There are 32 CCC staffed/ CF leadership Type 1 handrews statewide. Currently 27 are staffed and typed out.
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Outstanding questions about Engines, agency interoperations and other matters might be directed to the Public Information Office at the Ventura Training Center in Oxnard. They do some broad spectrum teaching and training on a variety of career and specialization stuff that includes structural, vehicle accident, I think a little swift water, harbor, and all-hazard aspects of emergency response you might find with the different types of Cal Fire contract relationships with LG.
Interagency Ops on the Central Coast are complex; Monterey County is somewhat straightforward (MCRFD, BEU, Los Padres NF). SLO and SB Counties have nearly inverse relationships with Cal Fire. SLO’s county fire department is Cal Fire SLU, by contract (Highways 46, 41, 101 corridors through the Los Padres Range). On the other side of the county line, SB picks up what would otherwise be Cal Fire response area. VNC and SBC are more closely aligned, contract style wise, and do a lot of mutual aid and resource sharing.
GACC SouthOps and LPNF are represented by LPCC at Vandenberg (Hotshots) with coordination to Paso Robles Air Attack (CF AA, S2Ts) and the SMX tanker base (USFS AA, EU and CWN VLAT).
As we know, the default mode is roll to the fire first and let the IMTs (SBC Type 3 AHIMT) sort it out. That being said, I might imagine the Ventura Training Center PIOs would be in the know about quite a few things of this nature.
This video was shared by SLU this Spring. Note the somewhat iconic (SBC, VNC) helmet style.
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A Top 10 List: Reasons Why You Can’t Do That
by Bill Gabbart
In 1994 when I was working for the National Park Service I wrote an article for Ranger: The Journal of the Association of National Park Rangers, entitled The Top 10 List: Reasons Why You Can’t Do That. It was noticed by Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt who quoted several parts of it in an article he later wrote for Viewpoint, a newsletter that was distributed to all employees in the Department of Interior.
Here is the original article that I wrote for Ranger magazine:
A Top 10 List: Reasons why you can’t do that (wildfiretoday.com)
Far from undeserving boredom, Bill Gabbart’s writing was one of the things that got me interested in wildfire as a journalistic topic. I’d been to fires and disasters, and had a hobby interest in writing, but Bill showed me you could put the two together in a way that was fresh and engaging. I don’t write professionally, but if I did, studying Bill’s Wildfire Today archives would be a regular habit.
If audio/visual is your jam, Firestorm '77: The True Story of the Honda Canyon Fire is a masterclass in how to tell a compelling fire story with a bare minimum of creative excess.
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Quaerens Caveat (“let the seeker beware”)
I have known people who automatically said no to almost every suggestion, no matter how trivial. Saying yes meant they had to make a decision.
I would like to have met Bill Gabbart in person. He must have been an amazing dinner guest and story teller. We don’t have that option, today. Pieces like the Ranger article often raise more questions than they answer. Maybe, that’s the point.
As a wildland firefighter, researcher and journalist, Gabbart and his works stand tall. Journalists are full of questions. It’s in the job description. Wildland firefighters live with their heads on a swivel. That’s also in the job description. Wildland firefighters, journalists, researchers and all-around adventurers are often seekers and searchers. And finders.
This age recommends competencies in using search tools and data, but sometimes it’s for their own ends. The tools we use are often provided by vendors whose agendas interfere with our own, with uncertain consequences. Researching data graphs and ‘semantic’ systems taught me about the occasionally hidden arbitrariness of a chosen data point of reference (NWCG PMS205 owl:NamedGraph). Recommended content is sometimes poorly recommended, leading to exit or distraction.
Trivialization is no trivial topic. There are time constraints. The evidence from even this very site is that, in work, sometimes one needs to adjust one’s sight picture, resettle the goggles on your face, adjust some straps. Have a sip of water to dry your throat. Unfortunately, we have lost the opportunity to sit Gabbart down and question him a little bit about the decisions he made that led him to the conclusion I quoted, above. An opportunity cost with no refund.
Like search and rescue and why USAR should be done by people trained to it. It may be an exaggeration, but say one comes across the most profound artifact of anthropological significance in a search for survivors, one might make a mental note of it, at best, when the clock is running out on those who remain alive. Trivialization could be fatal. Not to the seeker, but to the sought.
I’m sure, if we had Bill Gabbart here to answer such things, he’d be quick to acknowledge the point. But we don’t. He will be missed.
Two kinds of people in this world
Winners, losers
I lost my power in this world
Because I did not use it
So I go insane like I always do
And I call your name, she’s a lot like you
Two kinds of trouble in this world
Living, dying
I lost my power in this world
And the rumors are flying
So I go insane like I always do
And I call your name, she’s a lot like you
– Lindsey Buckingham, “Go Insane”
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1 circumstances force you to do things a new way.
