Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the 26th episode of Wildfire Matters, the podcast that covers all aspects of wildland fire management for the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM. We talk with the people who help manage and protect our public lands, many dedicating their lives to the profession.
Today we are talking with John Fitchener and Justin Lammers with the National Fire Equipment Program, or NFEP. John is the program manager and Justin is production assistant equipment specialist. Welcome, John and Justin.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: And I said we because Jennifer left as co hosts last time, but I picked up a new co host and I'm excited to have Piper Brandt join us and welcome, Piper.
[00:00:58] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: She's a new public affairs specialist with BLM Fire and we were working with at NIFC and she will be helping co host the podcast since Jennifer is off RV ing somewhere.
[00:01:09] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm very excited to be here. I just moved here from Las Vegas. I was a writer editor with the BLM at the Southern Nevada District office.
Really excited to be in Boise.
A few years ago, I was a park ranger with the forest Service on the salmon chalice National Forest, and I was stationed on a remote guard station out on the middle fork of the Salmon river. Totally loved Idaho. So really excited that I get to be back here doing fire in Boise.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, we're excited to have you here and new perspective being new to all this.
So before we get into what the national fire equipment program is and does, I want to learn a little bit about you and your background. So, John, can you tell us a little bit about your background where you started?
[00:01:59] Speaker C: Sure. I was born and grew up in Billings, Montana. Lived there till I was 18 years old, right out of high school, went straight to the military, joined the air force in 1989, spent four years in the military as a vehicle mechanic. I lived in Fort Worth, Texas, and after leaving the military, I went back to Montana and went to Montana State University in Bozeman. Lived there for about five years, did a lot of skiing and a little bit of schoolwork. Then while I was there, I worked for the United States Forest Service.
My primary duties were on a trail crew, but I was lucky enough to have a really cool boss that allowed me to do lots of fire and integrated me into lots of fire. So I almost spent as much time doing fire as I did trail work while I was at that job. I did that for four seasons. Then I decided that I wanted to get a job that wasn't seasonal. So I left the government and went to Denver and worked for a landscape contractor. I wasn't real happy with how my work at the landscape company was going, so I decided I was going to go back to the government and started applying for any and all jobs that I had any interest in and wound up getting a job at NIFC in the maintenance department as a groundskeeper here at NIFC. And turns out I was only in that job for a little bit over a year. And a job opened up in the national fire. At that time, it wasn't called the National Fire Equipment Program. It was called the equipment development unit. And they were looking for a position that had a mechanical background and had drafting skills, autocad skills. So I fit that, and I had to have a fire background as well. So not a lot of competition, not a lot of people that have fire skills and autocad skills and mechanic skills. So I was lucky enough to get the job.
I was the low man on the totem pole when I first started, and there was four people in our office, and my duties were draftsmen and support services. So a lot different than it is now. I kept track of all the money we were spending, and I helped everybody with travel and credit card stuff and such, and then also did all the drafting that we did, which now we don't do a whole lot of drafting.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: What's drafting?
[00:04:22] Speaker C: Drawing. So we used to draw all the parts and draw the trucks. And so we had files that had drawings of everything that we, that were produced, including stuff that was contracted at the time when I started.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: So this before computers?
[00:04:38] Speaker C: No. So we actually have within our files all old hand drawn stuff from the guy whose job I got. So. And then we also had it electronically as well. So drafting, that phased out quite a bit. Mostly. I mean, I did drafting for a couple of years, and then it kind of, everything's contracted now, so we kind of more rely on the contractors.
Since then, I've been in multiple different positions. I started, like I said, as a support services and drafting. Then I went on next position I had was, it was called special projects manager. So special projects. What we do, if we had an oddball project that was different than the norm stuff like if we're producing maybe a prototype piece of equipment or something along those lines, I would do that kind of work. I did that for a short time, and then I became a production manager. That role within our shop is kind of like responsible for a certain number of types of vehicles, which we'll get into a little bit later. So I was a production manager for several years, and then recently the previous program manager retired and I applied, and that's what I am now, the program manager. Programs grown significantly. We started out with, like I said, when I started, there was five people in the shop. Now we have a total of nine.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: And Justin is one of those.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: How'd you get started?
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Well, I started in the. With the bureau of Land Management right out of high school, so, you know, got out of high school, got a job on an engine crew in Twin Falls. So I bought, born and raised, grew up in, just down the road in Twin Falls, Idaho, got on the engines, and then did a short little stint there, and then hopped over to the hot shot crew here in Idaho, so, worked on the hot shot crew for a while, and then I really enjoyed engines. I really. It was fun. It was something that I really liked to do. So I transitioned from the shot crew back to the engine world, so. And then just kind of worked up through that program. Meantime, in the winters, my family owned a diesel automotive repair shop, so I would work, do diesel, you know, tech stuff mostly, simple stuff, oil changes, brakes, troubleshoot some electrical, you know, odds and ends, whatever was needed. So. And then fire season would roll around and I'd hop back in. Meanwhile, kind of during that, I went to the college of southern Idaho and picked up a degree there, you know, just to have something in my back pocket.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: What was your degree in?
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Oh, man. Liberal arts.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: You're kind of removed from.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Well, how do you use liberal arts with fire equipment?
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you know, it just means that, you know a lot about a different bunch of different stuff. Right, right. Something like that, anyway. But, yeah.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: So, special project skills, maybe?
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Some sort of special skills to be determined, maybe. Yeah. So during my time in Twin Falls, one of the old people or old individuals that worked for the program, or one of the individuals that worked for.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: The program, the seasoned employees.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Yep.
Was the fire management officer down there, and he kind of introduced me to the program a little more. I knew a little bit about the national fire equipment program, so I started participating in some national reviews, helping with some equipment inspections here and there. And then a position opened up, and I applied and was lucky enough to get it and come up here to Boise.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, we're glad to have you, both of you, and here to talk a little bit more about the program and learn more about what it is you all do. And with that, john, tell us a little bit more about the national fire equipment program.
[00:08:38] Speaker C: The main function of what we do is we purchase rolling stock fire equipment for the Department of Interior, all the Department of Interior agencies that have wildland fire equipment. So that includes National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian affairs, and US Fish and Wildlife Service.
We have about 1200 pieces of equipment that we are responsible for, you know, monitoring the life cycle, and we help determine when it's ready to be replaced. And then we gather the information for what the customer wants. That's the folks in the field. We gather the ordering information so there's options that they can choose for every vehicle that gets ordered. And then we work with the contracting office to. We develop specifications, and then those specifications get advertised. We help with determining who the award will go to. The contract is then awarded, and then we work with the contractor throughout the build of the truck until it's completed, and then we inspect and then accept the vehicle. And then the contractor gets paid and it becomes government property, and then it goes to the customer. Other things that we do, training events. We do all kinds of training events on equipment throughout this time of year. We were going to probably, I don't know, five to ten training events. We were representing at those preparedness reviews. Every year, three states get reviewed, and we're always heavily involved in the. Mainly the engine portion of that. We do participate in accident reviews when unfortunate events occur. We purchase about 75 to 100 vehicles per year. Currently. Due to the pandemic and all the backups that caused, we're currently working on 490 vehicles or vehicles, rolling stock pieces of equipment, which includes vehicles, trailers, dozers, heavy equipment, and such.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: Like the vehicles you use for, like, you see the superintendents driving. Right?
[00:10:57] Speaker C: Like the superintendent command.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Those are just like regular pickups that are kind of.
[00:11:02] Speaker C: Yes, that's right. So we have 20. There's a total of 22 classes of vehicle, and we manage a fleet of roughly 1200 vehicles.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: All right, that's a lot of vehicles.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: It is.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: 495 in process is insane. When I first started, when I was talking, when we would have a year with 30 vehicles to order, that was like a big year, and then it would get continually, get bigger almost every year, and it would be like, oh, this year we're doing 40. This is more than we've ever done, and. And now we're. It's crazy. We're up. I mean, like, dealing with 495 vehicles. We've got a lot of stuff going on.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: So do you split, kind of give people assignments, or is that kind of part of what you do, Justin? Do like the production?
