The FS changes reimbursable amounts on items that they don’t feel are correct for certain positions… I.e. vehicle rentals have been denied or changed to be a lower reimbursed amount because the vehicle wasn’t deemed necessary, yet it was approved on the ROSS order and may be the only vehicle available at time of dispatch. It should not cost Local Gov any money to fight a FED Fire (or state). What is happening is they are breaching a contract, plain and simple. The overall issue is there is a clause in the CFAA that allows for a 30 notification of intent to leave, this wasn’t excercised and yet they aren’t operating within the contract. This should be a red flag for any agency participating in the CFAA.
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Good points p. Very good points.
I have to respectfully ask you to tone it down and stay within the rules a bit here. Nobody on Pennsylvania Ave has had any idea what goes on in a western forest since 1909.
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Few things. First, you’re about 35 years off in your assessment. These forests built America pre and post WW2 with two fully engage administrations.
Secondly, many more butts are sitting in engines, crew buggies, prevention vehicles and chiefs rigs thanks to the 106th Congress (that’s 1999 in case you’re counting), Clinton implemented major funding increases and Bush continued funding for the NFP MEL build up. These employees have families who buy homes and cars and are productive members in our neighborhoods. Any politician, red, blue, green, purple, I don’t care, who is not in support of these responders and there families are fair game. Including the current occupant, AKA Individual #1.
Lastly, unless you’re a mod and choose to direct email me about the rules, please don’t tell me your interpretation of the rules. Move along.
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So are there very many local gov departments keeping their folks off Fed fires this season?
Eight out of Ten agencies in my county will not play with the feds this year. This means the feds will not get any strike teams and numerous single resource and overhead positions also.
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I’ve heard of three. My department included. No word yet on how FS will pay volunteers and at what wage. Messaging to the fire departments has been non existent and this is causing other departments to stand down. The issue is also affecting local IA response because in addition to departments are not sending overhead under cfaa, departments are backing out responding IA using local agreement. Mainly because of lack of communications.
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Any names?
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In San Joaquin, Stockton, Waterloo Morada, and Linden Peters have opted out so far
And City of Lodi
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Another option might be going back to the “old” days when a Fed fire was a Fed fire. They brought in type 2 crews from reservations and anywhere else they put them together with some training. Fires were managed by Forest Service employees and minor support from contractors and loggers (some may have to go to Wikipedia to know what a logger is. 
)
Of course that was in the day the forests were managed better and did not burn so radically.
I do not think the Forest Service has enough resources nationally ( discounting the cost to fly them everywhere ) to handle what they are opening themselves up to.
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B244,
your county is where , please ?
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The Feds don’t have enough qualified for overhead to replace the valuable and numbers of overhead they get from LG’s.
For LG engines I think they will arrive because the order is usually associated with communities at risk.
The current problem is lack of communications down to the department level from the FS.
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Last week I met a LG fire officer in Montana that is on a Type 1 team (FS) in California. Now that is a real cost savings. Flying team members from areas around the country to CA for incidents instead of using LG or qualified AD’s at least within the state.
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It really COULD be a major cost savings. What does he make at home? Does he get P2P pay? Does the incident pay to backfill his department at home? When you look at the true costs of LG staffing for campaign fires in Ca, flights are cheap.
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Well by the sound of things, the Feds are gonna have plenty of cost savings because the LG in my area won’t be filling orders to Fed fires.
Everyone makes good points however there is a very very small number of departments that are hiring retired personnel at BC level or higher just to rent them out. The feds are being billed at those chief rates for jobs that are not equal on the fed side. For example an AD BC doing the job as a training specialist for P2P at $45 an hour and that doesn’t count time and a half after 40hrs. Those little departments are supplementing their budgets on the back of the FS. I think some integrity is lacking with some agencies, very few but none the less a problem.
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I am not sure that some integrity is lacking. Remember they are working within the rules that the complaining agency wrote ! If you do not like what you created, then when the contract is up you renegotiate or do not renew. You do not have the right to just change the rules in the middle of a contract, unless it is written that you can so do. Notice given, and wait for the lawyers to come in…
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A few more than a few departments. They’re up and down the state from ICT1’s to GSUL’s to positions in finance shops, ops and more. Some of the most highly trained and experienced overhead available.
Then you have your volunteers. At this hour the FS doesn’t know what to or how to pay them other than the avg actual rate as described in the agreement.
FS Could get bailed out by a slow fire season. However if teams start flying out the door, it will get interesting.
This whole thing today wraps around the lack of a comprehensive communications strategy. That’s what will keep responders home.