Sunday, August 31, 2014




#Wildland Firefighters
#S1628

Wildland Firefighters Need Our Voices:
Please ask your representative to support 
S.1628 Fallen Wildland Firefighters Fair Compensation Act of 2013  
It’s set up here, just takes a minute to tell Congress that all of our Wildland Firefighters and their families need to be supported and protected.
You can see how your representative weighed in on 
S.1628: Fallen Wildland Firefighters Fair Compensation Act of 2013 through govtrackUS. 
#Wildland Firefighters
#S1628

WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING:
EVERYONE GOES HOME



Published on May 30, 2013
Wildland Firefighting: Everyone Goes Home, a video produced by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation with CoolWater Multi Media, is a story that honors friends and can save the lives of others. Wildland firefighters, including members of the U.S. Forest Service, crew chiefs and managers, talk about the loss of 14 firefighters and the lessons learned from the July, 1994 South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain. To download a copy of the video visit: http://everyonegoeshome.com/wildland
Category: Nonprofits & Activism
License: Standard YouTube License




#Vote4Wilderness
#Wildland Firefighters
#S1628

The news below simply reiterates the need for Congress to pass Bill S.1628 into law. All wildland firefighters need a safety net to protect themselves and their families.
Reposted from: KNAU And Arizona News
BILL PROTECTS CITIES FROM SETTLEMENTS 
AFTER DEATHS OF SAFETY PERSONNEL




Credit AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
A firefighter sets a backburn during a 2011 eastern Arizona wildfire.

KNAU And Arizona News
5:00 A.M. Friday, May 2, 2014
By Ryan Heinsius

Gov. Brewer has signed a bill shielding cities and towns from large settlements relating to death or serious injury of public safety employees. As Arizona Public Radio’s Ryan Heinsius reports, the bill was inspired by the deaths of 19 firefighters last summer during the Yarnell Hill Fire.

Listen
0:57
http://knau.org/post/bill-protects-cities-settlements-after-deaths-safety-personnel

The bill was among 35 signed into law by Governor Brewer after the state Legislature ended its most recent session. House Bill 2693 distributes liability costs among all members of Arizona’s Public Safety Personnel Retirement System. Previously, those costs were the burden of the city or town in which those who were killed or injured work.

After the deaths of 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots during last summer’s Yarnell Hill Fire, the City of Prescott was responsible for more than $5 million to fulfill pensions of six deceased firefighters.

According to an official with the Safety Personnel Retirement System, the bill isn’t retroactive and doesn’t apply to the Granite Mountain Hotshot deaths. But it will cover similar incidents in the future. The measure also only applies to deaths that occur in the line of duty.

Also among the recently signed bills is one that sets aside half a million dollars for a memorial to the Granite Mountain Hotshots. It also creates a committee to oversee the memorial and manage the project’s funds.

TAGS:  Local News Fire Season 2014 wildfire Granite Mountain Hotshots


#Vote4Wilderness
#Wildland Firefighters
#S1628

Fallen Wildland Firefighters Fair Compensation Act ~ Community


#Vote4Wilderness
#Wildland Firefighters
#S1628


Petitioning U.S. House of Representatives 
VOTE TO ENACT 
FALLEN WILDLAND FIREFIGHTERS FAIR COMPENSATION ACT ~ S.1628


#Vote4Wilderness
#Wildland Firefighters
#S1628
S. 1628: FALLEN WILDLAND FIREFIGHTERS FAIR COMPENSATION ACT OF 2013




TEXT
LAST UPDATED Oct 31, 2013

LENGTH 5 pages

II
113th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 1628

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

October 31, 2013
Mr. Merkley introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To provide Federal death and disability benefits for contractors who serve as firefighters of the Forest Service, Department of the Interior agencies, or any State or local entity.

1. Short title
This Act may be cited as the  Fallen Wildland Firefighters Fair Compensation Act of 2013 .

2. Death and disability benefits for contracted firefighters of the Forest Service, Department of the Interior agencies, or any State or local entity
(a) Findings
Congress finds the following:

(1) Aerial and ground crew firefighters used to fight wildfires often work on a contract basis with a State, local, or Federal agency and, as a result, are not eligible for death or disability benefits should they be killed or injured in the line of duty.
(2) Employer death benefits and life insurance for exclusive-use firefighters are expensive, and the families of these heroes have to cope not only with the loss of a loved one, but also the additional financial loss of a wage earner.
(3) It is vital that Congress continue to encourage the recruitment and retention of brave, skilled firefighters.
(b) Eligibility for death and disability benefits
Section 308 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 ( 43 U.S.C. 1738 ) is amended by adding at the end the following:

(c) Eligibility of contracted firefighters for death and disability benefits
(1) Eligibility
An individual shall be eligible for a death or disability benefit under section 1201 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 ( 42 U.S.C. 3796 ) if such individual—

(A) serves a public agency specified in paragraph (2) as a contractor or subcontractor of such a public agency, in an official capacity, with or without compensation;
(B) performs under an exclusive use, call when needed, or equipment rental agreement contract with the public agency; and
(C) directly performs fire suppression activities as a member of an aerial or ground-based firefighting crew or equipment operator in the direct fire suppression, or en route to or return from such direct fire suppression activity.
(2) Covered public agencies
Subsection (a) applies with respect to the Forest Service, any agency of the Department of the Interior, and any State and local firefighting entity.

(3) Applicability
This subsection shall apply with respect to death or injuries occurring on or after January 1, 1985. The amount of the benefit paid shall be the eligible amount under section 1201 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 ( 42 U.S.C. 3796 ) at the time of death or injury.

3. Eligibility of firefighters for public safety officer death benefits
(a) In general
Paragraph (9) of section 1204 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 ( 42 U.S.C. 3796b ) is amended—
(1) in subparagraph (C) by striking or at the end;
(2) in subparagraph (D) by striking the period at the end and inserting ; or; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
(E) an individual performing under exclusive use, call when needed, or equipment rental agreement contract with the Forest Service, any agency of the Department of the Interior, or any State or local firefighting entity in direct performance of fire suppression activities as an aerial or ground-based member of a firefighting crew or equipment operator in the direct fire suppression, or en route to or return from such direct fire suppression activity.

(b) Applicability
The amendments made by subsection (a) shall apply with respect to death or injuries occurring on or after January 1, 1985. The amount of the benefit paid shall be the eligible amount under section 1201 of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 ( 42 U.S.C. 3796 ) at the time of death or injury.



#Wildland Firefighters Need Our Voices:

Please ask your representative to support S.1628 Fallen Wildland Firefighters Fair Compensation Act of 2013 . It’s set up here, just takes a minute to tell Congress that all of our Wildland Firefighters and their families need to be supported and protected.

#Vote4Wilderness
#Wildland Firefighters
#S1628
Reposted from The New York Times:

FIREFIGHTERS' SURVIVOR BENEFITS VALUE SOME LIVES OVER OTHERS



Kyle Green/Idaho Statesman, via Associated Press
This year has been one of the deadliest for wildfire crews in a decade. Firefighters battled a large blaze in Pine, Idaho, last week.


By JACK HEALY
Published: August 18, 2013

DENVER — As a wilderness firefighter, Caleb Renno hiked over mountains until his heels bled, living out of tents and eating packaged food for weeks at a time in rugged corners of the burning West. He did not love the work, but like many young adults in southern Oregon, he knew he could always find steady pay fighting fires.

In 2008, while fighting a blaze in the mountains of Northern California, Mr. Renno and eight other people were killed in a helicopter crash, and his parents tried to seek federal benefits under a government program for the families of first responders who die on the job. But Mr. Renno, 21, was a contract firefighter, paid by a private company. The government denied his parents’ application.

“It’s just a horrible inequity,” said his mother, Catherine Renno. “These guys were doing some of the hardest firefighting there was, period. They were on the front lines. They work the line right next to the Forest Service workers. The only difference is that if one of them dies, they’re not going to get benefits.”

In life, firefighters from disparate states and backgrounds work side by side, fighting the same blazes on the same terrain. But in death, families say, they are sifted into different categories based on their official employment status.

Whether they were full time or part time and whether they were employed by local, state or federal governments or private contractors can make a difference amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, providing some families with a financial lifeline from the government and others with barely enough to pay for a funeral.

Questions about how to compensate these families have a greater resonance this year, one of the deadliest for wildfire crews in a decade. It has been a summer of tearful remembrances and makeshift memorials from North Carolina to Oregon to central Arizona, where 19 members of the elite Granite Mountain Hotshots squad died in the chaparral mountains. In all, at least 26 wilderness firefighters have died this year, according to government figures, and blazes are still raging across the West.

On Sunday, about 1,200 firefighters continued to battle a wildfire that has threatened ski homes and small towns in the mountains of central Idaho. The blaze, ignited by lightning this month, has forced the evacuation of about 2,250 homes and has grown to more than 150 square miles, but it has not led to any deaths or serious injuries, fire officials said.

Now, as relatives of firefighters who have died begin navigating thickets of insurance claims and benefits paperwork, some are criticizing what they call flawed and unfair government rules that create a posthumous imbalance among firefighting families.