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, each one of those classes of equipment, you know, the 22 John was talking about, each, they all have a different manager that oversees them. So, like they're kind of grouped together. So we have a gentleman that does all the heavy equipment and water tenders and hotshot vehicles. We have another guy on the team does the engines for BLM and all the heavy engines for BLM and all the light engines, and then another person does all the command class stuff. So the just regular pickups and, you know, support suv's and stuff like that that are jetting around. So it's kind of divided up and where, like my role and the other equipment specialists in the shop, we support those production managers and what they do, whatever they need, whether it be reviewing contracts, you know, or helping look over specifications before they go out to the market to forbid. So that's primarily what I do in the shop.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: And what are. Do you look at special features for this equipment? Does it? Because I know John, you said something about all the equipment. I mean, there's, I guess, different specs for each type of equipment, and they can choose, like, the districts choose what they need or.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: So we have a standard list of items that goes on each type of equipment. Previously, we had a whole bunch of different options that folks could pick. Now we've standardized more, mainly like, took a lot of the things that were optional and just made them standard, but there's still a limited number of options for everything. So folks can pick a few items. But overarching goal was to get more. Standardization is good for everybody that's involved in the process, from us riding the spec to the customer not having so many things to pick from, to the contractor having it's easier for them to build if they're all the same, instead of having 20 different combinations of things.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Makes sense.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Yeah, most of that comes from, like, when we review the orders that the BLM units put back in. If we're seeing a trend there where, hey, everybody's ordering a inverter on their pickup, then we'll work to make that a standard because everybody's getting it anyway, so.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Right. And what type of equipment do you work with specifically? Justin?
[00:14:18] Speaker B: So, yeah, like I mentioned a little bit earlier, so we have heavy equipment. So we have fire dozers, which have a specific package with them, roll protection and screens. We have the transports and trailers to support that piece of equipment so the crews can get those out into the field and get them working. We have different classes of engines, so we have a light engine, which is like a Ford or a Dodge heavier chassis with a 300 315 gallon water tank on it.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: We have like a type six.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Yep. Type six engine. Yep. And then we have kind of the. I'd say kind of the bread and butter of the BLM fleet. The type four engine, which is kind of our prominent heavy engine.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Yeah, the ones that most people will see in photos and rolling around.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Yep. And those are around an 800 and 5875 gallon, you know, fire engine with foam and a bunch of other, you know, discharges and ability for the crew to pump water and draft it into their tanks. We have urban interface engines out there that, you know, have a higher pumping capacity. They might not have quite as much water as a type four engine, but their output is really large, 500 gallons a minute. So we have our command class, which support, you know, the engines, the fire line supervisors, they cruise around in those. So battalion chiefs, chiefs and stuff like that. We even have some fireboats out there literally floating around.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Right. So are they in Arizona?
[00:15:50] Speaker B: I believe so, yeah.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Which is kind of funny. You think boats in Arizona?
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, just a few of those. So we got water tenders out there.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: So Alaska, too, reports. I'm sorry.
[00:16:03] Speaker C: No, no, I don't believe we have anything. You know, we have some crew carriers for Alaska. Crews, but they're here.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Yep. Some of the other agencies have some equipment up in Alaska that we purchased. Yes, that's.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: You're saying water tenders, too.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Water tender. So we just, you know, we kind of recognize that, you know, that if you look at the landscape that we work in, you know, from. Literally, we're getting equipment from sea to shining sea. And I think, John, we've even sent stuff to Hawaii, right? Yes. Puerto Rico.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: Puerto Rico, yeah.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yep. So, I mean, from sea to shining sea and then some, you know, we kind of recognize that the mission isn't the same. Right. Like, what really works well in Arizona may not necessarily work good in the high deserts of Idaho. So they have the ability, you, you know, know, the options are out there for districts to pick the piece of equipment that may best suit their mission in wildland fire.
[00:17:00] Speaker D: So, Justin, with your background as a hotshot, you lived and worked out of a hotshot buggy, right? So when you go to do ordering for buggies, what have you changed since, like, your time as a hotshot? Like, what kinds of features have you added or changed?
