| I was crew boss for a 7 man crew for this prescribed burn. When I showed up to the 40 acre, mostly grass unit, I first noticed that the site had not be prepped well for the weather conditions that day. The winds were variable/SW and swirling at 15 mph with a low RH and the fire break around the unit was only 6'-8' wide. My crew did not receive a briefing at all and fire was put on the ground by the burn boss before any assignment was given to the crew. I made sure everyone on my crew was wearing proper personal protective equipment beforehand but the burn boss was not wearing any. There was a lot of confusion during the entire burn with no communication between the 2 groups. Equipment onsite was also defective, the ATV had no reverse, had issues starting, and was overheating. The 1000 gallon water tank trailer had a 10 foot 3" diameter hose with no nozzle on it, and that was impossible to back up and there was no where to turn it around safely. The burn boss told my crew to do unsafe things such as to rake/flap the fire "when it was about to explode" and asked us to cut a burning, dead, 15" diameter tree limb when none of us were qualified to do so. The burn boss (after we refused risk due to a violation of safe work practices, defective equipment being used, and lack of qualifications) was offensive to my crew and made fun of us, especially the women on the crew, for "not doing our job" and "not having the balls" to do fire operations. The fire escaped 4 times and burned an extra 20 acres into the woods around the 40 acre unit. We were able to put those extra fires out. |
