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Retired firefighters recalled to duty Battling West�s wildfires requires support and experience, officials say By Paul Fattig Retired government wildland firefighters are being asked to stash their fishing rods and golf clubs and dust off their canary yellow fire gear and Bullard hardhats. The Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon Department of Forestry are recruiting retired firefighters or those who have experience in providing support for firefighters as the 2000 fire season continues to roast the region. "Retirees have a whole pool of knowledge and expertise that we can use," explained Roberta Damico, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. "They�re coming in real handy now." The center, the nation�s firefighting headquarters for the Forest Service, BLM, National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, is coordinating the effort. Locally, retirees from the Rogue River and Siskiyou national forests, the BLM�s Medford District and the ODF�s Southwest District are being encouraged to come out of the retirement woods. "There�s a call going out to all the forests," said Rex Holloway, spokesman for the Forest Service�s Pacific Northwest office in Portland. "In a normal year, we wouldn�t have to do this but this isn�t a normal year," he said, noting that more than 1 million acres of forestland have burned in the West this summer. Although there have been comparatively few fires in western and southern Oregon this summer, fires raging elsewhere in the West have drained the firefighting pool, he said. In addition to providing firefighting expertise, federal retirees are also being asked to temporarily fill positions vacated by employees who have left for the fire lines, he said. Because of budget cuts and normal attrition, some 4,000 Forest Service have retired in the region in the last decade, he estimated. "A lot of them have a lot of fire experience but we�re also looking for people who can fill in to do regular jobs," he said. Retirees from the state forestry department, in addition to serving on fires, will also train Oregon National Guard units to fight fires, said Dan Thorpe, the ODF�s Medford Unit Forester. Gov. John Kitzhaber has asked that 400 of the state�s citizen-soldiers be trained to aid exhausted firedfighters. Although the fire danger has been in the extreme range for more than a month, the worst may be ahead, Thorpe warned. "We�re still looking at several hard weeks of fire season," Thorpe warned. "Before it starts to wind down, we�ve got to get through most of September, even into October." In a normal year, fire season usually doesn�t end until mid-October in Jackson and Josephine counties. "Every day we go through without lightning now is one day closer to the end of fire season," he said. In 1987, the Silver Fire burned some 100,000 acres in the Siskiyou National Forest after being started by lightning at the end of August. That fire wasn�t declared controlled until mid-November of that year. "This is also a very unusual fire year," Damico said. "We welcome retirees, especially those who maintain fire qualifications. But we also need retirees to free up some folks to go into the field." Interested federal retirees should call 1-800-644-8732 for further information. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA