Subject: A Beginners Journey
Content: Hi, I've been researching Wildland Firefighting for a couple of years now and this year I almost made the team but because I didn't feel safe working for the company who gave me the free training I may not do it this year. I'd like to share with you my experiences and see what you think. Also, I signed up on another Wildland Firefighter website and posted a thread titled "Educational Info for a New Guy" on which I was going to keep posting things that I thought was interesting and educational for a new guy and when I started to talk about the issue of more accountability on private companies thats when it started backing and went all downhill from there. I do have some blame in the matter though (I laughed when told about a certain Safenet policy that asks that the Wildland Firefighter report any unsafe conditions or anything of that nature directly to thier supervisor) and I deeply regret laughing at certain things that were presented to me. Here's an example of my first post on this thread: There's so many things that I'm coming across during my Wildland Firefighting research and it would be nice to have a thread to post these things on - an educational folder. These are the things that as a beginner, I find very interesting and feel this information could come in very handy for future reference. I would first like to thank the administration of this site, and the many Wildland Firefighters who are quick to offer some good advise. This is one of the best tools that a firefighter has... communication. I appreciate the professionalism that you all have and would like to say, good job in doing what you do. If anyone has any good orientation videos or anything that would benefit the Basic Wildland Firefighter feel free to post here. As I continue I may be editing this first post as I add to it and move things around a little. Also, if your new to Wildland Firefighting as I am, and have any questions, you can post your questions here and I'm sure someone here will be able to give you a good answer. So far I've learned that, for me personally, it's going to take an act of congress to get into this field of work. The next thing is, I realize that there is so much involved in this field of work and it's amazing how safe firefighters normally are because of the careful planning of the ones who are ultimately in charge. A wildland fire is the scariest beast I've ever seen and I have the utmost respect for the ones who fight it. There's nothing more important in this field of work than the protection of these brave men and women who dare to attack it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlT8-...eature=related ( credit: Jo Ann Fites, PhD ) “Firefighters have to be strong enough to use their own minds all the time and brave enough to be afraid. If you find yourself working with a crew that is not afraid of fire, find one that is. First-year crew members need to be told that rules get broken, that safety is not always first. They need to be told that their incident commander can get them killed without losing his or her job. It is an absolute fraud to tell them less.” — Ken Weaver, father of Devin Weaver who died at the Thirtymile Fire In honor of Karen Fitzpatrick, Devin Weaver, Jessica Johnson, and Tom Craven. http://www.coloradofirecamp.com/usfs_doctrine/cantwell-remarks.htm Last year I was too late in signing up for a class. This year I was on time but I chose not to work with the company because I didn't feel it would be a safe decision. I understand that there is nothing more important and nothing that should be taken more serious than my safety and the safety of those around me. If I don't sense that these are the qualities and priorities of my potential employer then it's a no brainer to me. Never get comfortable with safety. I want to make sure I get trained the correct way, and it looks like I may have found a few good answers: TRAINING AND SAFETY: Oregon Department of Forestry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5laWN4diIxw Colorado Firecamp http://www.coloradofirecamp.com/s130-190/index.htm Firestorm - The Ultimate Test http://www.firestormfire.com/trainin...lting/fitness/ Safety Information http://www.wildfirelessons.net/Home.aspx CURRENT CONDITIONS AND MAPPING: Current Map of Large Wildland Fires in the United States: http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/ Current Fire Weather Outlook: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/ Current Areas of Drought in the United States: http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html Creating Your Own Map: http://www.wildlandfire2.com/maps/scribblemap.wmv So, this is kinda where it left off on the other site, during what turned out to be a blow up: I'm not talking about being able to see personal information about the one who was injured or killed. I'm talking about every single agency being held accountable for all recordable injuries or fatalities, just as OSHA does. I totally dissagree with the "Big Brother" perception of this. I've worked in refineries and chemical plants for private companys who do work there, whether it be a maintenance contract or whatever and this mentality of reporting all incidents was widely accepted by and highly regarded by all. No matter if it was a finger cut, the companys want it reported. I can't explain how OSHA gets them to be so willing to comply but they do. During a unit shutdown, all contractors gather before every shift for a tent meeting and there are safety meetings and usually safety prizes are given away. There are also little cards that are available