I will certainly date myself with this comment, but it is really more of a return to helmets being in field trial. Before CF went to EROPS, their HFEO’s had full face helmets with the filtered and recirculated air plumbed into the back of the helmet. Believe LA and Ventura counties used the same methodology
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There should be 3 left at the county, I think! at one time we had 6 D-8 direct drive fire cats, 16’ angle blades and 350hp to the ground, best fire cat I’ve ever been on!
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Back to the original topic…
I hope this contract and money issue is handled gracefully soon. The contract dozers are a great asset on extended attack fires.
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The following language is being add to VIPR agreements in Region 5
"D.19.2 BUSINESS RELATIONS IN GENERAL
Vendors are expected to conduct themselves professionally. HARRASSMENT IN ANY FORM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Examples of unprofessional behavior are yelling; cursing; making argumentative or inflammatory statements; using threatening language; using social media for posting of unprofessional content related to agreements, assignments or general government business; or causing unnecessary interruptions to ongoing work or making unreasonable demands from government program staff, including demanding prioritization of vendor’s issue over other ongoing work or an excessive number of communications toward that end. Examples of unprofessional practices are abuse and/or purposeful misrepresentation of the agreement terms, or of the incident process/system, such as–
- Causing improper dispatching procedures that do not follow agreement provisions or the dispatch priority list
- Not restricting calls to dispatch about the status of vendor’s own resources in the system, such as interrupting regular dispatch business to ask when vendor might be called on assignment or requesting the status of other vendors (see D.6(b)).
- Accepting assignments when date and time cannot be met
- Accepting assignments when operators have insufficient work/rest
- Accepting assignment when drive time exceeds the work/rest requirements in order meet date and time needed
- Frequent refusals of assignments
- Demanding use of vendor’s own ancillary equipment rather than another vendor’s
- Not responsibly checking in at incident so that resources can be assigned and put to work promptly
- Providing resources that result in an excessive number of equipment inspection failures
- Repetitively not meeting the minimum agreement requirements
- Withdrawal of equipment due to refusal of use of another vendor’s ancillary equipment
- Causing unnecessary interruptions to ongoing work or making unreasonable demands from incident staff, including demanding prioritization of vendor’s issue over other ongoing work or an excessive number of communications
- Requesting release from an assignment in order to accept another
- Not dutifully and efficiently working through the demobilization process so that a resource can be released promptly
- Submitting improper or late invoicing, shift tickets, or other paperwork related to an assignment
Having an agreement is not an entitlement; it is at the discretion of both parties. Any vendor whose business practices result in undue administrative burden to the Government and/or whose representative’s conduct is considered unprofessional is subject to the suspension or cancellation of any or all VIPR agreement(s).
The Contracting Officer has the authority under this agreement to make decisions regarding compliance with the terms and conditions of the agreement, including professional conduct and business relations. The Contracting Officer or the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) is the vendor’s contact for issues with Business Relations."
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Have to wonder if the Forest Service will be issuing any such direction to their own employees about not cursing… most of this is understandable to anyone who understands running a business, I just wonder how the freedom of speech on social media will be looked at in court if they try to enforce it.
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I can see the courts being a contractors response to several issues of FS employees behavior to contractors. Also sounds like an agency that has forgotten who they work for. We the people are not responsible to a government agency as much as they are responsible to US !
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Yup, sounds like they are taking steps to curb the general public from finding out about how bad things can be.
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If anyone knows if this is happening in other regions too or just California?
I have heard of another contractor of large and specialized equipment in SoCal who is focusing on his regular business and will not be available for FS.
By the time R-5 gets done dictating their new rules, they may be playing by themselves, that is if they can keep their own employees from leaving and going to an agency that appreciates them.
There are several looking.
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Just my opinion! I think about 50% of that USFS love letter is spot on! There is only a few contracting people that can and are dealing with the mess of the Emergency Rental Agreements, I can only imagine some of the pissed off vendors and how they "chat " with the C/O once they do get a phone call to go though. Try to relax, I’m sure they are working on it! And if some vendors are going to stick with their business jobs or projects they should!! I hope they don’t depend on fires for work. And for the other 50% of letter? Well I can tell ya after 30yr. of DZOB, DZSTL, I always got a laugh out of the few vendors that tried to pull the wool over my eyes and thought they were dealing with a rookie! I have faith that it will all work out, but it’s going to take a little time. We need the vendors, just chill and have a soda pop!
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In my experience, getting signed up in VIPR, responding to amendments, and negotiating ‘fair market value’ with overworked COs that don’t understand the service you provide is extremely stressful. If the feds are serious about keeping high-quality contractors, they should hire more national-level contracting officers.
When I ran a fire contracting business we had many legitimate complaints about shady dealings of our competitors, like signing up the same piece of equipment in 3 diffferent GACCs with fake VIN#s, or claiming qualified operators we knew weren’t actually red-carded. We were accruing significant expense training our operators, paying them for training assignments out of our own pocket, but the CO demanded we lower our operator rates to what competitors were charging for people who hadn’t even been trained. When we asked them to audit taskbooks, they wouldn’t do it. Very frustrating.
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best damn GIS outfit hands down.
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I’m sure the current strong construction market is not helping with availability of dozers and similar types of equipment as well. Have to weigh whether chasing smoke is better than sleeping in your own bed at night.
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Welcome Karsen, This is a GREAT website to get information on new and continuing incidents.
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I know a few few good GIS outfits. Which one were you addressing.
Deer Creek.
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The Deer Creek group are number one in my book.
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Back on this dozer thing. Is anyone making any progress with this?
Have local representatives been contacted?
Has Gannon answered his phone?
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I’m 99% sure not only the USFS has made a huge mistake, but they have lost over half of the heavy equip. vendors region wide (R-5) for the rest of agreement period. and they have decided the best way to deal with it is not to deal with it! Amazing!! I guess the C/O Matt feels his job is pretty safe! lol anybody else feeling the same?
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Does anyone know what going on with VIPR contracts in Region 5 ?
I have the 2016 water handling contract with 1 type 6 that’s 2 ENGB 2FFI 2FF2 and I dealt with constant paperwork problems with contracting officers the entire time and given the run around. When we did get dispatched we never had any issues And always had good evaluations.
We now have a type 3 and decided to put i a quote in VIPR for the 2019 more like 2020 water handling solicitation for region 5
I just received an email stating my company is not in compliance and my type 6 and type 3 will no longer be considered for award under this solicitation because the weights of the type 3 thats stamped into the door Frame appear to be too low
And they did approve of our RT-130
I’m just wondering if anyone else might of ran into the same thing?