Last modified May 24, 2004 - 12:42 am
Fire crews for hire: State of Montana spent more than $2.5 million in 2003 on 'contract crews'
By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau
and EVE BYRON
Helena Independent Record
The forecast for Aug. 12, 2003, promised 90-degree temperatures as 20 firefighters, employed by a private contractor in Oregon, drove almost 600 miles to work the 2,200-acre Boles Meadow fire near Missoula. As the fire grew by a few hundred acres on Aug. 13, the yellow-and-green clad crew, composed mainly of Hispanic men, spent the day confined to fire camp. Only three spoke English, and - as a safety measure - fire bosses wouldn't let them on the line until a fourth arrived.
The average firefighter on that crew earned about $10 an hour. But the state of Montana paid the company they worked for - R&R Contracting of Salem, Ore. - $26.45 an hour for each man.
At that rate, more than half of the $112,725 Montana taxpayers paid to have the crew working for 17 days last summer went to overhead and profit to the out-of-state company - at the rate of about $300 per hour.
Montana spent more than $2.5 million last summer on "contract crews" like the one from R&R Contracting. All were from out of state. And, according to an analysis by the Gazette State Bureau and Helena Independent Record of $30 million in 2003 fire receipts, Montana routinely paid the companies twice as much to hire the crews as the firefighters actually earned.
Montana relies heavily on private contractors to provide men and material during firefighting season. Montana has small initial-attack crews, but it doesn't maintain a single "hand crew" of firefighters who work on fires that last more than a few days, said Bud Clinch, chief of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. The only crew organized by Montana officials is a 15-man outfit from the Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge.
So why doesn't Montana organize its own firefighting crews?
"In a typical year, I wouldn't say we have the need for them," Clinch said.
The standard 20-person crew must be specially trained and paid whether it works or not. Clinch said he didn't want to have the crews organized, only to have them sit around in slow fire years.
But others, even within his own department, disagree.
Rick Grady, Helena unit fire supervisor for DNRC, said the state has the authority to pull together these larger crews and should do so.
"We just have to start thinking outside the box," he said.
Other Western states, including Wyoming and Nevada, organize large contingents of inmate firefighters. Nevada maintains more than 1,000. Wyoming has 100 firefighters at its state prison, said Bill Crapser, Wyoming state forester.
The crews work year-round on all kinds of maintenance and manual labor and are ready to jump on wildfires when the state needs them, he said.
Crapser said the debate over how much firefighting resources states should maintain is going on all over.
"One question the public and the Legislature have to ask is, 'Would we be better off maintaining a lot more personnel every year in case we have a bad year?' " he said. "Another question is, 'Are we ever going to see a normal year again?' "
So far, the private sector has rushed to fill the void. But some contractors say the dash for firefighting dollars has some problems.
Nelda Herman, owner of a large fire contracting company, GHR in Klamath Falls, Ore., said as fire seasons have become more powerful and word spreads that there's money to be made in the business, more outfits have sprung up with sometimes dubious safety and employee treatment standards.
"People are jumping on board to be a contractor," she said.
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on this board that can only cut and paste any thing they know and hide behind some one elses apron strings... 
