Breaking News: L.A. County Supervisor Calls for Congressional Probe of the Station Fire

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This afternoon, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich called upon Congress to initiate a Congressional Inquiry into the handling of Station Fire.

Supervisor Antonovich based his request on conflicting information that was obtained by the LA Times under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Los Angeles Times contends that they have found discrepancies between the documents they uncovered, and the official report on the Station Fire produced by the U.S. Forest Service last month.

Last evening, the Los Angeles Times released the first article titled, Records show no mention of terrain in withholding aircraft during Station fire. To read that article: CLICK HERE.

In that article, former Angeles National Forest Fire Chief Donald Feser made the following statements:

“It just irks me to see . . . that they’re blaming the terrain for why no action was taken,” said Don Feser, a former fire chief for the forest who retired in 2007. “They’re just making excuses.”


“I’ve covered a lot of that ground, and there is only a small percentage of land that is too steep to put firefighters on,” said Feser, who worked in the Angeles National Forest for 26 years, the last seven as fire chief. “And if we can’t put firefighters on it, guess what we do? We use aircraft.”

This evening at 5:12 PM (PT), the Los Angeles Times published a second article titled, Supervisor calls for federal probe of Station fire operations after Times report raises questions. To read that article: CLICK HERE.

In the article, Supervisor Antonovich is quoted as saying the following:

“Did the members of the investigative committee have access to this information? If they did, they are responsible for misleading the public,” he said. “As a result of the (Forest Service) leadership’s failure … we lost two fine, brave firefighters.”

Those are some pretty pointed accusations. Undoubtedly, things are going to get a lot uglier as the situation continues to snow ball. See the post from last Friday for more background.

Next month, the report on deaths of LACoFD Fire Capt. Ted Hall and Firefighter Specialist Arnie Quinones is expected to be released to the public. Rumor has it, that the report was completed by the CAL FIRE SART team and it has been submitted to the LACoFD Executive Leadership and County Counsel for review.

To help put things into perspective in this political showing by Supervisor Antonovich, here is an excellent article on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. 

I have to wonder if it would just be better to put all of the “fire chiefs” into one room and let them work it out….. just as was done during FIRESCOPE in the early 70’s through the late 80’s? Chief Officers know how to cut through the crap… do what’s right… and share Lessons Learned…. keep the media and politics out of discussions? 

Update – 10:00 PM (PT):

Representative Adam Schiff has jumped on the bandwagon also. Another online L.A. Times article was published by Mr. Pringle. This time a third article within the last 24 hours is titled, Rep. Schiff to seek inquiry into Station Fire response. To read that article: CLICK HERE.

A local House member says he will ask Congress to launch an inquiry next month into the U.S. Forest Service’s response to the Station fire, including a decision to withhold water-dropping aircraft during the critical second day of the blaze.

“Congress really ought to investigate and determine if the right calls were made,” Schiff said. “I hope that we can have an oversight hearing and get to the bottom of this.”


Three weeks before the blaze, the Forest Service instructed supervisors to cut costs by limiting the use of reinforcements from other fire agencies. Los Angeles County helicopters helped keep the Station fire to 15 acres the first day, but the Forest Service did not bring them back in the same numbers on Day 2. Forest Service officials said costs did not influence their tactics.

Schiff said the inquiry by the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies would also determine if the Forest Service has enough aircraft for its mission and whether it has “the right policies in place.”

