Current Situation nocal fire storm

[linuxwrangler]

I have a fair amount of experience working with this state's national guard and with the U.S. Army as fire crews. Maybe things have improved, but as a crew boss I had to watch them like a hawk....

According to an interview on TV, they seem to understand this. Basically the commander said, "we are trained for lots of things but that doesn't mean you can drop us into a fire line and expect us to know what to do. For our own and the public's protection we need at least a bit of training before heading to a fire."

It also sounded like they were using the guard in a supervised role in mop-up/overhaul operations to free up fully-trained and experienced resources for use in active fires.

Thanks, BTW, for your explanation of the fire statistics. I just wish that the site had a footnote or link explaining what each number represented. And I wish the media wouldn't latch onto the reported numbers and parrot them with their (frequently incorrect) guess/assumption of what the number means.

Here's my summary:

Hundreds of fires!! Multiple highway closures! Evacuations underway! Tens of thousands of firefighters on the lines! State of emergency! Can't handle it ourselves - need National Guard and help from other states!!!
...scrolls to bottom of page...
CAL FIRE is not currently hiring seasonal firefighters....

Well, alrighty, then.

 

[trooperdude]

CAL FIRE is not currently hiring seasonal firefighters....

Well, alrighty, then.

Because most of the seasonal hires ended last month, and academy ended last week from those hires.

There are so many engine strike teams out that SCU had to put seasonal academy graduates on a just-created hand crew made up of seasonals (non-prisoners), instead of engines.. until the engines rotate back through the unit.

Sucky year to be a seasonal.

Hand lines are hard work.

 

[BlueZebra]

A couple of other Cal Fire units did the same thing with their new hires. Don't know if it is a "sucky" year tho. Only July 3rd, and even the people fresh out of the training program are raking in the overtime.