In Prescott, Ariz., the wife and the father of Andrew Ashcraft, 29, one of the Granite Mountain Hotshots killed in late June, publicly protested after the city denied the family lifetime benefits, because officials said Mr. Ashcraft had not been a full-time employee.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57597110/ariz-hotshot-widow-juliann-ashcraft-fighting-for-denied-benefits/

Of the 19 firefighters killed there, 13 were considered temporary or seasonal. In an online petition, the family says that Mr. Ashcraft had been working 40-hour weeks and that they are now trying to “provide a secure future” for his four children.
http://www.change.org/petitions/our-fallen-hero-andrew-ashcraft-get-the-family-andrew-s-benefit-package-that-they-were-promised

In a statement, Prescott officials said the city had to follow employment laws as it paid out benefits, and could not reclassify the seasonal firefighters as full-time workers. Therefore, only the six firefighters who were considered full-time employees received the city benefits.

The families of all 19 of the firefighters are likely to be eligible for a one-time payment of $328,612 from the federal government’s Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program. That program, created nearly four decades ago, compensates the families of police officers, firefighters and other first responders who die in the line of duty. It covers seasonal and volunteer fire crews working for local, state or federal governments, but generally excludes contract workers who are employed by private companies.

“Employees of private contractors do not fall within these requirements,” the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which runs the program, said in a statement.

These for-hire firefighters represent a huge portion of the nation’s wildfire crews. Across the country, there are about 11,500 privately employed firefighters ready to be dispatched as needed to fight wildfires, said Debbie Miley, the executive director of the National Wildfire Suppression Association. 
http://www.nwsa.us/
Hundreds more fly helicopters and air tankers to monitor fires and douse flames from above.

They work for more than 150 private firms, digging fire lines, driving bulldozers and trucks and often working alongside the approximately 10,000 firefighters hired each year directly by the federal Forest Service.

Many of those drawn to this line of work are young men, often from firefighting families, who embrace the romance, public service and the camaraderie despite the grueling conditions, long stretches away from family and salaries that can start around $11 an hour.

If these contract firefighters are hurt or killed on the job, they or their families are eligible for workers’ compensation, and they often receive donations from wildfire charities and other firefighting companies. But when it comes to public benefits, Ms. Miley said, there is a clear line between contractors and government-employed firefighters.

“We know we are not eligible,” she said of the contractors. “We know that going in. We take responsibility for that.”

But for some families, it is a wrenching realization. After the federal government denied benefits to Ms. Renno and two other families who lost their sons in the 2008 helicopter crash, they personally prepared a PowerPoint presentation to appeal their case. They pored over photographs of the wreckage. They read detailed accounts of their children’s last moments.

“He was doing the same work at the same time,” said Paul Steele, whose 19-year-old son, David, was also killed in the crash. “He’s not getting honored in the same way.”

Vicki Minor, who runs the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, 
http://www.wffoundation.org/
based in Idaho, says she hears similar complaints every year from other families who are baffled that they were denied federal benefits after a loved one died while fighting fires on public lands. In 2011, the Public Safety Officers’ Benefit Program received 345 claims from first responders’ families. It approved 55 percent of them and denied 16 percent. The rest are still being considered.

Last September, Chris Seelye, a 61-year-old timber faller, was taking a lunch break from fighting a fire in beetle-ravaged forests on public land in central Washington State when he mentioned that he did not feel well. A few minutes later, he died of a heart attack.

When his daughter, Kathleen Seelye, visited local Forest Service officials the next day to retrieve his truck and equipment, she said she received heartfelt condolences but little else. No one offered grief counseling or financial help. She said she later received a $2,500 donation from the Wildland Firefighter Foundation to help pay for her father’s funeral and cremation.

Under the Hometown Heroes Act of 2003, public safety officers who die of a heart attack or a stroke on duty can be eligible for the same benefits as those who are shot to death or die in a fire. Mr. Seelye was a seasonal worker for a timber company, and his daughter said the family had received no government help since he died.

“He didn’t have health insurance; he didn’t have life insurance,” Ms. Seelye said. “It was like it got swept under the rug. It was just, sorry for your loss, shake your hand and push you out of the tent.”

For some parents, the fight over government benefits continues long after the last memorial and final condolence card.

In 2003, Dale Ransdell’s 23-year-old son Mark, a contract firefighter based out of southwest Oregon, was riding home for a break after 11 days of fighting a wildfire in the Boise National Forest in Idaho when his van collided head-on with a tractor-trailer. Mark was one of eight people killed.

Flags across Oregon dropped to half-staff, and dignitaries drove in for a memorial service at the fairgrounds in Roseburg, Mr. Ransdell recalled. But his benefit application was quickly denied. He appealed, waited and was denied again. He appealed higher up the ranks, and in April received a final denial. He is now challenging that decision in court.