All references to LA Times Investigative Reporter Paul Pringle’s Inquisition “from another website” : CLICK HERE . Here is an example of the commentary:

I think there are sentiments out there that these LA Times articles are not part of a just culture and counter productive to the learning process. At first that is what I thought about these articles too. Paul Pringle is an award winning journalist, and is known for his articles that exposed corruption in the SEIU a few years ago, and certainly good at what he does-digging up dirt to sell news papers. WTF does he know about managing a fire, and who is he to question decisions made on the ground? He has no friggin clue what that R5 memo means, and it is probably totally irrelevant to the Station Fire. Be that as it may, milehighbar made an excellent point, that maybe he is examining a deeper issue, the issues within the system. Then I saw it a little bit differently- maybe there are questions to be raised. Read all 4 of his articles- he’s asking some legitimate questions. Are cost containment objectives, sent down by the powers that be, hindering effective wildland fire management? Should Line Officers and people who haven’t seen the fire, or ever even been on a fire, be making the many important decisions that need to be made about a particular fire? There’s a lot of dissension among the ranks- how long can it go on? The list of questions goes on. Did any of these causal factors in the system create a missed oppurtunity? We will never know whether it was decisions that were made, or whether it was mother nature that allowed the Station Fire to become “one angry fire.”

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Forest Service: Station Fire Initial Attack Review:
CLICK HERE

Appendices A & B:
CLICK HERE

Appendices C, D, & E:
CLICK HERE

Members of the Forest Service Review Panel were:

James Hubbard (Team Lead)
Deputy Chief of State and Private Forestry
Washington Office, Forest Service

Tom Harbour
Director of Fire and Aviation Management
Washington Office, Forest Service

John Tripp
Chief Deputy – Operations
Los Angeles County Fire Department

Ken Pimlott
Deputy Director, Chief of Fire Protection
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection

Donald MacGregor, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
MacGregor Bates, Incorporated

READY! SET! GO! Personal Wildfire Action Plan from Mike Antonovich on Vimeo.

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The Systematic Dismantling of Fire Leadership / Fire Program Management Within the United States Forest Service

In a fully anticipated show of top down bureaucracy and lack of understanding about it’s very own fire program, the Forest Service has once again canceled the Region 5 Chief Officer’s Workshop. As some of you might understand, the Region 5 Chief Officer’s Workshop was a yearly multi-level workshop featuring collaboration and information exchange. The workshop has been instrumental in addressing federal wildfire issues such as recruitment & retention; firefighter safety; emerging technology; risk management; and countless other wildland fire topics. The workshop is probably best known for the synergy and voice gained after the 2003 Southern California wildfires, and the realization by firefighters and fire managers that several past events (South Canyon, Thirtymile, Cramer) were crippling the federal land management programs… or per se.. the various “Land Management Agencies” in their inability to manage complex wildland fire programs. In all actuality, it showed exactly why a complete re-organiation of the federal wildfire program is needed… and soon.

The workshop participants typically consisted of the following groups working collaboratively on issues:

• The Chief Officers Group
• The Hotshot Group
• The Engine Captains Group
• The Helicopter Managers Group
• The Prevention Group
• The Dispatchers Group

Here is what the Region 5 Fire Director sent out as an explanation:

I am deeply disappointed that we will not hold the Chief Officer’s Workshop yet another year. Your committee did everything asked of them to the detail and in the time asked. The failure was not theirs, and as Allen pointed out we received excellent support from Joni Cook in the Chief’s Office. Just exactly why or how our request languished in the Washington Office for six-months without action or inquiry is unknown.

It was my responsibility to do all I could to impress on others the importance of this meeting to our cohesion and our effectiveness. I should have been more diligent in keeping the issue fresh and the pressure on to move it forward. For these failures I alone am responsible.

I will engage with the committee shortly after the first of the year to begin the process anew; with greater determination and focus.

In the meantime it is important that the key attributes of the workshop not die with it. I urge all of you to hold video conferences, informal meetings, and use whatever other methods that are available to communicate within and among your groups and committees. The intent of ensuring cohesion and the sharing of lessons learned within and between forests, crews, and leadership must be realized regardless of whether we have a workshop or not. I would recommend inter-forest preparedness reviews and meetings, resource type-specific workshops within your province or group of provinces, or other creative means that achieve the end-state of honing yourselves to meet the challenges of 2010. Knowing your creative genius, I have every confidence you will do just that.

