Save the Fish not the Firefighters
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Harrison
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bull trout chewuch river devin weaver dispatch dispatch office endangered bull trout endangered species environment environmental environmental laws esa firefighters flatten forest service human life jessica johnson karen fitzpatrick national forest fire okanogan national forest promised water protecting tom craven water
Okanogan National Forest fire.
There are many examples of environmental lunacy but none so powerful as the Okanogan National Forest fire of 2001 that claimed the lives of four firefighters so that some fish could be saved. It sounds like some sort of absurdest joke but it really happened:
During a recent forest fire, help for trapped firefighters was delayed out of fear that it might harm the “endangered” bull trout. Result: The fish were saved; four firefighters died.
The mop-up crew waited for the promised water drop. It didn’t come at 10 o’clock. By noon it had still not arrived, so the crew made another request. “At 12:06, the dispatch office ordered the helicopter,” Jan Flatten, the environmental officer for the Okanogan and Wenatchee National Forests, told FOX News on August 1st. “However, because there were endangered species in the Chewuch River, they wanted to get permission from the district in order to dip into the river.”
The great fear was that the bucket used by the helicopter to scoop up water might accidentally also scoop up an endangered bull trout. According to Flatten, the dispatch office couldn’t reach anyone with the authority to approve the helicopter drop. Forest Service District Commander John Newcom, Fire Manager Peter Sodoquist, and a biologist huddled for two hours to determine whether or not they could grant an exemption for the helicopter drop.
The firefighters killed as a result of this unconscionable delay were Tom Craven, 30, Devin Weaver, 21, Jessica Johnson, 19, and Karen Fitzpatrick, 18. The firefighters “tried to survive by huddling in their fire-resistant survival tents. The tents merely served as their death shrouds.”
According to an investigation done after the tragic deaths:
An investigation into the July 10 “30-mile fire” in central Washington state has uncovered that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) played a central role in the deaths of four young firefighters combating the blaze.
While Forest Service officials delayed the promised water delivery as they debated the environmental impact of using Chewuch River water, the fire gained new life. The first delivery of water arrived at 3:00 p.m., too late to quench the rejuvenated fire. By 5:25 p.m. firefighters Tom Craven, 30, Devin Weaver, 21, Jessica Johnson, 19, and Karen Fitzpatrick, 18, had all died after flames cornered and then engulfed them in a narrow canyon.
Memorial to the fallen firefighters.
Protecting the environment is one thing, doing so at the cost of human lives is another. In an article from 2003, Rebecca Fowler wrote:
Human life is too high a price to pay to make the earth closer to what it used to be. This policy seems to be a manifestation of the sentiment of environmentalists; the environment has become more important than human life. This cannot be allowed to happen. Environmental laws, even if they are not directly destroying human life, contribute to not allowing men to improve the condition of human life. Instead of the government protecting life, it makes it more difficult for men to protect their right to life. The environmentalists perceive human life as secondary to protecting the earth and wildlife. The solution that environmentalists suggest to make the earth a better place seems to be worse than the problem.
How often will things like this be allowed to happen until commonsense laws are written and pencil pushers are not worried about protecting their backs?
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7:58 AM
My dad owns a helicopter company. He used to use his helicopter for logging. However, as of late, he has discovered that there is no money in it. It is far more lucrative to save the environment rather than utilize its resources. He now only fights fires and does erosion prevention work and makes millions every year. He only works for a few months in the summer.
I know that this comment is a little off topic, and you are right in your post to assert that most environmentalism does have the suicidal tendency to favor the environment over human life. Of course, one of the founding texts of modern environmentalism is Edward Abbey’s ecoterrorist manifesto The Monkey Wrench Gang. Al Qaeda and radical environmentalism are ideological cousins, so we shouldn’t be surprised when either ideology dscounts human life as a means of advancing their cause.
I wrote a post a while back about my days as a logger when I was a kid when we had a run in with some environmentalists. You might like it.
http://independentbloghorn.com/2008/07/crying-in-the-wilderness/
9:35 AM
The death of these firefighters is a tragedy of course. But ultimately protecting habitat for other species may be the only way to preserve a habitable earth for our species.
9:43 AM
…but not at the cost of human lives.
11:10 AM
Uh, that’s insane. There’s no two ways about it.
What the hell is going on in this nation? Mass insanity appears to rule the day.
1:43 PM
Sorry, but you’re wrong. You are selectively editing the USFS report to make a point.
Both USFWS and USFS plocies clearly state that if human life or property is threatened, ESA concerns come a distant third. These policies are based on the law itself.
Your readers need to look at the entire report which identifies things like the team’s violation of all ten of the “Ten Commandments” of wildfire fighting, the fatc that the dispatcher was new and poorly trained, that no helicopters were available for several hours due to a combination of maintenence down time and higher priorities, and that the incident commander shut off his radio and those of his command staff for several hours (a major violation of Incident Command System protocol) so he and his command staff were unreachable during what turned out to be a critical period.
If you’re going to be on the web, at least be accurate. Readers: go to the source, read the report yourself. It’s been available for several years.
This ranks up there with teh “Choking Doberman” stories.
1:56 PM
While I appreciate your comments and the time it took to share them, the real answer is not so simple. If you do some detailed research into the investigation and the “conclusions” you will see that many Forest Service veteran’s and the victim’s families are not satisfied.
Your statement about placing life above the ESA is correct but it appears that it depends upon how the fire is classified. Is is a serious fire? Is it a brush fire? Depending on the classification different actions are required:
What remains unclear, however, is whether the Forest Service’s standard ESA procedures required deference to ESA factors in a situation like the 30-mile fire, where the blaze had been deemed relatively safe and largely contained. Evidence shows it was deference to the ESA during the relatively safe mop-up phase that allowed the fire to regain its deadly form.
At the time the Forest Service was debating the impact of taking water from the Chewuch River, “there was no threat to life or property, it was a mop up,” concluded Jan Flatten, the environmental officer for the Okanogan and Wenatchee Natural forests. “It was not until the fire blew up [that] it became a threat to life and property.”
http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/841/ESA_blamed_for_firefighter_deaths.html
I’m glad you read the report but maybe you should read what many experts have said about those conclusions.
7:10 PM
I believe taking care of our environment and protecting certain species of wildlife, but these environmental extremists are whackos. Why would someone put the life of animals over the life of fish.
Hey Harrison buddy, when you get a chance, please read and comment on my latest piece on North Korea. I’d love your input!
Cheers,
http://indie-american.blogspot.com/
6:40 AM
I am not to up to date on environmental issues, but the fire seems a little more important than the fish. It is too bad we lost those firefighters.
10:35 AM
As an experienced wildfire fighter familiar with the 30-mile issues, when I read the report and talked to people who were there, it was clear to me that there were a lot of very questionable decisions made. But those were decisions made by FS personnel working an incident. Some resulted from poor judgement, others because of poor training, inexperience or just plain refusal to listen to other people. But the ESA had nothing to do with the deaths of the firefighters. That’s a red herring and always was.
Standard protocol made it very clear that FS personnel could go past ESA concerns at any time to protect life or property. The protocols and policy were and are in place. They just weren’t followed.
Bad judgement killed those folks. Not bad policy or law.
1:28 PM
Again, thank you for your comments. I will review and publish a follow-up in the near future.
11:21 PM
FANTASTIC!