News: OSHA issues final report on Esperanza Fire

USA -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the U.S. Department of Labor announced a settlement last Friday with the U.S. Forest Service regarding the agency’s actions during the October 2006 Esperanza Fire in the Twin Pines area and the deaths of five firefighters.

The new settlement withdraws two of six serious violations contained in the initial notice of unsafe conditions issued July 19. The remaining four violations all were modified. Both parties agreed that the Forest Service’s Esperanza Accident Review Board Action Plan, issued April 3-4, 2007, resolved these four items.

In all instances, the OSHA observation that a Watch Out advisory had not been complied with was deleted, because the Forest Service wanted to maintain the policy that these Watch Outs are guidelines rather than mandatory rules of behavior.

“We were able to assist OSHA in understanding that the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders and 18 Watch Out Situations are not intended to be unbreakable rules governing firefighter actions,” Forest Service Region 5 Chief Randy Moore wrote to all employees in the region. “We established that the ‘10 and 18’ are tools that help firefighters recognize dangerous situations and take appropriate action.”

Watch Outs are guidelines firefighters use in wildland/urban areas that help them determine unsafe situations, such as poor access and narrow, one-way canyons.

The Accident Review Board Plan’s fourth recommendation served as a touchstone for OSHA and Forest Service negotiators. This stated, “Initiate a policy review of wildfire suppression risk management principles to enhance agency-wide performance and determine key factors to make educated risk decisions when operational assets are committed, or proposed to be committed in the wildland/urban interface.”

This action satisfies OSHA’s need for further safety actions. The recommendation resolved three serious OSHA items, of which their language also was modified during the settlement negotiations.

Significant modifications began with item 2. The language, “Engine 57 did not follow orders that were communicated by the branch director,” was amended to read, “Branch director’s instruction was either poorly communicated, or misunderstood by USFS firefighters ... The crew of Engine 57 was exposed to a burnover.”

Item 4 was modified to add, “to protect a residential home,” after indicating the firefighters were positioned in front of the fire. The report also adds the following sentence: “This unknowingly left Engine 57 in an indefensible position.”

“We agreed that the events of the that day could not have reasonably been foreseen, and that conditions changed so rapidly the Engine 57 crew had little time to react,” Moore stressed in his memorandum.

The last item switched the order of “structure protection” and “evacuate residents,” so that people wouldn’t think the former was a higher priority than human lives. The following sentence was added: “The residential home was surrounded by vegetation which helped fuel the fire.”

Items 1 and 6 were withdrawn after several meetings between OSHA and the Forest Service. The first alleged the crews failed to comply with several Watch Outs and one fire order. The latter was an observation about turn-out gear for crews of engines 52 and 57.

The Oct. 26, 2006, blaze burned over the five-man crew of Engine 57: Capt. Mark Loutzenhiser, 44 of Idyllwild; and firefighters Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley; Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; and Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto.

“We’re pleased that it was a fair agreement,” said Joe Walsh, Forest Service public information program manager in Washington, D.C. The Forest Service will post the settlement agreement.