Montana Senator cusses out Virginia firefighters helping fight Montana fires- Why?

[astro]

Here is the tirade. What specifically is he accusing them of doing wrong re improper fire fighting practices?

After days spent in the heat and flames of the Billings’ fires, the Augusta firefighters were finally on their way home, sitting in the lounge of the local airport, waiting to board their flight to Virginia. That’s when the senator showed up.

Was he there to thank them? Maybe he wanted to give them a plaque or something. Politicians do that sort of thing, especially when there’s an election coming up.

Oh, no. Burns stormed up to the Virginia crew and cussed them.

“See that guy over there?” the senator said, according to a subsequent report of the incident. “He hasn’t done a [expletive deleted] thing. They sit around. I saw it up on the Wedge fire and in northwestern Montana some years ago. It’s wasteful. You probably paid that guy $10,000 to sit around. It’s gotta change.”

Naturally, this generous and thoughtful expression of appreciation by the senator went over like, well, gas on an open-range fire. The Virginians took offense, as they should have.

It appears that the senator was voicing objections raised by Montana ranchers over the firefighting strategies employed - something about which the Virginians had no say. They were simply there to help and do as requested. To say that Burns’ intemperate comments were misdirected would be something of an understatement.

[Rick]

Besides being a dick this guy is an idiot
:rolleyes:

[silenus]

Politician does something stupid and counter-productive. Film at 11.

[danceswithcats]

Had he expressed his upset that way while the crew was on line he’d have had a Pulaski shoved up his ass.

[samclem]

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/08/14/opinion/letters/45-management.txt explains some of the concern of the jerk.

[silenus]

At least you used the right term. All it does is confirm that the senator suffers from a terminal case of Cranial Insertium Rectumitis.

[jayjay]

@danceswithcats

Had he expressed his upset that way while the crew was on line he’d have had a Pulaski shoved up his ass.

Stan Pulaski, from Scranton. We went on a date once…

ducks

[Raguleader]

@jayjay

Stan Pulaski, from Scranton. We went on a date once…

ducks

For some reason, I visualized the lady whe replaced Dr. Crusher for a season or two of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

[Jodi]

Basically, he’s an idiot. He went off half-cocked without having all the facts and it came back to bite him in the ass. (Mixed metaphors, anyone?) Specifically, some ranchers apparently complained to him that the firefighters were not working hard enough or efficiently enough to contain the fire, and rather than think that over, he stormed over to some firefighters he ran into in the airport and told them they were doing “a piss-poor job.”

Conrad is under stress these days because he is in the cross-hairs on the Jack Abramoff scandal and facing a tough re-election campaign. But then this is the guy who was asked by a rancher, “What’s it like to live in D.C. with all those niggers?” and replied “It’s a hell of a challenge.” :rolleyes:

Here’s a taste of just how thoroughly Conrad can put his foot in his own mouth:

In 1999, Burns issued a written apology after referring to Arabs as “rag heads” during a speech while commenting on oil prices. In 1994, Burns repeated a story that included the word “niggers” and commented that living with blacks in Washington, D.C., was “a hell of a challenge.” He also onced asked a woman who was wearing a nose ring what tribe she belonged to.

Article here. Charming guy, huh?

Of course, he apologized for that one, just like he apologized for chewing out the firefighters, but don’t underestimate how far down his throat he can but his own foot.

[danceswithcats]

Thanks for the linked article, samclem. It shows that so long as there is fire, there will be folks who have never learned anything about suppression, much less Incident Command, but will carry on about how the job should or could have been done better.

The Senator and his supporters should go earn Red Cards, and then we’ll see what they have to say.

[samclem]

From that article.

A videotape obtained and circulated by the Democratic Party shows that when the conference call ended, Burns turned to officials in the room and said, “that’s the way to shut that down … that works.”

Just a good ol’ boy.

[drachillix]

@danceswithcats

Thanks for the linked article, samclem. It shows that so long as there is fire, there will be folks who have never learned anything about suppression, much less Incident Command, but will carry on about how the job should or could have been done better…

If I may chime in with my limited wildland ICS knowledge, many wildland fires are HUGE with crews scattered across tens or hundreds of thousands of acres.

The plans for where to position various resources are often written 12-24 hours before the crews are actually assigned to a location to protect and or engage in supression activities. A decisive wind shift or unforseen success or failure of supression effort on any one of dozens of fronts could leave hundreds of firefighters 15-20 miles from the nearest alternative effective locations to engage the fire from. We are not talking about something like a rippin house fire where you just surround and drown. It could easily take 4-6 hours just to reposition units to a new fire front and just as many hours again to bring them back should the fire shift back that way again. So rather than having crews running willynilly all over the mountains, they play a sort of zone defense. If the fire does not move toward you or moves away, you just stand guard in case it does not stay that way.

The same blowhard who dosen’t know a positive displacement pump from a pickled caper would be screaming about them abandoning their positions if that fire turned around after they left and wiped out a housing development they were guarding.