2005 marks the 100th anniversary of both the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF). In recognition, Wildland Firefighter took a closer look at the integral role these two organizations have played in U.S. fire prevention and suppression.
USFS & Wildland Fire: A Short History
By BRIAN BALLOU
No entity on earth has devoted as much time, money and effort toward controlling, preventing, using and demystifying wildland fire as the USFS. At its beginning in 1905, the agency outlined some lofty fire-protection goals: “Probably the greatest single benefit derived by the community and the nation from forest reserves is insurance against the destruction of property, timber resources, and water supply by fire … Through its watchful fire patrol, the Forest Service guards the property of the resident settler and miner, and preserves the timber and water supply upon which the prosperity of all industries depends.”
Photo courtesy of USFS
The USFS then went out and did its darndest to live up to those goals, even in the face of immediate setbacks. The 1910 fires that swept western forests might have sent lesser men packing. Not the rangers. They never let up — still haven’t, 100 years later — discovering ways to tame the “demon” fire, and later even making some peace with it.
Smokejumping was one of the USFS’ most stellar, most daring innovations. From 1917 into the 1930s, rangers increasingly used aircraft to assist with fire-suppression efforts, first with aerial reconnaissance to spot fires, then to transport men and equipment to backcountry airstrips. To some, it seemed natural to have men dive out of planes, with a parachute on their backs and a Pulaski in hand, to fight fire.
Photo courtesy of CDF
A CDF Department of Natural Resources engine assists at a structural fire in Auburn, Calif., in the late 1930s or early 1940s.
Increasing the drive to develop an American smokejumping program was the discovery that the Russians already used smokejumpers to fight fire. So, in 1938, U.S. smokejumping began. Though the strength of the program has ebbed and flowed through the years, smokejumping remains one of the true bastions of pure-form firefighting. While smokejumpers attacked fires from the air, an army of organized USFS crews battled large fires on the ground.
In the early days, wildland firefighters were loggers and “skid row bums” who were pressed into service whenever a big fire struck the woods. These rag-tag crews produced less-than-stellar results, but a dramatic increase in quality occurred in the 1930s, when Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crews were used to fight fire. By the 1950s, teams of trained firefighters started appearing on fires in the national forests. In California, they were called hotshots; in other states, interregional firesuppression crews.
Photo courtesy of USFS
A USFS water pack in action at a fire on the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon, 1936.
Today, they’re all hotshots, and some 60 crews are stationed nationwide. In the 1970s, women broke into the predominantly all-male ranks of USFS firefighters, and for at least a decade crews and fire camps suffered the growing pains of integration. Yet the agency stood firm behind its goal of ensuring women parity. By the 1990s, women held high-ranking jobs in the USFS fire ranks; Mary Jo Lavin became the first woman director of fire and aviation. Today, women hold many of the agency’s top fire jobs, from engine captains to fire staff management positions on many national forests.
Perhaps one of the USFS’ greatest strengths is its ability to rebound from tragedy. The Ten Standard Fire Orders, the Eighteen Situations That Shout Watch Out, and LCES (Lookouts, Communications, Escape Routes and Safety Zones) were all brought into being by incidents in which firefighters died. But the agency responded with more than words. Fire shelters and flame-resistant clothing became widely used in the 1970s. Firefighter health and fitness standards became mandatory for all firefighters — not just smokejumpers and hotshots — and even became a branch of research.
Photo courtesy of USFS
Forest Service Reservees Margaret Peattie and Alme Nelson use the Osborne Fire Finder at Little Baldy Lookout, Pike National Forest, Colo., in 1943.
There are seemingly countless inventions and conventions in modern wildland firefighting that were shaped in some way by the USFS. The incident command system, helicopter rappelling, prescribed burning, airtankers and fuel-modeling software all were either developed, supported or improved by the USFS fire and aviation staff. In no small way, USFS wildland fire professionals have aided and improved fire management worldwide. Oh, one more thing: The USFS created Smokey Bear, the national icon for fire prevention.
Brian Ballou frequently teaches wildland/urban interface residents about ways to keep their houses from burning down. In his day job, he’s a wildland/urban interface specialist and a public information representative for the Oregon Department of Forestry.
Related Article: Trail Blazing: CDF Leads the Way in its First 100 Years