Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Eclipse, Plan Ahead and Prepare

In less than three weeks, on August 21st, Oregon will be in the path of totality of a solar eclipse that sweeps from the Coast to Idaho border.  That is the known known.

The unknown known is how will the eclipse effect the Oregon Department of Forestry’s mission to prevent and suppress wildfires.  There is a lot of work being done to have an idea of what this unknown will be and how to mitigate it if it does jeopardize the Department’s fire fighting mission. This is well and good and thankfully there are a lot of really bright people working on the project and come eclipse time good plans will be in place if bad things happen.

Another known known are the expected employee contributions to minimize the effect on Oregon’s forests from wildfire.  Unlike a fire emergency that starts from a spark and can grow rapidly enough to threaten a city and involve a Incident Management Team within a few hours there is time to plan for this event and that planning should include the care and feeding of involved staff.  I just heard a story of past dated Meals Ready to Eat (MRE) being provided to some of our firefighters. If an MRE is going to substitute for a meal it needs to be served before it’s past pull date.  If this happens to you will you please let your Steward or someone from your Local’s leadership team know.  Our Local is also reaching out to those Districts and Units within the Path of Totality to provide “snacks” to go along with the provided meal, again, please contact your Steward or elected Local leadership to make these arrangements.

Plan ahead and prepare, be safe.

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