[00:17:16] Speaker B: When I was working on the crew and I worked on Snake river hot shots here in Idaho, and we had the little crew carriers, and those aren't even around anymore. So through that kind of the standardization John was talking about, now we have kind of a standard configuration of vehicles. So the hotshot crew carriers now are, they're so nice. The seats are, you know, and this was before my time coming into the shop. But, you know, through the years, they've evolved where the program has worked to put better seating, more comfortable seating for the crew members in the back, more comforts, you know, usb chargers and, you know, things to keep phones charged, to keep people connected to their families, personal storage areas on the trucks, more room. You know, the safety features on the vehicles are, you know, they've always been really good, but they're continuing to improve. You know, there's more stringent testing for rollover protection and stuff like that that's out there that we're implementing that, you know, just looking into the future to keep improving the equipment.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: So, John, before you mentioned you serve as a. Could be serving as subject matter experts for accident reviews and national reviews. I think Justin mentioned national reviews. What is an accident? Like, what would you be doing on an accident review? Or what types of things are you looking for?
[00:18:43] Speaker C: Typically, if there's an accident involving a fire vehicle, we refer to it as non serious to serious accidents, which are, you know, not just like a fender bender, but if it's an accident that a vehicle gets burned up or someone gets injured, severely injured or even killed. We serve as a subject matter expert for equipment related items that may have been a contributing factor factor. Most recently, we just served on, we had an individual from our group served on. It was the pony Lake incident in Nebraska where a truck got burned up. And we're there to look at the equipment and see if that contributed to the accident or if there's anything that we could do better in the future to prevent future incidents from similar occurrences.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: And so with those reviews, you obviously do find things sometimes. What are some of the changes you may have made from some of the accident reviews that you've been on?
[00:19:48] Speaker B: I think the one that sticks out in my mind just right now is there was a crew carrier rollover that happened not too long ago, and a couple individuals, one of the production manager for that class and one of the equipment specialists, went down and looked at it, and there was a crew gear storage compartment in the back that came dislodged and it blocked the back exit. Luckily, those trucks have ample amount of exits. There's one on each side, a couple on each side for the windows, and then the roof exit as well. So they had no problem getting out of the vehicle after the dust had settled. But us being there and being able to see that, we were able to make those quick calls back to the engineering team, to the manufacturer that produced that piece of equipment for us, and within two weeks or less, they had a solution to the problem and parts going out to the field to fix that so. Or to reinforce it to where it wouldn't be an issue if it ever happened again, which we hope it never does.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:52] Speaker D: So whenever there's an accident, you two review it and try to implement any changes to make sure it never happens again.
[00:21:00] Speaker C: Like every accident or not every accident. More. More significant accidents.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: Like I said, not every fender bender and such. But if it's a more significant accident, typically not just us, too.
[00:21:14] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:21:15] Speaker C: Somebody, usually my boss, will contact me and say, we need someone to go to this incident and serve as a subject matter expert. And so, yeah, someone from our shop will go. And we've all. Not all, but several of us have been through different levels of training, serious accident investigation. So kind of learn about the process and, you know, learn our role, what we should do there.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And it doesn't always turn out to be like a change, like I described, like a retrofit kid. It could be a change in policy, you know? Right. Like, you know, unfortunately, we had the denial incident a number of years back and resulting in loss of life. And through that accident investigation and looking at the contributing factors there, that's where we have a policy in place now that we don't ever have tires on our classes of fire equipment that are more than six years old. And that was us recognizing that and the investigation recognizing that as a contributing factor, and then us working with tire companies and engineers at tire companies to say, you know, what is a good solution to this, to where we can mitigate this problem in the future? And that was a result of that was a policy change that's bureau wide.
[00:22:37] Speaker C: And that particular incident resulted in some more major changes like rollover protection, internal roll cages in all of our heavy engines, roll tech seats, pretensioned seat belts, and even some other additional structural, we call it the superstructure that aids in the event of a rollover, and even designs and design changes to the fire package, which also aids in protecting the occupants of the cab so it won't crush nearly as bad due to all those changes that I mentioned.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Like a lot of the equipment in the past, you know, water tenders. And I'm thinking of water tenders in particular. The package was kind of below the cab height. So you had, like, the package where they store all their fire gear, and then you had a tank. Well, in the event of a rollover, what typically happens is it crushes down to the lowest point. So in order to increase that survivable plane, now the water tenders that are coming out are cab height, the body is cab height. And kind of, we were talking earlier about the hotshot trucks and what's changed. You know, that's another big thing is, you know, a few years back, they started requiring the contractor to crush test new bodies to, you know, as a requirement to build the trucks to crush test a body and make sure that the engineering side of it is sound if that were to take a role at highway speed.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Mike, his slip in your office too? I think he had some videos of that one time showing me the crush tests and the, you mentioned the seats, too. What's special about those?
