Posted on 08/02/2002 7:10:45 PM PDT by AuntB
The following is a transcribed portion of an interview aired today on the Lars Larson radio program from Portland, Or., which is broadcast across the Northwest from noon to 4:00 P.M. pacific. There is little I can add to his exchange with the executive vice-president of a company that supplies helicopter service to the US Forest service to show the inept and dangerous policies of this bureaucracy. Please bring these disclosures to your congress people’s attention and demand the policy of silence and media blackout practiced by the Forest Service and environmental groups stop. Our homes, forests and lives are being destroyed and YOU, the taxpayers are funding it.
***** Lars Larson: [Our radio affiliate, KCMX, Medford, Or – The Morning Express with Garth & Rosemary, 880 AM] called me this morning and said Mark Lindamood (sp) has just an unbelievable story to tell about Carson Helicopter and some work it’s been doing for the Forest Service in fighting these forest fires. Mark, why don’t you tell people how many helicopters you have up there working on behalf of the public to get those fires put out.
ML: Well, today we have 9 aircraft flying on the Toolbox fire, Timbered Rock, and the Southbisquit Fire.
LL: …people should realize that at one point, Mark’s helicopter pilots were told to stop taking water out of a pond to fight fires….Mark, why did your pilots decide that was a good pond to take water out of to dump on that fire?
ML: First let me preface this with the Oregon State dept. of Forestry is who we are working with on the Timbered Rock fire and in my opinion, as having done this for thousands of hours and many years, the Oregon State Dept. of Forestry is by far and above the best fire fighting team in the whole nation. These guys are absolute professionals and they were working on TR fire headed up by Phil Hostetter (sp). They found a dried out pond on the Josephine/Jackson County line. They took a dozer up, bladed out the pond a little bit, knocked down a couple trees I think, and that gave us good ingress and egress for our giant water buckets……
We flew out of that for a day or so, it shortened the turn around time from 10 minutes down to 2 or 3 minutes. And they kept the pond filled with water trucks that came up from Lost Creek or Elk Creek, someplace and kept the pond filled……BUT, we were just on the other side of the US Forest Service line and we were within their boundaries. So they came up yesterday (8/1) and shut the pond down and they gated it and prohibited trucks from coming in. Their reason for this was…. we didn’t ask for permission and they didn’t have what is called a “Dip Site Manager” on site. This is a problem that pervades the whole helicopter industry and it’s part of the USFS big overall problem. So they shut us down and we went back to running about a 10 minute flight for water.
Now, that land we we're on…… was not a park, it was not a road less area, it was not a wilderness area, it was a multiple use forest service property. In other words, YOUR PROPERTY…..
They finally got a “dip site manager” in, who by the way, sits on the heli-base about 15, 20 miles from the dig site and he or she brought their paperwork in………but that pond is not opened up yet because they are still trying to sort it out and that’s about a day and a half that’s gone by that we can’t use that site.
Listen, it gets worse. We have to wait constantly for these “quote managers”. First of all they’re named wrong, they should be called “liaisons” because when they’re designated “managers” they interpret that in their own mind as “boss”. These are people who are part timers or they work for the forest service full time and work part time as a “manager”. This week we waited for two days waiting for a “manager” with our …aircraft sitting in front of the hanger in the Grants Pass airport 7 miles from a major forest fire that is threatening homes, burning up property, and certainly wasting and burning up our own natural resources. With the USFS we have to have one manager per aircraft…… Under extreme emergencies a manager can handle two type one aircraft. We don’t carry people, we only carry water…….all our pilots have more than 15,000 hours, they all in their fifties, most of them, and we’re waiting on some college student while people’s homes are burning. The worst of it was on the fire in Colorado, near Durango, we had 3 aircraft working along a housing development…….. The three aircraft were keeping the fire away from this sub[division]by laying down retardant. The Columbia (another company) aircraft had to leave in about 20 minutes for fuel. They called our aircraft, which had almost 2 hours of fuel remaining aboard, and told us we had to come in because it’s time for [our] 2 ½ hour rest break. Our guys said they didn’t need the break,[ they were used to flying 10 hour days every day] …….they said you come in and land or you’re going to be in violation….….you have to remember, we have to fly 15 or 20 minutes back to the heli-base, shut the aircraft down, stop the rotors and then start it back up again and fly back out…..by the time our aircraft got back out there the housing development was GONE.
This kind of garbage, this kind of crap is why the president needs authority to fire people in our Homeland Defense. ….these people in the USFS are only interested in their wages, their time off, vacation time, their retirement, THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT OUR RESOURCES…….we have to operate our aircraft when were flying for the USFS at our very minimum. We have a performance section in flight manuals, a limitation section. They take our performance section, which is only there as a guideline, and make us operate on the very minimum of that. …under the guise of safety, USFS is the only place in the world I can work that I’m forced to do the absolute minimum that I can do and get paid the absolute maximum. …..I honestly think now that the USFS doesn’t care about our resources, they only care about their next year’s budget. The bigger their budget is this year, the bigger it will be next year. Their answer to it is to hire more “managers”.
LL: What is it that the public can do to help you get some of the bureaucrats to get off the dime and actually let you and your pilots do their jobs?
ML: They need to get in touch with their congress people, senators. It’s almost like it’s so big now that it’s feeding on itself……….and I will tell you in my opinion, they are at least partially responsible for some of the devastating loss that people have experienced here. We wait…..sometimes 2 days for this “manager” to come, and that may not sound like a long time to the forest service people ……..but if your home is burning or your barn is on fire or you’re losing your timber stand, that is a lifetime of wait.
