Do You Love Your Firefighters?

All around town there are banners hung that thank the firefighters for their efforts. Firefighters are getting standing ovations in restaurants, and the memorial for two men that died in the fire required Dodger Stadium to accommodate the number of mourners.

Here is a memo (pdf) that exemplifies Jody Noiron's attitude toward her firefighters...
http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/2007/angeles-letter-feser.pdf

"ANF Fire Patch/Coin & Back of the ANF Coin: In early April 2007, these patches --that were handed out by the ANF Chief Don Feser as a fire morale builder-- became a bone of contention. The ANF Forest Supervisor demanded they be collected and returned to her. In part this led to the early retirement of the Chief, leaving the Forest with no leadership and little experienced fire staff and also causing a hole in the Incident Management organization in R5 and the nation. Photos compliments of an unnamed source..."


And this is the general sentiment around the Angeles National Forest, taken from a firefighters' website discussion forum...

To Eastern FF:

If its true Jody is going to R9, may I be the first to open the door to let her out
of R5 with a hearty "See ya, don't let the door hit ya on the way out..."? Gosh,
hope she takes her "award" with her.

Heck if she does go, the morale of the firefighters on the ANF will rise just as
fast as suppression spending...

Fedwatcher II