I have been receiving photos daily from photographers on the West Coast: above-normal temperatures, below-normal rainfall and an overabundance of wildland fires. The peak of the western fire season is yet to come and already the number of acres burned is nearly triple the 10-year average. By early July, nearly three million acres had burned across the country; the 10-year average is about 1.1 million acres.
Many of the fires might have been caused by lightning, but as we have sadly come to learn, fires in Arizona and Colorado were deliberately set. Apparently, a letter ignited by a forest service worker in Colorado blossomed into the worst fire in that state's history. There were 600 structures destroyed, thousands of people evacuated and 137,600 acres burned. In Arizona, apparently a Bureau of Indian Affairs worker ignited a fire so he could get a day's work on the fire line. This fire eventually merged with another blaze and destroyed 426 structures and 468,638 acres.
These costly fires and other arson crimes by an extremely small number of fire service personnel each year continues to give the fire service a black eye. So many people have all ready forgotten about the tragic events that occurred on 9/11. After 9/11, the fire service was everybody's hero. It's bad enough when we see the widespread devastation that such a large wildfire can bring and the enormous resources needed to try to contain it, but to find out one of your own caused it is almost too much to take.
We've said it before, but it's worth repeating: We will catch you. It might take some time, but if you set such a fire, you will be apprehended.
We have to do a better job of educating all of our personnel. We must instruct every fire department, training academy, and district attorney or prosecutor's office to develop awareness programs and visit new recruit classes to remind them early in their careers that arson doesn't belong in the fire service or for that matter anywhere else. We have to do a better job of ridding ourselves of the people whose terrible acts of stupidity drag down the honorable, heroic and civic-minded work that so many of us strive so hard to accomplish every day.
A firefighter with whom I was speaking the other day described a recent conversation with a politician. The firefighter said the subject of 9/11 came up, then the politician asked him, "When are you going to drop that as an excuse for funding?" How things change in just a few months. Some politicians, like this person, sure were in a hurry to get their photo opportunity with their local firefighters following 9/11. I'll bet that when a dirty bomb or potential anthrax letter arrives at their office, they will ask the responding firefighters, "What kept you?" It doesn't matter that they haven't funded the fire department to be prepared for weapons of mass destruction yet, so we ask the politicians: What's keeping you?
Speaking of weapons of mass destruction, we continue to publish articles from people in the field who deal with the potential for these situations every day. Worcester, MA, Firefighter Tom Creamer, a terrific speaker and authority on terrorism preparedness, provides an accurate perspective of the emerging terrorist threat and the potential for weapons utilization. You can find his article on page 58. On page 116, we present an interview with Kansas City, MO, Fire Chief Richard "Smokey" Dyer, who discusses the current issues and future plans of the department. Chief Dyer describes a very interesting and progressive plan that is intended to change the way they do business.