May we all have a successful and safe 2010!

-ed-

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Ed Hollenshead

Director – FAM

Pacific Southwest Region

Instead, someone at the Regional Office and Washington Office levels  has determined it is more important that Fire Managers and Incident Management Team Command and General Staff members attend the following:

Date: December 11, 2009

Subject: GACC Level Continuous Improvement Sessions

To: Forest Supervisors, Fire Managers and Staff

I am requesting you to attend one of two important 2-day wildland fire management workshops to be held between March 8 and 15, 2009. I want each of you to be in attendance or have an acting that will bring back information. Please hold these days on your calendar. Exact dates will be announced soon. Workshops will be held at McClellan and at a yet to be determined location in southern part of the state.

To prepare for the upcoming fire season and develop a more common approach to fire management, a “Continuous Improvement in Decision Making on Large Fires” workshop is being held at the Geographic Area Coordination Center level. The purpose of these sessions is to provide an opportunity for dialog regarding the challenges fire managers and line officers are facing; and potential methods and alternatives that could be implemented.

In recent years the agency has been experimenting with systematic changes in fire management to ease resource demands, mitigate firefighter exposure and reduce costs of large “problem fires”.

Even though phenomenal efforts have been made to improve effectiveness and reduce risks, additional refinements in managing these “problem fires” are needed. The focus of the GACC level workshop is to share information with leaders at the Forest, Incident Management Team and Coordination/Dispatch level throughout the state. I expect these leaders to have a common understanding of their roles and engage in a collaborative effort of decision making when managing large fires.

Two sessions have been scheduled for agency administrators and their staffs and Incident Management Team Command and General staff members. The workshops will be facilitated by the Atlanta NIMO team, who will provide the framework for a common approach to fire management and the protocols involved in Continuous Improvement in Large Fire Management.

The sessions will last two days. Day One will be an overview of Continuous Improvement with Forest Service expectations as to how large fires are managed. It will include topics such as risk management, line officers roles, social networking, importance of preseason stakeholder engagements and resource allocations. Day Two will be centered on a simulation involving multiple fires within the GACC and the decisions and expectations that can arise from these.

With our busy schedules and constant demands I felt it was important to get this information out to you now, so that time can be set aside for this important engagement. More information will follow within the next month.

If you have any questions about the workshop, please contact (snipped to protect the innocent).

/s/ Randy Moore

RANDY MOORE

Regional Forester

It is a pretty disappointing time within the Forest Service and other federal wildland fire agencies. All I can say is WTF are they thinking everytime decisions like these are made. The truth of the matter is… these decisions aren’t being made by firefighters nor by fire managers… but by folks who are not qualified to be setting policy and direction for a fire management program that they are not qualified to lead, supervise, or manage…. or in any way provide effective oversight.

When folks are allowed to stop communication as they are currently being allowed to do… things crumble from the inside – out…. and it’s usually from the backlash in which the first small cracks & holes appear… presenting ripe conditions for latent conditions to overwhelm, and active failures to occur with regularity in the system. We can do better. One senior fire manager stated it like this: “It is hard to gain supporters for positive change while you [as an agency] are circling the drain… especially when all you’re used to giving them is toilet paper and promises to hold on to … and fond memories of great sunsets that they all used to enjoy.”

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Thoughts? Please comment by clicking the comments link…. or by e-mailing your thoughts to: Admin@RamblingChief.com

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USFS Camp Pendleton Interagency Fire School – 2009

CAL FIRE – Riverside Co. Fire Department

It’s really bad when a Fire Captain (PIO) uses the term “back burn”……. What exactly did he actually mean to say??? “backfire”…. or “burn out”????  Those are two distinct and related terms (but not interchangeable) taught and tested of all entry level firefighters…. and S-110, S-130, and S-190 graduates. Proper terminology needs to be used by PIOs. There is a difference… and it matters… JMHO.