and Greenhouse-Gas Fluxes in Ecosystems of the Western United States
Short- and Long-term Effects of Fire
on Carbon in US Dry Temperate Forest
Systems
All apologies for a bit of a rant.
Kind of passionate about it all.
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Up here, where timber sales sold at a large profit for the govt, precommercial thinning was included in the KV plan (Knudsen Vander or en burg) which is paid for by the money generated from the sale of timber. As was/is replanting, making bear dens, making snags, dumping trees for lizard logs, bird boxes, fish logs, etc. etc.
Western Warshington and Oregon generated a heck of a lot of income for the treasury. Now, there are studies that dispute the fact that timber sales were ever profitable, and if you include your state, AZ, and the inland forests, they would show different. But here where timber grows well and fast and large, we generated income.
The counties made out well too with their 25% cut of the monies.
Now, with that funding pretty well dried up because the timber sales are way below what they once were, and profits down because the sales are of less volume and much more complex, KV dollars often do not cover the "wish list" of the specialists. That includes precommercial thinning.
The rules for KV use are complex, but it has to be done in the proximity of the sale area, so that is one reason that a sale area may be spread out as far as it can in order to get projects done that are not directly inside a unit.
Cweb, are you saying that there was a ten year rotation? That makes no sense, even here where we have good growth. We did precommercial thinning to speed up the growth, but ten years? That's not long enough and wasn't done anywhere that I know of.
Western Warshington and Oregon generated a heck of a lot of income for the treasury. Now, there are studies that dispute the fact that timber sales were ever profitable, and if you include your state, AZ, and the inland forests, they would show different. But here where timber grows well and fast and large, we generated income.
The counties made out well too with their 25% cut of the monies.
Now, with that funding pretty well dried up because the timber sales are way below what they once were, and profits down because the sales are of less volume and much more complex, KV dollars often do not cover the "wish list" of the specialists. That includes precommercial thinning.
The rules for KV use are complex, but it has to be done in the proximity of the sale area, so that is one reason that a sale area may be spread out as far as it can in order to get projects done that are not directly inside a unit.
Cweb, are you saying that there was a ten year rotation? That makes no sense, even here where we have good growth. We did precommercial thinning to speed up the growth, but ten years? That's not long enough and wasn't done anywhere that I know of.
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