Twin Falls BLM district alters fire plan

BOISE – Federal firefighters in Southern Idaho have revamped how they’ll attack fast-moving grass blazes this summer in hopes of avoiding a repeat of an injury-marred 2006 season that briefly forced more than 150 firefighters in Twin Falls to lay down their shovels.

All firefighters in the Bureau of Land Management’s Twin Falls District were ordered into a daylong safety stand-down Aug. 15 after their third injury accident since the beginning of July.

Among the changes this year, the district’s engines will each have an experienced team leader, allowing them to operate independently, rather than responding to fires in three-truck teams. BLM crews in Twin Falls will operate 900-gallon engines, not the 300-gallon trucks used last year.

That will reduce the number of engines from 36 to 22, and firefighters from 155 to about 120.

“I expect to make up some of that loss of crews by having better trained, more experienced crews,” BLM Fire Management Officer Chris Simonson said. “I don’t expect to see a lesser response.”

Other Idaho BLM districts whose crews avoided injury accidents said no changes were in the works. In Boise, for instance, the district will staff 12 900-gallon engines, the same as a year ago, with 112 people, including dispatchers and helicopter firefighters.

“We’ll fight fires exactly as we always have,” said Jessica Gardetto, a BLM fire spokeswoman in Boise. “We’ll fight fires aggressively, but always with safety first.”

Firefighting in Idaho can be dangerous. Last Aug. 12, three Payette National Forest firefighters and the pilot of the helicopter they were flying in were killed when they crashed fighting a fire in remote country north of Boise.

In the three Twin Falls accidents, one firefighter broke his leg on July 2 while operating a hose in front of a truck that ran over him. A month later, a firefighter severely injured his back when an engine backed over him. In the incident that finally prompted the safety stand-down, a BLM fire engine on Aug. 14 rolled over, injuring three firefighters, including one with a broken pelvis.

“There was a lack of attention,” Simonson said. “There’s no reason we should back over someone with an engine.”

All injured Twin Falls firefighters have been cleared to return to work this summer, Simonson said.

The Twin Falls District’s larger engines will operate seven days a week from Shoshone, Burley and Twin Falls, as well as remote guard stations across southcentral Idaho. The district covers 4.4 million acres of BLM territory, and helps fight fires on land managed by other federal and state agencies.

Simonson, who fought fires in southwestern Utah before coming to Twin Falls three years ago, said he expects to boost coordination with the 35 local fire departments within his district, even as he reduces his own staff.

“We’ll work more with our neighbors and other cooperators,” he said. “We’ll be as efficient as we have been, even though there are lesser numbers.”

Last year, the Twin Falls District was hit by about 200 fires, with 60 percent human-caused and the rest remaining often caused by dry lightning.