Station Fire Congressional Hearing, Pasadena, 10/12/10
Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2010 4:55 pm
Disclaimers: If this is off-topic, please feel free to move it to "Off Topic" or whatever. Also, I am not an investigative journalist. Therefore, the following is my personal experience and recollections of this hearing. I'm sharing it so others who couldn't be there can hear about it. I am also not a fire fighter or a forest service employee, so having freely admitted that, I don't need to be reminded. I can still have an opinion about my own personal experience today.
I attended the hearing, as I had the day off work. I expected a lot of posturing by the Congressmen and women with an election coming up, and a rather short regurgitation of facts already known. However, I was surprised and impressed to see some very smart, hardworking representatives really doing their job, and doing it well.
There were two panels, and two parts to the hearing, which lasted from 9am until 1:30pm. The first focused on figuring out the events of the firefighting effort in the first two days. The second talked more about future changes to the system. News media had a corner filled with cameras for the first segment, then all left figuring the policy issues would be boring I guess.
I took notes so I could remember specific things accurately, but since the transcripts will be released to the public, and Paul Pringle (who was there, and I got to meet him and thank him for his work) will have an article covering it in the next day or two, I'll just focus on a few key impressions.
I've seen movies where these things are dramatized, and seen coverage of other similar hearings on TV. It is a vastly different experience to be there in person. To be in a room with people who are lying, who know they're lying, and know that everyone else knows they're lying....who just keep lying...it's kind of crazy, and very disturbing, especially when it concerns an event that is personally so relevant.
Will Spyrison, the incident commander for the initial attack (someone else took over after the first two days), was questioned most about having enough resources on the fire early on. He seemed to stumble immediately, saying he thought it would have helped to have air support early in the morning of the second day, that's why he ordered planes to arrive at 7am (they didn't actually show up until after 9am). He (EDIT - this questioning was focused on Tom Harbour director of fire and aviation management for the U.S. Forest Service) then realized he needed to backpeddle, apparently, and Brad Sherman in particular kept trying to get a consistent answer with him on this issue. The stock response became "well, that's a "what-if" scenario" (Officially, the FS maintains nothing could have been done, which makes their assertions that policy changes have now been made to improve things in the future, somewhat contradictory)
Spyrison apparently put an order in for aircraft around 12:30 am, but could not get confirmation that the order had been filled throughout those early morning hours.
All we know is that he placed the order, a dispatch operator prepared the order, but did not send it on to "South Ops" to be filled. She said someone told her to "hold" the order.
This is where the lying got out of control. Despite an hour of questioning on this topic, there is no answer from the Forest Service about who told her to hold the order, and why. They are "looking into it". (It seems to me they could ask the dispatcher who told her to hold the order, and why. But maybe that's armchair quarterbacking. Maybe they need more than an entire year to do that)
In the end, the official statement is that it "wouldn't have mattered anyway", despite Spryrison himself saying he urgently requested the resources during a "window of opportunity" at first light, before the day started to heat up and the humidity from the night hours evaporated.
Then there was the finding that the Martin Mars aircraft - which costs $1million (of your money) to keep on standby, whether they use it or not - was in the area and asked if they could drop their 6,000 gallons of water on the still small fire. They were told "no thanks", and proceeded to drop the water somewhere random, since they need to unload before the plane can land.
A few county fire officials had some strong opinions on this.
Personally, I felt badly for Spyrison, who seemed to be harshly questioned on things that were not under his control or responsibility. The other FS personnel there seemed content to sit in the row behind him, watching him sweat, and offered no peep of support or defense. Nice, guys.
Jody Noiron presented some lovely Google Earth images on an overhead projector, and one "flowchart" which consisted of names of departments, connected with red arrows. She vigorously denied that cost had anything to do with decision making, and was "not aware" of the report in the LA Times which found otherwise, just a couple of days ago. Brad Sherman commented that he found it interesting that Paul Pringle apparently knows more about the situation than she, prompting nervous, angry laughter.
I'd have to look at my notes to get the names of everyone straight, but I was impressed with the county firefighting representatives. They were very cooperative, well spoken, and had strong opinions based on their experience (which is considerable).
I still have some sympathy for the FS, since I know they don't have enough money, equipment, or time (who does??) but the obfuscation is inexcusable and offensive.