[00:24:22] Speaker C: The roll tech seats.
So they're air ride seats and they suck down to the floor and your, increases your head room above your head. And also within the seat, there's like a side airbag, which is kind of a new thing for bigger trucks, the size of our heavy engines.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: So it will automatically, like, if it, like a certain impact or something, suck the seat down.
[00:24:49] Speaker C: Yeah, there's sensors that sense that the event's occurring in it.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's got a little control module that sits under the seat that when it hits that and it has to be past the tilt level of that truck, it senses that and it fires basically a little explosive. Right. And it drops all the air, pulls everything down, tightens the seat belt, and then, like John said, yeah, just to create more space between the occupant's head in the top of the cab.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: I envision like, when it's like a little explosion, like somebody, like, what was it?
Who was it that had the seats that like, jettisoned people out of, but instead this one just goes opposite and sucks people down.
But, yeah, good safety features for our crews out there. So, Justin, do you all conduct research on new technologies?
[00:25:41] Speaker B: We're always watching the market to see what's evolving. You know, unfortunately, you know, like we talked about a little bit ago, a lot of change comes from accidents. So whether that be within our organization or our partner organizations or cooperators, you know, we see things, and as industries change, we try to be in front of that technology to help implement it as it makes sense in our equipment, because Wildland fire equipment is, it's super specialized for what we do. We go to a lot of trade shows. I'd say we go to a lot of trade shows. We try to the main trade shows that are out there. There's a big one back in Indiana every year called FDIC, and it's just hundreds of vendors there showcasing their technology and equipment. And we see every, you know, things there every year from improvements in lighting to, I think the last time that I went to the show, there were vendors there that were showing how different colors of light help to cut dust and smoke to where you have actually, the driver will have more visibility, you know, than just a standard white light that's out there on an off road light bar. So stuff like that is things that we're looking at to help crews function better and work more efficiently, but also be safer when traveling in those type of environments. We also have lots of cooperation with the Forest Service and the other agencies that we help procure fire equipment for as well. Off the top of my head, one of the equipment specialists in the shop is, you know, helping out with the Forest Service, IHC review, you know, kind of just looking over their program and just there as an SME from the BLM saying like, hey, this is what we do. And these are trends that we've seen and just provide feedback. Heavy equipment with the Forest Service as well. We have a production manager that's helping out with that, kind of helping give feedback to help standardize not only within our organization, but maybe help other, you know, the Forest Service or other firefighting entities help standardize as well to where we're all on the same page.
[00:27:55] Speaker D: Do you ever collaborate and, like, share ideas with other industries outside of wildfire or wildland firefighting? Like police, military, utility workers?
Do you ever say, what do you do with your equipment, your vehicles? Have you ever taken any ideas from them?
[00:28:14] Speaker B: I don't know if we've taken ideas from them, but I know, like the military, they have a fair amount of firefighting equipment as well that, you know, staffs the bases and, you know, remote locations throughout the US. And they order a lot of equipment just like what we build to basically to our specification, maybe with some tweaks here and there. But they recognize how awesome we are, right?
So, yeah, they recognize that this is a specialized wildland fire engine that will suit their needs and through that, they're able to acquire that well.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: And you've done a lot of the research already and through these accident review and reviews to work smarter, not harder.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Yep. And we don't do anything with that, with the military and their procurement, but it's an open source and open design that they can pick up as they need and work through their contracting entities to get it.
[00:29:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say that we commonly hear from the vendors that we work with that we just got another order for however many such and such number of trucks. And they said they wanted exactly what the BLM's. What the BLM's getting.
[00:29:25] Speaker D: Also, they're taking ideas from you guys.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:28] Speaker C: That seems to be more common than the other way around.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Good. Well, that's good because it shows you're setting a standard.
[00:29:35] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:29:36] Speaker C: Right.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Making things better. So part of that standard setting and following that, you mentioned national reviews, too. So is that going out to each district and looking at their equipment other and making sure that everything's kosher.
