Was having a discussion with a retired CalFire BC who was one of my FFs 50 years ago. He pointed out we are able to catch more fires in the first burning period when we have all of our tools in place. He questioned since we know this, why are we more aggressive getting our front line resources back on base. Why don’t we turn more of the mop up and suppression repair over to T2 crews and contractors?
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Sounds similar to the argument for pounding small fires with T1 tankers and night helicopters.
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Interesting thought, they currently do when available maybe we don’t due to numbers? I think your always going to have type 3’s in and around homes for obvious reasons but I do think they would do good work in the rural areas of fires, but your still going to need engines for pumping reasons.
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Lack of available resources would be my guess. We don’t have the quantity let alone quality of T2 crews like we use to even 10yr ago.
The blue collar labor shortage is real and only getting worse.
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You can pump a lot of 1.5" line with something less than a quarter million dollar, 30 thousand pound, 30 foot long, 350 horsepower, 4wd type 3 with a crew cab and chrome though, just saying.
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Oh most definitely not denying that, BUT it’s back to the availability of those resources or Marc 3’s
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It is a great suggestion. The solution lies in the hurdles. Work force is a huge piece. I had a buddy who works for a very well respected city department of 13 houses tell me, they had one opening and only got 24 applications. This use to be 1-2000 people for that one job. The workforce is changing. CAL FIRE has got a hell of a problem on its hands in getting 2000 great employees to fill its seats. I think we all know the answer to this.
Back to IA readiness, what he is pointing out is the Helitack concept. Once the fire is knocked down and contained, get your major assets back and ready to attack the next one. This would require some major shifts in how we do business. It’s not undoable or a bad idea. Draw out the kinks and how to solve them, you might have some forward moment, if the right person reads it, and can see how to make it happen and the advantages.
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