Bilingual fire boss rule stirs controversy (OR Wildfire crew bosses must now be Bilingual

SALEM, Ore. - Some English-speaking firefighters are losing their jobs because of an Oregon state law that requires them to be bilingual.

The Department of Forestry enacted a law three years ago that requires them to be bilingual, but this year they're actually enforcing it.

2002 was such a devastating wildfire season, contractors were scrambling to find firefighters.

Jim Walker of the Department of Forestry said "what we do know is 85 percent of the crew make-up is of Hispanic decent."

But many of the Hispanic fire fighters do not speak English. Walker says the language barrier is a concern.

Those concerns led the state to draft a new rule that all firefighting bosses speak English, and the languages of crew members who don't speak English.

Jaime Pickering, a squad boss overseeing 20 firefighters, says the rule means "job losses for Americans. The white people."

Because of the state's language requirement, Pickering can no longer work as a crew boss and supervise 20 firefighters, he can only manage a squad of four.

Pickering says that "if you have one Spanish guy on the crew, as an English crew boss, you can no longer be a crew boss, you have to step back to a squad boss, which is a demotion."

While the state made the rule change in 2003, it decided to strictly monitor the law this year as Hispanics continue to fill fire lines.

Jim Walker says "our main concern is that they are safe, and they are in a safe environment, and a lot of that deals with communication."

Manuel Franco is a Hispanic contractor for fire crews. He says he thinks the state's rule is necessary for worker safety.

"I think that's good, because that's for safety purpose," Franco says. "If there's a rock rolling down, everybody should understand that."

However, Manuel did say he felt the situation would improve if everyone spoke English. "We're living here. We should speak the language."

Jim Walker ponders the possibility that all fire crew members should be required to speak English, instead of having bilingual crew leaders.

"If it comes down to a safety issue, and it's determined that's the only way we can have people safely on an incident, then yes," Walker said.

Both Oregon state officials and those in the firefighting business say they do not think there are 'that many' illegal immigrant workers in the fire crews.

They've always been paid cheap. This is not a new thing.

It's 40 hours a week straight time. But you don't work a 40 hour week. You work 12 hour days, about 84 hours a week on a big fire, for two weeks straight with three days off. Your meals are provided. Half of the time you're in the field during peak fire season is OT.

For those that don't mind the fact that it's hard work, when you add in all the over time, the value of the provided meals, the fact you are in places where you aren't going to spend much money, the earning potential is much better than it looks, which is why it used to be such a favored job for college students. And there is some status and pride if you're good enough to be a smoke jumper or on a hotshot crew.

And if you can move out of line work into something like dispatch, the money goes up.

But it's not for people who don't want to work. Hard.

There have been people who make their living doing fire in the summer and ski patrol in the winter...

I wonder if there is still use of minimum and medium security inmates as firefighters? I ask this because I know in AZ in the late 1970s there were prison fire crews and as I understood it they had to volunteer, but would get paid regular wages instead of the 50 cents an hour they were paid for work in the prison. I know at that time they were good crews, and I never heard of a problem using them. They worked with trained crews doing the shovel work mostly. At that time the crews were mostly college students and prisoners. The bosses were all trained professionals but not the general crew.

If the reason they are hiring illegals is because of a shortage of firefighters then they should consider using prisoners if they don't still use them.

I do think everyone should be required to speak English. This is a really bad idea to get rid of the bosses because they don't speak Spanish. What if people who spoke other languages apply- will they fire the bosses if they don't speak Russian or German?

That won't stop the anti-hispanic kneejerkers on FR who will b!tch to the moon, but ask them to become a firefighter and you will hear crickets.

I was on a ship and heard a fire called out in Spanish because the man at the desk in DC Central Panicked. So should every Sailor have to learn Spanish? We had Filipino's also who barely spoke English so you think every sailor should have had to learned their language? Trying to understand them on a 1JV talk circuit was nearly impossible.

Solution and it would work. Make the contractor hire English speaking fire fighters. Second option and cheaper. Do like many state forestry services and use prison labor.

Now what is going to happen is trained crew chiefs will not be available and Pedro's Fire Fighting Service will take over with very inexperienced persons being made Crew Chiefs likely illegals as such stupidity also likely involves don't ask don't tell policy on that as well.

After a few dozen are killed because of the state lawmakers Political Correctness for not refusing to hire non English Speaking Fire Fighters which was likely a budget saving measure to start with a crisis will occur.

Experienced Crew chiefs who could predict fire behavior will be working in states that have a tad bit more common sense than to let dangerous jobs become the proving ground for the big mix America.

Now let me ask you a practical question. You have several different language speaking members on your crew none speak English. How much time gets wasted saying It's broke the line and headed our way. Get out now.

Government mandated stupidity in one form or another has cost lives of those fighting forest fires. I remember reading about one several years back where the fighters were in a position thinking they were safe because a water drop was on the way. But their was a political issue that prevented it.

To make the drop the chopper would have had to have dropped the bucket in a lake where endangered species were living. The tanker crews were waiting on permission to get water and no moron would say yes do it because they did not have permission from the U.S. Dept of Interior.

The Chief was told several times the drop was coming and his crew became trapped and most of them killed IIRC. I wonder if Chrissie {then head of the EPA} and Gail {Sec of Interior} when the event occurred even discussed this issue to prevent it from happening again?

How much more can government be allowed to screw things up so this group and that group will be happy and then trained Americans can then do their job? 20 years from now none of Manuel's crew will likely still be required to speak English by him or the government. Why should they the stupid American politicians will pass a speak Spanish law for them instead.

I've been a fire fighter before. Actually what was called in the Navy 1 on 1 and it's no place to play guess the language of the day. So why is the government going there? There are other options available including providing state scholarships for services rendered. Many things make more sense than what was done.

Add to this in many cases milti-agencies are involved. The local Volunteer FD that may be on hand will likely not speak Spanish either. All around it is a bad idea aimed at scoring political points with the immigrant voters and nothing more except it looked good to some dunce politico on paper.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.