[00:29:53] Speaker C: So national reviews are conducted. Well, every year, three states get reviewed. So they're on a kind of rotate, a four year cycle, I guess.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:02] Speaker C: So we go to basically every district within a state. This year, I happen to be doing Montana, so I'll be traveling around to all the districts of Montana. And, you know, it's a programmatic review that reviews not just the equipment, but all aspects of the fire program. Basically, it's a check to see if everybody's fallen policy so.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: And are ready for fire season, correct?
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:30:28] Speaker C: The end goal of the national preparedness review is to determine whether or not the state is prepared to fight fire. And, yeah, the. The review is based off checklists that are based off policy. And so all the team members go through the checklist and determine areas of that need improvement. Or also we call it accommodations, which. So areas where they might be excelling. So we try to address those, too.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: Does the district sometimes find things or, like, we're talking about how, you know, our other agencies or other areas looking at, like, what you do, but sometimes when they're out fighting fire, they're like, hey, this would be a good thing to have. Or do you ever get that kind of feedback from individuals on the ground or not have or. We need to change this?
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we love to hear what's working well and what's not working well in the equipment and through within the DOI, we have a reporting standard or reporting avenue for the individuals running the equipment to report improvements or report deficiencies. So if they see something that they say, hey, it'd be really nice to have a grab handle here to help us get up on top of the truck. Or, hey, it'd be really nice to, instead of have this valve here to turn this hose on, it'd be nice to have it three inches over. Cause it always gets caught up in the hose or caught up in something. They can report that to us, and then we can look when our specifications come up for rear eye or sometimes even, you know, mid specification, we can make those calls to make those minor adjustments. There's also the deficiency reporting side of it as well, which is an avenue for crews to report when things aren't working well or when they're breaking. So then we can see those and we can track those trends to say, hey, you know, we're having continued problems with this foam unit in the vehicles that we've been putting in. Maybe we need to reevaluate that and look at a different brand or changing things somehow to make it more efficient for the people fighting fire.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Excellent. So, John, give me one thing or project that you're most proud of when you're talking about the program.
[00:32:57] Speaker C: The one thing that I'm most proud of is I feel like our program provides the safest and best wildland firefighting equipment in the industry.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Microphone.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: That's it.
We're done.
How about you, Justin? Top that.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: I think that, you know, what I'm super proud of this program for is taking the feedback from the firefighters. Like, nobody in our program, you know, is an engineer, like a specific engineer that doesn't have a lot of fire experience. So the feedback that we get from the field, we implement, and I really like that we're firefighter based, and we take the feedback from the field and implement that in our fire equipment. All of us in the program have been firefighters and been on the ground for a long time. All of us, you know, know, over 15, maybe even 20 years. So we can work with the individuals and the firefighters that we're getting the feedback from, combined with the knowledge that we have and be that intermediary between the on the ground firefighter and what works for them and the engineers with the companies that we partner with to build our equipment to make what is the most efficient piece of equipment that we can for, for the firefighter.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: And I bet that helps, actually having the engine background. And you've been tinkering around on engines, too, and you yourself discover things and how things work and how things don't work.
So what are some of the challenges you face being the program manager?
[00:34:36] Speaker C: The biggest challenge right now that we're facing and worse than I could ever remember in the past 20 plus years that I've been doing this, the delays caused by.
I mentioned it before, I think the supply chain, everything that, as a result of the COVID pandemic, caused major waves in supply chain and increased prices dramatically.
And as a result, we're now way behind. That's why we have those 495 vehicles in process is because we haven't been getting them, that they've been ordered, but, you know, they're slowly coming in and more. I think we're getting right to the edge of where we're going to start getting a whole bunch of vehicles. But for the past couple years, it's been, we haven't been getting very many. So it's a challenge, and it's resulting in that we're keeping the existing equipment that's getting replaced longer than we're. We're to going intending to ever, and that means lots of repairs. So we're having lots of expensive repairs while we're waiting for this new stuff to get here.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: I think from where I'm at, it's the equipment that we got out there. We know it's got a lot of time past its normal replacement cycle, and it's just trying to work as best we can to keep in front of the small repairs and work with the firefighters on the ground to make sure that they're getting the support they need and getting those repairs done in a good time with good turnaround to keep that equipment up and going. So that's a huge challenge right now, too, as a result of that, of that fallout.
