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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Breaking The Free Ride <-> Entrapment Cycle
When determining strategy and tactics, avoid situations where firefighters may become entrapped. Consider the following discussion points related to escape routes and safety zones.
- Discuss the three types of safety zones and describe examples.
- The burn/black
- Natural features
- Constructed sites
- Discuss the guidelines for size and distance separation to avoid radiant heat injury.
- Four times the maximum flame height (20 foot-flame height x 4 = 80 foot-radius from firefighters)
- Size based on amount of resources and equipment
- Discuss heat impact factors that will affect the guidelines for distance separation.
- Convection heat from wind and terrain features
- Location relative to fire spread
- Reburn potential of fuel in safety zone
- Discuss how firefighters have a right to know the location of their escape routes and safety zones at all times.
- Discuss how firefighters have a right to ask for clarification when faced with unclear instructions or fear of the unknown.
- Describe a basic procedure for identification of effective escape routes and safety zones.
- Observe
- Visualize
- Identify
- Time
- Inform
- Evaluate
NWCG Six Minutes For Safety: Entrapment Avoidance
Entrapment Avoidance | NWCG
NWCG Devils Creek Fire Entrapment - July 22, 2021
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Today, I Learned: Markdown Preview Links
Copying a URL from the browser address bar and pasting to the Markdown editor gets you this;
[Watch: Bushfire sweeps through Beerwah area of Queensland, Australia | Euronews](https://www.euronews.com/video/2023/09/18/watch-bushfire-sweeps-through-beerwah-area-of-queensland-australia)
which renders as an ordinary HTML style link with an attached click count:
Watch: Bushfire sweeps through Beerwah area of Queensland, Australia | Euronews
To get a preview, clean the cruft off;
https://www.euronews.com/video/2023/09/18/watch-bushfire-sweeps-through-beerwah-area-of-queensland-australia
and it renders the preview:
The Markdown editor appears to assume that when you post a YouTube link, you’re probably going to want the preview, so it omits the cruft when you paste YouTube URLs from the address bar.
If the source site does not include detail tags on the link (most news sites do) then it will render the preview box in the editor with a message indicating that the editor did not find the detail it was looking for in the source link. This Markdown host simply renders the raw URL on Save Edit.
Raw cut and paste;
[NWCG Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) | NWCG](https://www.nwcg.gov/publications/461)
NWCG Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG) | NWCG
decrufted:
https://www.nwcg.gov/publications/461
https://www.nwcg.gov/publications/461
One should probably not expect that a utility site would have the sort of sharing detail that a news site considers essential.
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Light at the end of the tunnel.
While the political knockdown drag out in the US House and infirmity in the Senate is stalling out the economy, and may drag on to the bitter ends of this election cycle, people looking to fight fire in Region 5 might feel some despair against their personal motivations to come and do this thing, anyways. There is hope.
When things in the Federal departments look iffy, the California Conservation Corps powers on.
For California residents, it’s as simple as making a call, showing up at the recruiter’s office, and passing some basic qualifications. No experience required. If you can show up your first day for residential assignment with the clothes on your back*, your good to go. If you feel you are not in good enough physical condition, the Cs will help you get there by the time Crew Certification rolls around.
For non-California residents, the bar is just a little higher, but passable. As establishing residency first, for people who live out of State, is more difficult, the CCC has open doors, namely, Backcountry and Watersheds, which have a specific application process. After a Backcountry or Watersheds ‘tour’, you can transfer to a Fire Crew. In fact, I might expect that a Backcountry on your resume would look good on applications for some of the more exotic Federal jobs, like Hotshots, and other deep Wilderness assignments you might like to look at for DOI USFS and BLM.
There are a high number of jobs, out in ‘the world’, that require at least 2 years of school, AA degree or trade cert, and the CCC can provide you with a minimum of 1, but even to 3 years, dorm housing (or better, depending on assignment) that establishes residency, transportation, training and education tailored for jobs in Fire, Forestry and Natural Resources.
Give 'em a call.
CCC Frequently Asked Questions (residents and non-residents):
Frequently Asked Questions | California Conservation Corps
*virtually, recruiters will give you a packing list with your paperwork. For a WUI Residential Center, it isn’t much, easily covered by your first payday if you have to borrow. For Backcountry, here is a list:
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Unhorsed.
Because this is a stiffly competitive job and labor market, there are two additional factors, of a morale nature, I’ll mention. The sense that the Cs are strictly a ‘second chance’ program, and military veterans.
In the Cs, you encounter both cases; ‘second chancers’ who struggle with reputation, and veterans who come into the Cs with a full head of steam. Firstly, these extra-ordinary people are not the majority of Corpsmembers, and while the unique experiences, in both cases, may provide them some advantages and disadvantages, with regard to institutional behavior, you will probably not find that relating with each other is an insurmountable problem. In fact, you might find, as I did, that your own personal experiences in the world, and a positive mental attitude, are aces up your sleeve that you can play to stay competitive and prevail in situations of competitive promotion.
The Cs, and particularly the CCC Supervisors that run the crews, are old pros at this business, some with military backgrounds, some without, that are quite good at preempting and resolving conflicts that may arise due to the wide variety of situations and backgrounds that Corpsmembers come from. While not quite a complete meritocracy, as time-in and seniority are major factors, your pace of advancement is largely on you and your willingness to learn, work, understand and cooperate with the institution and your place within it. No golden tickets. Your experience in the Cs is what you make it.
Thanks for reading.
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