Also, I really like Brad Sherman and Adam Schiff now. They did their homework, and I believe them when they say they will follow through on this.
I'm looking forward to Pringle's article, since it will obviously be much more concise than my ramblings.
I attended the hearing, as I had the day off work. I expected a lot of posturing by the Congressmen and women with an election coming up, and a rather short regurgitation of facts already known. However, I was surprised and impressed to see some very smart, hardworking representatives really doing their job, and doing it well.
There were two panels, and two parts to the hearing, which lasted from 9am until 1:30pm. The first focused on figuring out the events of the firefighting effort in the first two days. The second talked more about future changes to the system. News media had a corner filled with cameras for the first segment, then all left figuring the policy issues would be boring I guess.
I took notes so I could remember specific things accurately, but since the transcripts will be released to the public, and Paul Pringle (who was there, and I got to meet him and thank him for his work) will have an article covering it in the next day or two, I'll just focus on a few key impressions.
I've seen movies where these things are dramatized, and seen coverage of other similar hearings on TV. It is a vastly different experience to be there in person. To be in a room with people who are lying, who know they're lying, and know that everyone else knows they're lying....who just keep lying...it's kind of crazy, and very disturbing, especially when it concerns an event that is personally so relevant.
Will Spyrison, the incident commander for the initial attack (someone else took over after the first two days), was questioned most about having enough resources on the fire early on. He seemed to stumble immediately, saying he thought it would have helped to have air support early in the morning of the second day, that's why he ordered planes to arrive at 7am (they didn't actually show up until after 9am). He (EDIT - this questioning was focused on Tom Harbour director of fire and aviation management for the U.S. Forest Service) then realized he needed to backpeddle, apparently, and Brad Sherman in particular kept trying to get a consistent answer with him on this issue. The stock response became "well, that's a "what-if" scenario" (Officially, the FS maintains nothing could have been done, which makes their assertions that policy changes have now been made to improve things in the future, somewhat contradictory)
Spyrison apparently put an order in for aircraft around 12:30 am, but could not get confirmation that the order had been filled throughout those early morning hours.
All we know is that he placed the order, a dispatch operator prepared the order, but did not send it on to "South Ops" to be filled. She said someone told her to "hold" the order.
This is where the lying got out of control. Despite an hour of questioning on this topic, there is no answer from the Forest Service about who told her to hold the order, and why. They are "looking into it". (It seems to me they could ask the dispatcher who told her to hold the order, and why. But maybe that's armchair quarterbacking. Maybe they need more than an entire year to do that)
In the end, the official statement is that it "wouldn't have mattered anyway", despite Spryrison himself saying he urgently requested the resources during a "window of opportunity" at first light, before the day started to heat up and the humidity from the night hours evaporated.
Then there was the finding that the Martin Mars aircraft - which costs $1million (of your money) to keep on standby, whether they use it or not - was in the area and asked if they could drop their 6,000 gallons of water on the still small fire. They were told "no thanks", and proceeded to drop the water somewhere random, since they need to unload before the plane can land.
A few county fire officials had some strong opinions on this.
Personally, I felt badly for Spyrison, who seemed to be harshly questioned on things that were not under his control or responsibility. The other FS personnel there seemed content to sit in the row behind him, watching him sweat, and offered no peep of support or defense. Nice, guys.
Jody Noiron presented some lovely Google Earth images on an overhead projector, and one "flowchart" which consisted of names of departments, connected with red arrows. She vigorously denied that cost had anything to do with decision making, and was "not aware" of the report in the LA Times which found otherwise, just a couple of days ago. Brad Sherman commented that he found it interesting that Paul Pringle apparently knows more about the situation than she, prompting nervous, angry laughter.
I'd have to look at my notes to get the names of everyone straight, but I was impressed with the county firefighting representatives. They were very cooperative, well spoken, and had strong opinions based on their experience (which is considerable).
I still have some sympathy for the FS, since I know they don't have enough money, equipment, or time (who does??) but the obfuscation is inexcusable and offensive.
Also, I really like Brad Sherman and Adam Schiff now. They did their homework, and I believe them when they say they will follow through on this.
I'm looking forward to Pringle's article, since it will obviously be much more concise than my ramblings.
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Alot of variables.