[00:36:21] Speaker C: And an example to give folks an idea, if we order a truck right now, it's going to be two to three years before the contractor gets the chassis, and then the contract typically has a year delivery time, and then lots of times, they can't meet a year, depending, you know, if we have a major order of a whole bunch of trucks, they're like, we can't. We can get you some of them in a year, but it's gonna be longer. You know, the more trucks it is, the longer it's gonna be before you get them.
[00:36:53] Speaker A: So they need to get parts, too, building these two, right?
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Yep, they need parts. And then they're also, you know, everybody's kind of in the same boat, right? Like, there's municipalities. They need equipment. So a lot of these manufacturers are just, they're super inundated with builds, and our stuff kind of falls in that build lineup, you know, as it comes in.
[00:37:16] Speaker A: So do you look at ways of, I guess, mitigate, like you said, maybe their crews are operating maybe older equipment than you'd like. Is there a way to mitigate any safety concerns about that, or are there safety concerns with that?
[00:37:28] Speaker C: I'd say, I mean, yeah, there's safety concerns that they're not operating the latest and greatest with the latest safety features, like all the rollover protection that we just mentioned. So, I mean, we're not gonna put a $40,000 roll cage in a 20 year old truck. So we're just striving to get the equipment replaced as soon as we can. That's what we're trying to do to mitigate it.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. I think the older equipment out there is. It's still good and safe to operate. It's just the new stuff. Like John said, it just has way more features that are geared towards safety and comfort. Like we talked about earlier. I think I let people out there to stay in front of your preventative maintenance and to really know your piece of equipment. You know, like, if you see a small oil leak today, don't brush it off. You know, if it looks like just a drop here or a drop there, get in and get it checked, because that could, once you get out to the line and start in initial attack or active operations on a fire, that could turn into a huge leak that could put you either in a bad spot or cause a significant mechanical failure that's in the result in that piece of equipment being down the rest of the summer. So, yeah, just know your equipment, know the capabilities, and stay in front of that preventative maintenance and getting things fixed while they're small.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: It's probably good advice for anybody owning a vehicle. Make sure you get your oil changed, your oil, check your tires, check your loads, for sure. Well, and actually, some of the equipment, some of the older equipment, there's a program to provide that to some of the rural fire departments. Correct. They take the equipment and can use it as well. Cause it's not like it's bad.
[00:39:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Right. What is that? Is it the rural fire assistance program?
[00:39:20] Speaker B: Yep. So the Bureau of Land Management has an agreement that's in place that allows us to take our retired fire equipment, you know, good quality retired fire equipment, and donate that to local fire departments, rural fire protection associations, volunteer fire departments, at no cost to them. There's caveats with that program. That has to be a fire department that responds to BLM fires. They have to have a cooperative agreement with the BLM. So we're not just giving the equipment to anybody. Unfortunately, we'd love to, but it's really the design of the program is to help these lower funded fire departments and VFDs and RFPAs with a quality piece of equipment, because we know they're going to show up and be assisting us. Or more often than not, they're the first ones there on the fires. So knowing that they have a functional, quality piece of equipment is awesome because it puts, you know, our minds at ease a little bit. You know, not saying that what they run currently is bad, but.
[00:40:32] Speaker A: No, but they don't have a lot of funding sometimes for. To get new equipment and to have something that's kind of made for that at their disposal is good.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So they got. They get a good truck at no cost. That will not only benefit the Bureau of Land Management and the fire mission that we're trying to accomplish, but also, it's a piece of equipment that they could potentially utilize in the non fire seasons, too, as to support their communities.
[00:41:00] Speaker D: You do also hold auctions where you sell old retirement equipment. Old retired equipment. Right.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: Well, you don't. Yeah.
[00:41:09] Speaker D: Not you guys specifically, but the equipment.
[00:41:12] Speaker C: If it's not tagged for the RFR program or at first, as it becomes available to other government agencies, so they can. They might see it and say that they could find a use for that piece of equipment, or maybe they use it for parts or whatever they use it for, they get the first dibs on maybe getting it, and if nobody takes it, then it goes to auction. I think it's still called GSA auctions.
