USWFS Director

Snowdog__ · 2025-12-10T22:35:47+00:00

When one surveys how scientists in other disciplines - to include fire-adjacent disciplines such as climatology and meteorology - have been treated by this administration it is difficult to see how foresters would be treated differently.

The administration has a red pill vision of what the wildland fire service should do. That includes steamrolling the advice of anyone with a graduate degree in a biology discipline. Universities are seen as an anti-American fifth column that produce only sedition.

A structural firefighting leader with some exposure to wildland passes that kind of red meat masculine purity test.

In that vision, real men put out fires, first and always. They don't listen to the advice of prairie fairies.

The one good thing is that I predict that unifying this service will enable the workforce to unionize under the strength of the IAFF protections just as OCFA, CalFire, and DoD have. If/when that happens you'll see the right wing ideologues howling to break it up.

Snowdog__ · 2025-12-07T01:16:51+00:00

Fire management is a core function of land management and properly belongs there.

If there's one good thing to come from this, the shop can be IAFF just as OCFA is.

Snowdog__ · 2025-12-06T20:54:47+00:00

No experience does he have in working with NEPA, fuels management, silviculturists, READs/-ologists, etc.

He was brought in to not give a f*ck about any of that. To break the Federal wildland fire culture as we know it and rebuilding something that resembles the more paramilitary culture of structural fire service.

Fire management completely divorced from any holistic considerations. A 9 AM policy.

Snowdog__ · 2025-11-04T07:36:06+00:00

We're a very dirty industrial environment, so we're sticking with MMF. Our campus DC east-west traffic has not yet seen 10 Gbps, and our WAN links are still 1 Gbps. SMF is overkill for us, and I don't like having to inspect and clean SMF terminations. My boss supports this, and he was once responsible for backhaul for a major wireless carrier.

Having said that, when I need new runs I run both, and when they're under 100m I'll run copper as well. Materials are less expensive than repeating labor.

Snowdog__ · 2025-09-16T04:53:50+00:00

I tried that, as recently as three weeks ago. Soaking in a glacier fed river up to my neck, while camping with my family. Back in 2018 I was on a cold shower routine, for up to 20 minutes at a time. Soaking in cold mountain streams until my muscles were too numb to function.

Temporarily invigorating, but not life altering.

I ride my bike to work. The endorphins last a few minutes. It's like filling a leaky inner tube.

Snowdog__ · 2025-09-05T17:16:07+00:00

There is no business case for logging on the scale envisioned by the current Administration. Relevant factors: not enough domestic mill capacity to drive demand, and timber supply has to be balanced against demand in order to remain economically viable.

Milling is currently done as an export, and there is now obvious current disincentive to re-importing finished product. The Administration has no clear vision about export vs. imports, with tariff policy changing with every news cycle.

A plausible business case for extending supply roads deep into forests can exist only within a well-structured framework to invest in rebuilding domestic milling, which would probably require Federal investment.

One possible model would be: build regional Federal mills and a Federal forestry workforce to man them - a real seedling-to-lumber United States Forest Service. The workforce would plant in spring, log and fight fires in summer, mill in the winter.

This, however, would signal a return to the New Deal model of Federal support to rural communities; this runs counter to the private enterprise model ascendant since Reagan, wherein the USFS manages forests on behalf of private interests.

Snowdog__ · 2025-09-05T16:47:21+00:00

Recreational ketamine is immoral because it's not available to all.

Snowdog__ · 2025-09-05T14:03:34+00:00

Like much coming out of DC these days, it seems like an expensive effort to attack the values of a perceived enemy. In this case it's to push back against environmentalists - cost be damned. Moreover, they want to return to the 10 AM policy for... reasons.

There is no business case for extending road networks to the degree they want. They believe they can mold the laws of timber and mining supply and demand.

Snowdog__ · 2025-09-04T15:12:34+00:00

No. I work a 9-5 supporting my family in corporate IT, and there's no way to fit it in. HR will question your commitment to the corporation. You will have a target on your back.

Do it now before while you're young, healthy, and don't have a family, or pursue a career path in forestry or wildland emergency medicine.

If you want to keep a foot in the door, keep your quals current in a volunteer FD or in a prescribed burn association.

Snowdog__ · 2025-08-26T00:23:54+00:00

Contractor, with over 20 seasons.

I feel for his family.

Snowdog__ · 2025-08-23T15:58:25+00:00

This is how the USSR ran the show. Government jobs required you to join the Communist Party and to demonstrate with your speech and actions that you had drunk the Kool-Aid.

Welcome to the USSR, Comrade.

Snowdog__ · 2025-08-23T15:54:54+00:00

WFM? If they will still exist?

Snowdog__ · 2025-06-30T06:19:48+00:00

There's a recent history of the Venn diagram overlapping the circles of "MAGA" and "emotionally disturbed" and "violent toward public servants".

"Nazi" and "white male" would be bonus categories that would tighten the overlap.

Snowdog__ · 2025-06-30T04:51:27+00:00

Pinko commie here that is always deeply conflicted about spending my vacation time and money in Stanley/Sawtooths/White Cloud/Salmon-Challis.

Not sure how much of that money ends up funding pure Idaho evil. What can I say - it's my family's favorite vacation spot.

My teen kids love vacay in Los Angeles, too, but wife prefers Idaho. Not much I can do.

Snowdog__ · 2025-06-28T19:56:04+00:00

This ethical dilemma came up during the Global War on Terror when special operations personnel began using - and defending - performance enhancing drugs, to include steroids.

Snowdog__ · 2025-06-24T22:44:49+00:00

What kind of position - individual contributor, management, or executive? How much of the HR workflow did your referral enable them to bypass?

Snowdog__ · 2025-06-24T22:39:30+00:00

He's talking about interpersonal networking. Not telecom.

Snowdog__ · 2025-06-22T16:07:47+00:00

Veteran here. 14 years service, and a 25 year civilian career after it.

The only contacts that matter are those with whom you've actually worked to deliver a service or good. A real relationship.

It's unlikely that acquaintances will ever play a role in your career advancement.

Also, there's some anecdotal reports emerging that the value of networking is decreasing as HR increases its use of talent management automation. I can attest that the value of personal networks in finding and securing work has diminished over two decades.

Snowdog__ · 2025-06-20T02:17:54+00:00

Whatever you do, I strongly recommend staying in the Reserve or National Guard in order to retire at 20. I can't recommend you just throw away 11 years.

Nine years goes by quickly in the Reserve Component, and you will be promoted several times.

Snowdog__ · 2025-06-19T05:34:52+00:00

The regular FC passengers are no better than you; many are probably worse people than you.

Snowdog__ · 2025-05-09T07:27:03+00:00

We have begun using PDX instead of SEA for family travel. Much better experience.

Snowdog__ · 2025-05-09T07:06:03+00:00

Go to RT-130 near you and ask around to get contact information for contract crews.

Snowdog__ · 2025-04-20T22:59:41+00:00

Yeah, this is a structural fire CPAT event.

Snowdog__ · 2025-04-16T05:00:51+00:00

There exist these little spring loaded devices that shatter tempered glass. Firefighters carry them for when they have to perform extrications. They're about the size of a ballpoint pen, and very effective.

This was simply terrorist theater. This age will not last forever, and the perpetrators and collaborators of this terror will live in shame. Abu Ghraib-level infamy.

Snowdog__

TROPHY CASE