New wildland fire guidelines for firefighter safety

New wildland fire guidelines to focus on firefighter safety

12:48 AM PDT on Saturday, June 2, 2007

By BEN GOAD and KIMBERLY TRONE
The Press-Enterprise

PDF: Accident Review Board Action Plan - Esperanza (USFS)

The U.S. Forest Service will refine the guidelines used by wildlands firefighters to send a strong message throughout the agency's ranks: No home is worth dying for.

That recommendation was included among several nationwide initiatives laid out by the Forest Service in an action plan obtained Friday.

The plan comes after last week's report by the Forest Service and Cal Fire detailing the events of October's Esperanza Fire that killed five Forest Service firefighters in Riverside County's San Jacinto Mountains.

That report pointed to "risky" choices, possibly stemming from a culture in which safety is secondary to saving property, and contributed to decisions that led to the firefighters' deaths.

Though short on specifics, the latest plan aims to improve firefighter safety through the use of improved mapping and better evaluation of whether crews should attempt to save a home.

Some worry that the report hints that the Forest Service might reduce protection of homes in high-risk fire conditions.

Short of risking lives, firefighters should defend structures whenever possible, said Terry McHale, public policy director for CDF Firefighters, a state firefighters union. He said defending property is built into firefighters' training and mindset and changing that would be difficult, particularly as homes continue to be built in fire-hazard areas.

"It would be a frightening precedent in this era of urbanization ... to say we are not going to defend homes. All of a sudden you're going to say we're not going to protect properties," McHale said.

Hundred-foot flames overran Engine 57's crew as the men fought to protect a vacant home built in an area designated as nondefensible on a 2002 map. The map was not available to the crew at the time of the Esperanza blaze.

"This was a major tragedy in the 102-year history of the U.S. Forest Service and we want to make sure the message about what happened gets out," said Tom Harbour, federal director of Fire and Aviation Management.

"We owe it to Engine 57."

Changes in Mentality

Without a clearly defined standard for what risks are acceptable, firefighters have long been given mixed signals, said Dick Mangan, who was a Forest Service firefighter for 40 years and has conducted studies on wildlands firefighter deaths.

Mangan said the plan, if implemented correctly, could finally address the problem firefighters face about whether to defend a structure or let it burn.

He said firefighters have been taught in classrooms that firefighter safety is more important than protecting homes, but there is an underlying pressure to act heroically in the throes of a major fire.

On one hand, firefighters are criticized for letting a fire consume a home and praised for saving homes in dangerous situations.

"Maybe we could get to a point when they would be patted on the back for walking away, with their crew still intact," Mangan said.

The plan released Friday calls for increased creation and distribution of maps showing high-risk areas, highlighting areas like Twin Pines, where the Esperanza tragedy took place.

Such maps, if made public, could have big ramifications for homeowners -- and for insurance companies, which are already beginning to balk at the unchecked growth in fire-threatened areas. Mangan praised the Forest Service for addressing the issue.

"These are social and political issues," he said of the potential fallout from releasing such maps. "(But) you take a little managerial courage and say, 'I don't want another funeral for five firefighters,' " he said.

McHale, of the CDF union, said any shift in policy to reduce protection of property would require local governments to dramatically change their attitudes about home construction in wildland areas.

"We have to have better planning on where we build -- whether or not it's a feasible space," McHale said.

Local Solutions

Riverside County Supervisor Bob Buster this week reiterated his call for local policymakers to take a hard look at what, if any, development should be allowed in fire-prone areas.

Buster said the size and location of the priority areas must be identified. State and national fire agencies need to take a leadership role in helping policymakers realize the need to reassess development in fire-hazard areas, he said.

"It's a new land-use front we have not dealt with before," Buster said. "We don't want another Esperanza."

Those concepts might not have made their way down from state-level discussions to the boards and city councils that decide where new homes can be constructed.

In 2004, the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties adopted a collaborative plan that recommended governments shape policies, zoning and land-use controls to reduce the losses associated with catastrophic blazes.

Riverside County Fire Chief John Hawkins said Friday that had not seen the U.S. Forest Service report but that he planned to review it.

"Then I will have a better idea of where we are going," said Hawkins, who has mostly declined to comment on the Esperanza Fire because of the criminal prosecution of Raymond Lee Oyler.

Oyler, a Beaumont mechanic, has been charged with five counts of murder and arson in the Esperanza blaze. He has pleaded not guilty to those and other arson charges.

Pat Boss, a retired U.S. Forest Service firefighter and liaison to the family of Engine 57 Capt. Mark Loutzenhiser, said cooperation is strong between Cal Fire, the Forest Service and mountain communities.

But Boss said Forest Service firefighters are primarily trained to defend forests, while Cal Fire is more focused on property protection.

"We train together, we strategize together and our evacuation plans are in sync," Boss said.

"It's too bad they didn't use those maps developed in 2002, but still things happen," Boss said. "It was not Engine 57's fault."

Four of the firefighters -- Loutzenhiser, 43, of Idyllwild; Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; and Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto -- died Oct. 26, the day the flames overtook them. The fifth, Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley, died Oct. 31.