for each employee to fill out, where the employee can write down any unsafe conditions he may have witnessed and tell what they did or what they said to try and correct the problem. At every safety meeting the safety man in charge will select a few to read and acknowledge with praise for those who filled the cards out, and will even give out safety awards. No one gets fired and it's not like your ratting each other out... it's called accountability, and it saves alot of people from getting hurt while keeping each company in check." "Example : "saw someone not wearing hard hat - told them they should put it on", or, was forced to work line with no communication... whatever... and yeah, these things were very accepted by every company and their employees. Yeah, there was personal info on the cards and it's like ratting someone out, but guess what. Because of this there were a whole lot less" safety violations Oh, and these cards weren't allways about a safety hazard. They also have they option to report someone who was working safely. Example, for Wildland Firefighting it could be something like,"witnessed so and so spot large snag before fell near coworker - fell snag. Stuff like that." "You'd really be surprised at how people respond to being rewarded for being safe. This is why I am the way I am, and it's also why you see me asking so many questions about this. It's how my brain works...lol. So as of right now, the impression I'm getting is I probably wouldn't make it too long in any private agency. I'm most definitely going to have to use the first season to pay for some college and try and get into a Federal job. I've been researching different classes that a few Oregon colleges have to offer. Who knows, one day you may see these little cards at fire camp" Originally Posted by burn Lucky for you we turned that little card into an electronic trend tracking tool: https://www.safecom.gov/ (Aviation) http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/safety/safenet/safenet.html (Ground pounders) "Cool, sounds like a good thing. But, while I'd love to say, wow, good job Forest Service/Federal Government, if I'm understanding those programs correctly it's just something that's available but not out in the open as much as it should be. Right? There's a night and day difference between something that's just available and spoke about every now and then, and something that's brought up, explained, encouraged, and revealed everytime before you step foot in the wild. Something else I noticed on the latter site:" "In order to ensure the most immediate corrective action. SAFENET should be submitted to your supervisor. However, the originator has the right to submit SAFENET to any level of the organization." "HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA, like ESPN says... COOOOOME OOOOOON MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN. You've got to be kidding me (Forest Service)...lol. Not you burn, don't take me the wrong way ok. Thanks for responding and I appreciate that you informed me about those things. I'm really glad to know about that. Heck, I could be totally wrong in assuming that there's little participation in these, but that's what it looks like. I would guess that there's probably 5% participation vs 75 percent participation in what I was talking about." "Just a poll question - Has anyone ever filled one of these out?" "Ok, that's it. And I do admit that laughing was wrong, and very arrogant on my part. So what happened next was them jumping on me like a pack of wolves and not even letting me defend myself or continue the conversation. I posted, that while I was sorry for laughing that I still felt the same about my opinion on this issue of accountabililty and safety. So what happened is, as soon as I began to dissagree with the admin on this issue (because they saw it as "BIG BROTHER") they jumped on me the first chance they got. They aren't even willing to let me voice my opinion any further. They were many of my previous posts as well. The only thing I'm guilty of is not agreeing with them, and also laughing at Safenet. Oh, and also I guess they had a big problem with me calling Oregon "God's Country" by putting that in my profile information as to where I live." So to conclude that discussion I'd like to say that I think using the "Safety Observation" cards at every fire camp would be a great way to promote safety and it would make it more personal. Noone would have to respond to the many e-mails or whatever that's been collected accross the nation either. It would encourage mass participation and would ensure that each company be held accountable. I was trying to find something online about these observation cards and this is what I've come up with so far: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:aRaZhFj42IQJ:www.safetyperformance.com/pdf/Articles/PracticalArticles/CaseStudy-KochRefiningUsesTotalSafetyCulturePrinciplestoImproveSafety.pdf+safety+observation+cards+refineries&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESi4bQBl45U5aurNJlj687s6d9kl8bscpOEr2AG1F8OBVnqFDDaMeM1eIDoTC5Tx8oPrFaUby8PecYmRpOAVJhMI2nY3unM_iI4pvtkkGpoozo0zxwP9ZKByHhYtNJM3Q311b2Y0&sig=AHIEtbQKFNU5h2CwRnwGTcfcu-ajSnQbQA I can vouch for this 100%. It works. It works even better when you have the option to write down safe practices that you witnessed. The end result of this is most everyone becomes more safety conscious and there are a lot less violations. Everyone starts to realize, "hey, I better make everyone sure of the safety zone and route, or I better post a watch up there." Accountability.
VIEW FULL VERSION: Link