2 there’s 10 way to reach the end goal of what it says in the manual.
3-4 it’s better to ask forgiveness than ask permission so long it presents an improvement or returns things normal safe levels.
5 no one has the time, you have to make the time.
6 we bought better tools since the last time
7 we bought the stuff last year and it’s sitting in the warehouse.
8 the public may not like where the lake bouy line is but I don’t like the liability from parents sending there kids through boat windshields when they hit a rock.
9 but that other guy knows how and maybe he can teach me.
10 we’re just fixing what was already there so you don’t need the form.
From a California state parks employee.
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This is sort of related to what I was talking about on the Wildland Firefighter Entry Level Pay - #1231 by ghost7 topic about the cost of living in Region V. Where building more affordable studio and single apartment housing for wildland firefighters on USFS land is what I was describing, according to the SD Union-Tribune Editorial Board, BLM might be in a better position to take action, sooner. Where housing is a hot topic in Region V, generally, more specifically, housing on, or near, BLM land would seem to be on target for entry level BLM firefighters.
Opinion: To spur California housing construction, state should back bill to free up federal land
The U.S. government is by far the biggest landowner in the Golden State, and
much of that land is not national parks, pristine forests or military bases
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Providing affordable housing to employees sounds great, and is a great idea. It can be, Sort of. A couple of points though:
Having had employees living in employer owned housing, once they move in they’re your supervisory headache 24/7. Anything they do after hours, loud parties, firefighter stuff, becomes your headache. Then they have to comply with things related to pets, family members, friends moving in, hobbies that occur outside like wrenching on junk cars, gardening, etc.
There’s the cost of housing construction. You think 4 walls and a roof? Interior sprinklers, CA mandates on solar, water conservation, the cost of supplying water, connecting to the power grid, sewage disposal, ADA compliance. You’d think most wildland firefighters don’t really need wheelchair ramps, you’d be wrong.
Then you try to make it affordable. Employee thinks they’ve cut a fat hog, living in a decent place for 300 bucks a month! When the comparable going rate is 1200. Wait a minute, that’s a taxable fringe benefit. They just got a 900 dollar a month pay raise without getting any money, IRS wants their share of that.
Employee’ gets fired, or just laid off from a seasonal position? If they don’t move out on their own, now you’ve got to go about eviction proceedings, which after Covid moratoriums still take months to kick someone out.
Providing affordable housing can be a tremendous recruitment and retention tool (but you better not call it that) but it carries a lot of baggage.
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Remember, it is on federal land, CA or other requirements can be ignored. Not the first time.
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Those are good points. Its not magic. Maybe, just another engine on the plane, so to speak. In the case of outright sale of land, like Vegas, some of those problems don’t become yours, but there’s compliance and more competition from non-agency people willing to commute. I’m not sure how you would go about reserving part of a private development for agency employees without agency property management. Sometimes, more nearby supply mitigates cost, sometimes not so much.
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Might depend if it’s exclusive, concurrent or proprietary federal jurisdiction.
The other problem is if an agency like the forest service or blm builds a small development of employee cabins or houses they can turn them into weekend rentals if the area is known to get tourists. This has been done by the state of California in some state parks like Calaveras big trees.
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That’s certainly a risk if the decision makers responsible circle back on the reason they built the housing in the first place. Admittedly, it’s a bit of an effort to try and put that past some politicians. Obviously, the issue would need a study to identify district sites and needs, and the potentials of building on Federal land, or selling the land to the State and County. This is one reason why the SD UT article represents a better researched start than just recognizing how useful CCC Residential Centers are.
While some Centers do have a few more or less permanent residences for permanent CCC employees, the housing for the crews are dormitories, which isn’t really the solution for permanent USFS and BLM, although there may be circumstances where seasonal employees would be willing to tolerate dorm living if it is short-term, inexpensive and there aren’t any practical options nearby, as is already the case for many, many assignments in the wilderness, where the commute to work is by helo and boat as often as not (eg. Region 10, Alaska).
In the land sale case, then State and LG laws regulate vacation properties. Generally, local preferences trend to limiting short-term housing where there are acute housing shortages, both for conduct and revenue.
It’s definitely at least two different tracks we’ve brought up; one, building on Federal land, and two, land sale to State and LG.
The circle back problem is real, and pay is the direct way of making headway on it. It’s better in almost all respects to make sure the main focus stays on payroll, with housing as supporting tracks that tie into cooperative agreements with State and LG housing legislation and measures.
I made a fairly bold statement in the Pay topic. I’d like to qualify it a bit. When I say, ‘get behind the Ranger, not the Sky Pilot’, I’m saying this is a vital issue, there are lives and values on the line, and, although I’m not a professional, I can’t seem to shake this sense that there is liability behind this pay issue that borders on civil or even criminal negligence. I mean Ranger in the civil sense more than the military one.
