Federal Workers to Help Fight Blazes

With the worst wildfire season in decades raging across the West, President Clinton ordered federal agencies Friday to reassign as many as 2,000 supervisors and managers to join the front lines of the blazes in support roles.

More than 80 fires are burning across vast Western wilderness areas, many in remote forests of Idaho and Montana. The enormous contingents of firefighters and military troops that have been battling the blazes for weeks are gaining little ground because every time they contain one set, hot and dry weather ignites a large and dangerous new batch. And that predicament is not likely to end any time soon.

Punky Moore, of the National Fire Information Center in Boise, Idaho, said weekend weather forecasts of more lightning strikes and winds gusting up to 40 mph were causing worry as blazes continued to crackle out of control.

“When winds hit a large area of uncontrolled fire line, you really have problems,” Moore said. “There’s not much land between some of these fires, and they can join together.”

Clinton’s announcement is the latest among several moves recently to give the weary legion of more than 20,000 firefighters mobilized across the West extra help.

About 2,500 Army and Marine personnel already are part of the firefighting force. An additional 500 arrived Friday at the Bitterroot National Forest in Hamilton, Mont., for 30 days of front-line duty.

An 18-person contingent from American Samoa, including emergency medical technicians and police officers as well as some trained firefighters also were headed toward the fire lines Friday.

Tom Nichols of the National Park Service said the Samoan group joined the effort after reading about how Mexican, Australian and New Zealand personnel had been deployed against the U.S. fires. “Most of these guys aren’t trained firefighters, but they are very strong. They have been handpicked by the village chiefs over there,” Nichols said.

The new federal civilian reinforcements will come from Agriculture and Interior department offices around the country; Agriculture oversees the Forest Service. Nearly all of them will assume backup roles fighting the blazes, as managers of fire crews or in fire command centers around the West, assisting with the enormous task of planning, logistics and finances necessary to support the fire crews.

Every summer, agencies shift an assortment of federal workers from their normal duties who have been trained to assist in wildfire suppression. But federal officials said Friday that the size of Clinton’s request for manpower is unusually large.

The president promised that those who go to the blazes will be “compensated appropriately.” Federal officials later said that the compensation would likely come in the form of cash bonuses.