More Morale Busting

I have told you here how little Jody Noiron thinks of her staff. The low morale on The Angeles is just one reason I want her to disappear. Her bad reputation is well-known in all Forest and Firefighting circles. The following is a discussion thread from a wildfire forum...

More Morale busting from Line Officers

While here in DC working on behalf of our Nation's wildland firefighters I was disappointed to learn that an invitation from firefighters on the Angeles National Forest for me to speak at their Fire & Aviation Management meeting later this month in La Canada, has been nixed by Forest Supervisor Jody Noiron.

My intent in accepting this invitation was to keep folks apprised of what's going on in Washington. It was not my intent to "bash" management so I am a bit dumbfounded as to why the FWFSA continues to intimidate [worry] Ms. Noiron.

Given the fact that the Forest Service Chief has commissioned yet another morale study along with the fact that I will be meeting with the USDA's Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment, Mr. Jay Jensen tomorrow I will be certain to inform him of this decision by the ANF Forest Supervisor as indicative of the morale-busting intimidation often felt by firefighters on many California National Forests...

Casey Judd
Business Manager
FWFSA [Federal Wildland Fire Service Association]

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Casey & the folks on the Angeles:

"I find it very interesting, albeit not at all surprising, that Jody Noiron would nix your meeting invite. What did you expect? A fair and supportive environment where everyone can feel free to contribute to making a more productive, more safe and often less wasteful work environment? From her? Are you serious?

This is in stride with other decisions made by her. It's not a secret (certainly not a well kept one by many Angeles employees) and it won't change until other obvious changes are made.

Hopefully there will be a way for you as a forest to meet with everyone regardless of the morale busting behavior of the forest supervisor. And I think it's appalling that you might have to sneak around and figure out an alternative that might pass muster, how degrading.

Anyone who is truly supportive of their staff, as well as its morale and safety, will support open discussion at all levels. One of the clear lessons we know (and hopefully have learned) from history is that this sort of short-term thinking creates rifts between management and those people (yes, we are people/humans and we should be treated with some degree of respect Ms. Noiron) that actually do the physical labor. To treat employees in such a manner by not allowing them to speak and listen freely invites even more of a lack of respect towards management and ultimately it tells us that someone has no clue as to what real needs are on a forest.

Good going in the morale busting race for this season Ms. Noiron! (You're probably in the lead)"

Just a plain old firefighter

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The Angeles, Chiefs Sensing Group and having each other's backs:

"Thanks for the update on the "progressive" Forest leadership coming out of the Angeles.

In response to that, I'd like to invite Casey to speak at our upcoming annual Forest-wide Fire meeting. I'll be in touch with Casey about the details. We have some meticulous note-takers and will share important fire information discussed at this meeting with anyone interested, and in particular, with our brothers and sisters in Fire Management on the Angeles. I encourage fellow fire managers throughout the U.S. to extend the same invitation and make appropriate arrangements (maybe Casey doesn't want us filling up his travel itinerary -- sorry Casey) . Just finished some work on the M581 course that dealt with "leadership" and also recently sent two employees to a Regional Leadership course. It's amazing the disparity between what the agency presents as admirable leadership traits in its training courses and the agency's tolerance for the garbage that passes for leadership in its daily operations.

And yes, JMM, the roster of the Chief's sensing group speaks volumes. 206th headed to 216th faster than greased lightning... But there is something we can all do, and that's to have each others' backs. A Forest Sup in CA wants to muzzle an important voice in the fire world? Then the rest of us need to step up to the plate and turn up the volume -- and -- turn the tables on this unfortunate situation. Yeah Jodi, count the fingers, you're number 1. [his way of giving Jody "the finger"]

Keep up the good work Casey and All."

JPA

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Of course, these are my own excerpts. These are part of many conversations in March of this year. But you will not find a positive thing about Jody anywhere on the thread or the entire site, however there was a little backpedaling by the man that started the discussion, the kind a guy does when he has spoken his mind then gets chewed out: "To All: It certainly wasn't my intent to create a firestorm of an issue regarding my post about not be able to speak at the ANF [Angeles National Forest]. There might have been some miscommunication but also a lack of clear understanding of what the FWFSA is and what we do." The whole web page is at: http://www.wildlandfire.com/arc/2010c_mar.htm

I find this statement particularly intriguing: "...the fact that the Forest Service Chief has commissioned yet another morale study..." What's taking them so long to figure it out?