Since I have some Corpsmember attention here, I’d also like to post something else about retention. With a bit of optimism regarding pay and housing on the horizon and this labor market, the pull out of the Cs is very strong. I faced this myself in my second year. I had a chest full of pins, a firefighter rocker, a green hat on my head, the keys to the dually, and a pretty comfortable gig as a senior Specialist at the combined Academy and Construction Unit work that was going on a Camp SLO at the time.
I was on track to even bigger things in my third year, but I opted out in favor of a job in town and a subsequent adventure with a small helicopter outfit in Central and South America. Unfortunately, after taking the job in town, illness struck the helicopter owner/pilot and the adventure was cancelled. The job I had wasn’t bad, but by then it was too late to go back to the Cs, except maybe as a Special Corpsmember. I considered it. At that time, the financial situation of the State was in decline, the job market was tight and getting tighter, and it was difficult to get work with CDF.
In retrospect, although I’m at peace with the past in this chapter of my life, I think Corpsmembers ought consider sticking with it for second and third years. Maybe things work out for you in the long run after graduation, maybe they don’t. I don’t have any complaints, but I do wonder sometimes how my life would have been different if I had made a career of the work I started in the Cs. Just think about it.
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The Battle Of Palmdale - August 16, 1956
The Battle of Palmdale was the attempted shoot-down of a runaway drone by United States Air Force interceptors in the skies over Southern California in mid-August 1956. The drone was launched from Point Mugu Naval Air Station and soon went out of control. Interceptor aircraft took off from Oxnard Air Force Base and caught up with the drone, but were ultimately unable to bring it down, despite using all of their rockets. After it ran out of fuel, the unmanned aircraft crashed in a sparsely populated tract of desert.
…
The incident resulted in damage on the ground. The Mk. 4 rockets were fitted with point-detonating warheads that armed on firing. Of the 208 rockets, only 15 were discovered undetonated.The first set of rockets started brush fires 7 miles (11 km) northeast from Castaic which burned 150 acres (61 ha) above the old Ridge Route near Bouquet Canyon.
Some of the second set of rockets reached the ground near the city of Newhall. In Placerita Canyon, one rocket was seen bouncing along the ground and starting a series of fires near a park, while others set fire to oil sumps owned by the Indian Oil Co. The fires reached within 300 feet (91 m) of the Bermite Powder explosives plant. Other rockets started fires in the proximity of Soledad Canyon, near Mount Gleason, burning more than 350 acres (140 ha) of rough brush.
The final set of rockets were fired while the Scorpions faced Palmdale; many landed within the town. “As the drone passed over Palmdale’s downtown, Mighty Mouse rockets fell like hail.” “Edna Carlson, who lived in the home on Third Street East, said that a chunk of shrapnel from one Air Force rocket burst through the front window of her home, ricocheted off the ceiling, went through a wall and came to rest in a kitchen cupboard.” More rocket fragments completely penetrated a home and garage on 4th Street East. One rocket landed right in front of a vehicle being driven west on California State Route 138 near Tenth Street West, of which one tire was shredded and many holes were punched through the car’s body. Two men in Placerita Canyon had been eating in their utility truck; right after they left it to sit under the shade of a tree, a rocket struck the truck, destroying it. Many fires were started near Santa Clarita, with three large ones and many smaller ones in and around Palmdale.
It took 500 firefighters two days to bring the brushfires under control. 1,000 acres (400 ha) were burned. There were no fatalities.
Battle of Palmdale - Wikipedia
A source article (cited) gives a little more detail about “a chain of fires twenty-five miles long”.
350 forest service fire fighters battled a 300-acre blaze on the slopes of Mount Gleason; another 100 men fought a 150-acre conflagration. According to the Los Angeles Fire Department, 435 acres of watershed were destroyed.
SCVHistory.com | The Battle of Palmdale | The Terrifying Tale of the Runaway Drone (Pageant, May 1957).
This is a screencap from a YouTube documentary video and it certainly looks like a wildfire in Southern California chapparal, but something about it, I dunno. Would a retardant drop look like that in Aug 1956?
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I don’t know about the retardant drop, but this sounds like a movie to be made and watched. Pretty damn CRAZY.
Drone in 1956, makes you wonder what they have Keistered up that no one knows about.
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That’s a picture of the soberanes fire but I don’t think a retardant drop would have looked much different in 1956.
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And those were full sized aircraft, there were b17s and i think even b29s.
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How about borate bombers ??
That is a picture of the 2016 Soberanes fire the video maker took straight off of Wikipedia. I think if your going to make most of the video from historical photographs, you should caption something like that, or lose credibility.
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