[00:41:36] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: We didn't talk about a piece of safety equipment on the vehicles. Now, on most of the fire equipment called location based services. Can you talk a little bit about that? We haven't talked about that yet, and I think that's kind of a cool feature. Just at first, it was. It's satellite based. Like, satellite detection.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:58] Speaker A: So it's.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: Yeah, the location based services is. It's a satellite based terminal that's on our vehicles. And there was an act in place, I believe it was the dingle act, that said that, you know, hey, we're gonna. We're gonna have live tracking of our fire resources. So kind of through that, we have a manager in our shop that handles that specifically. And it's a satellite terminal that's on top of our vehicles, and it's utilized as a. As a means to see where our equipment is all the time. So we're not tracking people. We're not watching when engine crews, you know, and managers or whoever has these go get lunch. It's a means to when they leave the station and they're responding to a fire, because more often than not, you know, we're in super remote areas with no cell phone service or radio comms, you know, so if that truck doesn't show up on that fire, we have a way to see what their last location is within. I don't know, John. I forget that the distance, is it.
[00:43:01] Speaker C: 15 minutes or within a short, relatively short time span? So we could get a good idea of the area they're at, at least to start looking, right?
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Yep. And another really cool thing about is it's, you know, when a person has access to this, the fire managers or dispatch staff or whoever, they can see where that equipment is. So necessarily, the truck that might normally go to a response in an area sometimes might not be the closest truck, especially if pieces of equipment are moving around, staging or traveling to and from project assignments or whatever. Engine B might be closer to this fire than engine a, which would normally get dispatched out of a BLM yard to the fire. So managers and dispatch centers can use that as a means to really, truly send that closest available resource.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: And there's been examples of that. Right. I mean, they check, like, fire, maybe a crew coming home from a fire or something, and fire is reported and, hey, they're right there.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we were discussing this the other day where I was on a national review a number of years back in Colorado, and a crew was traveling home to their guard station in an area, you know, traveling through an area which wouldn't typically be their response zone. They were within six or 7 miles of a fire where the engine that normally would have responded was about 15 miles away. So the dispatch center was able to use that as a tool to see, hey, this engine is traveling home, but they're available to respond to fires, and they're only five or six minutes away, so they ended up responding to that with the other engine as backup.
[00:44:44] Speaker A: Cool feature. So, in closing, is there anything else you'd like to add?
[00:44:50] Speaker C: I can't think of anything I'd like to add other than thank you for offering this up to us and getting the word out about our program.
[00:45:00] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:45:01] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I think I just like to reiterate, you know, to the fire crews out there, not only BLM, but forest service, municipal, you know, everybody, everybody's kind of going through vehicle shortages now, and it's hard to get equipment and just stay on top of your preventative maintenance and, you know, stay ahead of those big repairs, so. And also. Yeah. Thank you for. For having us.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, I know a lot of people, I remember being on the district and, oh, God, we got it. Crews are going out there doing their inspections and paying the butt, but you don't know, you know, from overnight, something could be discovered to the next day. And things happen, especially when you're out traveling in the desert and dirt trail, dirt roads, off road, that kind of thing. So it's very important for everyone just to be aware of what they're driving and where they're driving and to maintain their vehicles, too. So it's good advice for everybody and could save them a lot of dollars in the long run, maybe getting something fixed before it becomes a big problem.
[00:45:58] Speaker C: Save the taxpayer a lot of dollars. Yes, that's what I always try to stress.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: All right, well, thank you both for coming and joining us today for our 26th episode of Wildfire Matters and telling us a little bit more about the National Fire Equipment program and the important work you do to help improve heavy equipment used and just fire equipment in general used for our firefighters to keep them safe and help fight fire more.
[00:46:23] Speaker D: Efficiently and for our listeners. If you have any questions, comments, or even suggestions on different topics for our future podcasts, please email them to BLM FA NIFC comments BLM Dot Gov and use wildfire Matters podcast in the subject line, please. To learn more about NIFC or the BLM, please visit our website, www. Dot nifc dot gov, and follow us at blMfire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: And thank you all for listening. Please join us next time when we spark a conversation with some representatives from the remote sensing fire weather support program who work with thousands of remote automatic weather stations or what we call raws. Stationed all around the nation, they're used to gather timely local weather data to support wildland fire management, large fire incidents, and other all hazard response. So looking forward to talking with those folks from Roz. Until then, stay safe and be wildfire aware.
