We have now heard from the Chief and Safety Officer about our 2017 Oregon wildfire season, so I thought it would be appropriate that you heard from your Forestry Local President. Complete and coordinated includes you, the wildland firefighter and all the budgeting, planning, staffing, training time and tools that are now ready for your wildfire suppression mission. Travel time maps, pump discharge rates and friction loss in hose were all factored in here, the technical part of our work.
As your Local President, my focus is on you, the human component of the wildfire suppression equation. Hose and shovel do very little to suppress a wildfire unless someone picks them up and knows how to use them effectively.
Two words, good decisions.
I ask you to make the best decisions possible, wildfire demands it. Come to work prepared, practice like you’re going to play, fight fire aggressively but provide for safety first, LCES, respect your coworkers. I’ve internalized these thoughts and didn’t have to go to the Fireline Handbook to look them up and you may want to also. Decisions are everywhere just think about what goes into pushing dozer line in Southwest Oregon when the inversion lifts. How will you feel when you made the right decisions and the line holds? So this summer (fall, winter, spring) think, and make those good decisions you will feel better for it.