I want to go back to the 21/2 hour mandatory coffee break…….. I wrote for a rule change….to the National Interagency Fire Center, who hires us, and we ask to change the rule because our aircraft are designed to fly 8 hours. We have special equipment in them that we can fly 8 straight without landing….and we do it every day, day in, day out. J. P. Johnston (sp), the head of the helicopter portion of NIFC told us that we would have to hire a lobbyist …or hire their lobbyist to change that rule.
Our daily availability rate is $19,256.00 plus $2,414.00 for every hour we fly plus all the other fees. We LOVE the money we get. The thing is Lars, I’m personally ashamed. I’m ashamed of this……
(Excerpt) Read more at larslarson.com ...
http://www.sierratimes.com/02/08/05/arjj080502.htm
Oregon: Time to Fight Fire With Fire
By J.J. Johnson
Published 08. 4. 02 at 20:26 Sierra Time
We have received numerous postings from readers of the transcripted interview with an Helicopter Wildfire Fighter on the Lars Larson Show back on August 1. There have also been requests that The Sierra Times review and expand on aprevious challenge we made to all local communities concerning firefighting out west. With the recent legislative action by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Sierra Times believes that pointing fingers and calling congressmen is unproductive. More direct measures should be taken to fire the Timber Rock and other fires in the West.
In the interview, it was reported that the Carson Helicopter has a contract with the United States Forestry Service (USFS) to carry water via 9 aircraft flying on the Toolbox fire, Timbered Rock, and the Southbisquit Fire. With the cooperation of the Oregon State Department of Forestry, a dry pond was found within striking distance of the fires, and water was being supply by an armada of water trucks. ". We were just on the other side of the US Forest Service line and we were within their boundaries", said Mark Lindamood of Carson Helicopter. "So they came up [August 1] and shut the pond down and they gated it and prohibited trucks from coming in", he said. The apparent reason was lack of a permission request and the fact that what is called a "Dip Site Manager" was not on site.
This and other bureaucratic regulations and red tape from the USFS have damaged the ability to fight the fires effectively, threatening property, communities and even lives. As a result, Oregonians are being asked to contact their congressmen and complaint. Instead, we submit the following actions take place:
1) The Carson Helicopter company should immediately suspend any and all service for the United States Forestry Service. They should make it known their services will be available to any state or local agency dedicated to fire fighting.
2) All counties affected by the fires should declare a state of emergency, if they have not done so already. The emergency should include the power of the local authorities to use all means at its disposal to protect life and property in the area, and for the county's district attorneys to enforce such measures.
3) Oregon State Police, the State Department of Forestry and the Local county officers should immediately remove the fence installed by the USFS and provide protection for water trucks to the pond.
4) Helicopter transportation of water should resume, but under the jurisdiction of the Oregon State Department of Forestry. Any attempts to prevent the lawful duty of country officials should result in those people being taken into custody. Suspects can be held for at least 48 hours - while firefighting continues.
5) In the event of USFS not allowing flights, pilots should adhere to the FAA pilot regulations and file an injunction against the USFS to complain that their policies are placing lives in danger. County District Attorneys should be compelled to file injunctions against any attempt to prevent fighting wildfires by any other entity during a fire emergency. This would at least slow down the USFS long enough to let you get a hand on the fire.
6) Media should work covertly in order to review the work of federal fire-fighters. Sierra Times readers should volunteer their help, and water to the firefighters if and when needed in order to gain access and to ensure adequate fire fighting is in effect.
It seems the problem lies in the public 'giving' authority to federal folks to put out the forest fires under a myth this is actually the priority of the Forestry Service. Their goal is to maintain the bureaucracy. In both Arizona and Colorado it has been shown that local authorities taking matters into their own hands is the best solution to fighting wildfires. County and state governments must take this matter seriously. When lives and property are at stake, there is not only a duty, but a responsibility to take action - against federal authority if necessary.
Nor should anti-logging or the Endangered Species Act (ESA) prohibit local residents, county governments, or state governments from taken action when needed. The South Dakota exemption proves that these types of regulations are hazardous to forests, wildlife and property. Quoting a letter from the Sierra Club and the Wilderness society on the matter of the Daschle amendment, ".The amendment would help to reduce hazardous fuel loads in a manner that protects communities and the benefits of recreation, clean water and fish and wildlife habitat on the Black Hills National Forest.". Needless to say this would work for other areas as well. So why wait for federal permission?
There will be some that will call these proposals extreme and even illegal. We are dealing with dangerous situations that demand immediate attention. Simply calling on Congressmen to take action requires a host of calls just to get attention (they're on summer break as well). The actions listed above are immediate and would put immediate attention on the situation. We are at a point where we believe federal forest agents do not want to push the envelope with local authorities. In this fire season alone, they have already been roundly criticized by governors and congressmen, there are two USFS employees currently in custody for being responsible for much of the burn acreage this year. Most important, we feel that no federal agency wants a standoff with others for wanting to fight a forest fire - not in this political season.
In closing, we would like to thank Lars Larson of KXL News Radio 750 AM in Portland and Carson Helicopter for bringing light to a grave situation. But the solution requires action be taken on the ground immediately. Simply complaining will not work. The western fires have reached a point where areas not ablaze are suffering from the impact of this fire season with increased ash and smoke in the atmosphere, and loss of revenue.
We cannot make this statement more clear: We are well beyond the time where we can depend on the federal government to battle the disasters out west. There are people, homes, and communities in peril. The time for action is now. If we allow federal regulations to prevent firefighting causing destruction of live and property, we will only have ourselves, and not the federal government to blame.
© 2002 SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted)
I said this too, after reading the Gulag Archipelago. And there was one line I was fond of quoting, something about "we didn't know, we didn't think, it would get this bad".
I am going to ping you to a post I made over on religion that makes a very similar point to yours.
Seems the feds have decided to provide more descriptive job titles to some positions... ;0)
Yeah, I guess "Dip Sh!t Manager" was already taken...
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