Smokey The Bear Song

Eddy Arnold sings "Smokey the Bear" for an old public service announcement. This is very quaint, but it is the kind of thing that caused an all out war against forest fires. Much has been learned since about the role of fire in forest ecology, but the attitude persists.

It took me a helluva long time to figure out how to get this from DVD to YouTube, so I hope you all appreciate it...

You Can't Do That On Television!

I am really nervous about posting this. I decided five days ago that I had to tell what I heard, but I have cogitated about how to say it since. It will probably cause grief for at least two honest, hard-working and well-intentioned forest lovers. No matter how I dance around the details, the pieces are easily put together from previous posts. I am not going to delete those otherwise innocent posts, and, besides, Forest Service personnel have already read them.

Forest Service management would tell you that they do not read this blog, but I know that they do. In fact, they have made some sarcastic remarks about it. One of them I found quite funny - it was something to the effect of "If a blog falls in the woods, and no one is there to read it..." - I don't remember the end, but I had to laugh. I have no misconceptions about this blog, but those that need to be aware of it are aware of it.

So, I've decided to tell exactly what happened, and if there are any negative consequences for innocent people, it will only demonstrate the toxicity of Jody's venom; and prove me right in wanting to remove her.

One month ago the Pasadena Weekly published an article entitled 'Smoldering Blame' in which was described the lack of controlled burns on The Angeles as a method to prevent larger fires. Jody used to excuse this by saying that they would have to first get permission from the AQMD, as if to say that it was automatically out of the question. But that is not the case. The AQMD just wants input into when the burns will take place, and they want to be able to warn citizens of possible smoke. In fact, according to the article by Jake Armstrong, the AQMD approved six permits to burn a total of 1,700 acres. Of that the Forest Service only burned 13 acres. THIRTEEN ACRES! Out of 1,700 possible!

Well, they are always full of excuses. They say that the weather was inappropriate at the scheduled times for the burns. I used to think that this was a case of dragging their feet and that it was always too hot by the time they got around to it. But this is calculated procrastination.

The LA Times published an article exposing a memo from the Regional Forester to Forest Supervisors (which includes Jody Noiron) requesting a frugality in the fire suppression arena. This seems to let Jody off the hook - she can't just go starting fires when she is told she can't afford to put them out, right? However, Jody has been notoriously cheap for ten years now, since long before Regional Forester Randy Moore was in office. Anyway, this is not the cause of my angst in writing this...

On Saturday, October 4th, one week ago, I went on a field trip with my Natural History class at Citrus College. I mentioned it in this blog. One of our stops was Rincon Station in the West Fork, specifically Engine 22. We received a demonstration of firefighting equipment by a graduate of the same Citrus forestry program. It was innocently educational, and so far the class and instructor have no idea what I am up to on this blog. I kept my mouth shut the whole time I was there.

Now, this person conducted a very comprehensive discussion of fire, fire suppression, and fire prevention, and it was wholly appropriate for the occasion. One of the students brought up the subject of controlled burns. We were correctly told that the Forest Service has learned a lot about the positive role that fire has on forest ecology. At first we got the canned excuse that blames the AQMD for not conducting necessary burns. But then the truth came out... "We can't do it for publicity reasons."

There you have it. Again, it doesn't look good on TV. Some of you may be thinking that the general public is not as naive as they used to be, and most understand that a certain amount of fire is necessary for many reasons. Others are willing to trust the Forest Service to do what is best. So, what's with the negative publicity angle?

As you are learning here, you cannot trust the Forest Service, not the staff of The Angeles, but most people don't know that. However, The Angeles knows that it can't trust itself. They don't have qualified fire management, thanks to Jody, and they don't have enough firefighters to control the burns. So what they are really afraid of is that a controlled burn will get away from them, starting a much bigger fire, and that they will be blamed for it. Instead they let the growth get thicker and thicker until an arsonist comes along, and hopefully he will get all the blame for a big fire. In the process, the heavy fuel loads are removed, and Jody will be retired by the time the forest needs to burn again.