Obviously they named the fire wrong. Should of been named the Weed fire or Grow fire 
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And I guess what I saw was a need to take a benign semantical error and turn it into a ‘you weren’t there but I was’ comment in reference to a 10-year-old fire.
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One thing is for sure the picking of nits never stops.
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How many nits could a nitpicker pick if a nitpicker could pick nits?
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Or ,maybe you should not throw rocks at people who have taken the risk and have all the weight of making serious decisions when you have never had the burden of making those types of decisions. It is always easy to be perfect in hindsight… never that clear when you are balancing running a 25 station fire department with an emerging fire and multiple fires burning across the region. We do not get paid to take chances… there is no “super team” that comes in when we fail. The public does not expect should not accept us guessing that we can handle and incident. In 35 years on this job… not once have I ever shown up to an incident and had people tell me that they wished I brought fewer people. As a 30 year state employee I take spending tax payer money seriously and weigh every decision before I make it, but I have learned that early actions in large incidents have a logarithmic positive effect.
If that makes me a “nit picker” then I guess I am the Nit Picking Section Chief, and I will wear that bade proudly. As an OSC I am used to being particular and demanding that everyone working with me shares my commitment. I have accepted that there will always be people who will judge my decisions from a distance- that is one of things that they do not teach in the OSC course but you learn. But that does not mean that I will not defend those decisions vigorously in any forum, especially with those who have never shared nor felt the burden of those types of actions.
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You don’t realize you may be talking to vets, whom have made even harder decisions with less information and less resources. These vets self evaluate themselves over and over. I hope you never have that kind of burden. It’s life and it’s the job. If you feel the need to lay out some circumstances that led to a decision, fine. One would suspect the continued repetition of rhetoric is lack of confidence in one’s own decision. If one is as confident as being presented, there is no need. Effective leaders don’t have ti champion their own decisions. They are seen, as such, by their actions.
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Strawman argument that makes several assumptions. I know who some of these people are and their comments have been consistent. They occur in other forums and locations and are always one sided. If you are a “veteran” firefighter… someone who has really done the job then you would have no issue with anything I said.
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Well this conversation went off the rails. I think the problem is that @Norcal74 assumed malice in my comment about ordering a team. None was intended. It was August and the unit had a ripping fire with potential. Luckily the IA forces crushed it pretty quick, and it was pretty much done by the time the team was in place.
My original comment was referring to my perception that pot farming in this part of the county has had significant impacts on lots of things, including increased demands on firefighters, and the idea we might have picked the fire up smaller (and not needed a team) if we hadn’t had as many assets in harm’s way that weren’t there 5-10 years earlier.
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I think most got the intended point! The “expanding bull’s-eye effect” is very real up and down the state. I remember the fiascos with evacuations during the Lava Fire in 2021 because of the pot farms up around Shasta Vista.
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I think everyone on here needs to get over themselves and keep these threads to strictly information on the current fire and situation. Unless you are on the front line with a hose in your hand no one cares about your opinions. No one cares about a fire you fought 20 years ago either. I used to love looking at current fires on this site but the last few years these threads and comments get taken over by people who aren’t even within 100 square miles of the actual fire. Keep the threads to the actual fire and the actual time period please. That is all. Everyone be safe
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So, is there a fire somewhere or are we just being attacked by idle time and idle hands… Green ribbons, atta boys and girls and you’re important too! There, we got ‘em all out of the way! Now, let’s move on and do cool stuff.
Have a great day
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One of the things OPERATIONS folks seem to forget is the FINANCE part of a fire. A unit/forest can handle the local IA/extended 1-4 day fire. After that, unit finance suffers and the entire unit/forest suffers as a result. A rule of thumb to think about is this.
If the fire has out of unit resources(State, Fed, CWN) the finance part will take 1-2 days to “Close out” for everyday the fire is burning. This does not include Suppression Repair. As that only adds to time. Unit/Forest Finance is built for Day to Day operations. Throw a fire into the mix that is 1,000-2,000 acres and the game changes. Yes it’s expensive to bring in a team. But what is the cost to local folks? Unit finance?
The State side of the Mosquito last year took SIX WEEKS to close out due to the load on the unit when a Team wasn’t brought in. People were still “paying the bills” into the middle of October. Some of the best OSC I’ve ever worked for understand the phrase “there is no romance without finance”. As The Hawk use to teach
ORDER EARLY, ORDER HEAVY & KEEP THE FIRE SMALL so not to get caught on the back side.
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Could not agree more. I think you are aware that in OSC we stress the impact on the other shops and that to be honest the operations section has the easiest job on an incident. At the unit level that is where the decision to order a team usually is made… as I said… a shortage of critical positions. Operations personnel are usually easy to come by especially on a smaller fire. Through all of this… I was simply making the point that the decision to order a team is not solely based on what is visible to people outside of the decision making process. I have been sent as a team to an incident just to hold a place so we are assembled and ready to move to an emerging incident or where a unified command incident is unfolding.
Comments are not made in a vacuum… meaning that while you can try and explain a specific comment… but those comments exist in the context of all the previous comments that are made, whether that be in this forum, print, in person at a PBA burn or any other place.
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Some of you guys take this way too seriously maybe you should try getting a hobby or doing something fun on your days off so you can enjoy life and not be so bitter.
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Swedes flat road at turkey creek trail.
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Thank you!!!
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Mod Note: We have been very lenient with this today, hoping people would take peer reviews to heart and self correct. Sadly that is not the case, so this thread will now be closed, nonsensical posts deleted and a return to civil discourse along with on topic posting is requested.
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