“These guys did their job,” he said. “We’re going to push this all the way, as long as we can.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 19, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Firefighters’ Survivor Benefits Value Some Lives Over Others.Firefighters’ Survivor Benefits Value Some Lives Over Others

#Vote4Wilderness
#Wildland Firefighters
#S1628
Reposted from McClatchy DC

FAMILIES OF FALLEN FIREFIGHTERS DENIED FEDERAL BENEFITS


US NEWS CALIF-WILDFIRE 2 LA
Firefighters cover their faces from smoke, April 30, 2014. 
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times/MCT)GINA FERAZZI — MCT


By Michael Doyle
McClatchy Washington Bureau
July 29, 2014 

WASHINGTON — Mark Ransdell and seven fellow firefighters died without federal benefits 11 years ago on their way home from battling an Idaho blaze.

They were contractors who had worked alongside U.S. Forest Service crews to save the Boise National Forest. Now, long after the firefighters died in a catastrophic highway crash, a federal appellate court has rejected family members’ bid for federal compensation.

If the eight men had been Forest Service employees, family members could have received payments of about $250,000 under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Act. But because the firefighters were contractors, judges say, the family members are ineligible.

“Employees of independent contractors do not qualify as ‘public safety officers’ for the purposes of the Benefits Act,” Judge Timothy B. Dyk wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. “Firefighters are public safety officers only if they are formally employed by a public agency.”

The appellate court’s decision, dated July 25, punctuates a long battle by the firefighters’ families. It also could be a wake-up call for other federal contractors, who in the middle of fighting a fire may appear indistinguishable from a civil servant.

The Forest Service nationwide currently contracts with 41 ground attack crews, each with 20 firefighters, Jennifer Jones, a spokeswoman for the Boise, Idaho-based National Interagency Fire Center, said Tuesday. The Forest Service also uses contractors for aerial and support operations.

“The question is, if you’re a firefighter, do you know whether you and your family are covered by federal benefits?” asked attorney Denise M. Clark, who has represented the families of the eight dead firefighters. In an interview Tuesday, Clark said “we’re evaluating” what steps might follow the appellate court’s 13-page decision.

Potentially, the families could seek review of the three-judge panel’s decision by the entire federal circuit court. The families also could petition the Supreme Court, which reversed the federal circuit in five out of six cases considered last term.

“For some of the families, who are poor, it would be nice to get the money,” said Oregon resident Dale Ransdell, a retired deputy sheriff whose son Mark was among those who died. “I’m more interested in setting the precedent, because this is going to continue to happen.”

Congress also could wade in. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., has introduced a bill to extend public safety officer benefits to contract wildland firefighters.

The Roseburg, Ore.-based company that employed the eight firefighters, First Strike Environmental, said in a statement Tuesday that it was “very disappointed” with the denial of benefits and that it was “in full support” of legislation extending benefits to contractors.

During two weeks in August 2003, First Strike Environmental deployed the eight men as part of a 20-member crew to help fight the 6,765-acre South Fork fire. Their work done, the men died Aug. 24, 2003, when their van collided head-on with a tractor-trailer in eastern Oregon. The youngest firefighter was 19 and the oldest was 38; Mark Ransdell was 23.

Family members applied for the public safety officer benefits. Nationwide, more than 900 death benefit applications were filed between 2006 and 2008, according to the Government Accountability Office. Eighty percent of the death benefit applications were accepted during the three years studied by the GAO.

When the Bureau of Justice Administration denied the claims, family members appealed to the federal circuit. The same court, in 2007, had rejected a similar claim filed by the widow of a contract pilot who died when his aerial tanker crashed in Northern California.

As in 2007, Dyk wrote that “we must again defer” to the Bureau of Justice Administration’s judgment that private contractors don’t count as public safety officers. The specific facts of the new case underscored the distinction, Dyk reasoned.

“During the firefighting operation, a Forest Service supervisor communicated by hand-held radio with the First Strike crew boss, but was not on-site with the First Strike crew and thus could not direct the crew what tools to use, where to stage personnel or otherwise how to accomplish the goal,” Dyk noted.

Still, the names of the eight fallen contract firefighters are etched on the National Interagency Fire Center’s Wildland Firefighter National Monument in Boise, as well as on the U.S. Fire Administration’s National Fallen Firefighter Memorial in Emmitsburg, Md.

“Our guys were working right alongside the (Forest Service) crews,” Dale Ransdell said. “They all need to be treated the same.”

Email: mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com 
Twitter: @MichaelDoyle10.


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