| Federal plans to reduce staffing on fire engines this summer in the San Bernardino National Forest could cut firefighters' initial attack capability by up to 50 percent, forest officials confirmed this week. The cuts from 25 Forest Service engines to as few as 12 come when fire season approaches in the nation's most urbanized mountain forest. From Wrightwood to Idyllwild, the forest is home to roughly 100,000 residents and more than $7 billion in assessed property values. The reductions also come when San Bernardino County has increased staffing at 10 fire stations in and near the mountains. County fire officials confirmed last week that firefighting hazards documented in a multiagency Structure Protection and Safety Plan remain unchanged since August 2003 two months before the disastrous firestorms of that year. Although aviation resources and hotshot-crew staffing for the forest remain unchanged from last year, the engine-staffing issue has ignited a storm of criticism among veteran firefighters and forestry experts. Last year, forest officials staffed 25 engines seven days a week with 175 firefighters. This year, the plan is to staff 15 engines on weekdays and 20 engines on weekends, with as few as 12 engines staffed at times, Forest Fire Chief Mike Dietrich said Monday. "Our national preparedness budget's been relatively constant since 2001," Dietrich said Monday. "It translates to less resources to cover staffing all our needs. If you're on a fixed income, you have to make adjustments and do things a little bit differently." The initial fire-preparedness budget for fiscal year 2006 is $13.8 million, said Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes. Additional severity funding will be available. The initial budget in fiscal year 2005, combined with severity funding, amounted to $15.1 million. The national fire-preparedness budget for 156 national forests for fiscal year 2006 is $666 million, Mathes said. Fuel `ready to burn' Late spring rains mean there are lush, green grasses in the mountains. As ever in Southern California, all that green will cure to brown in coming weeks, adding fuels to the seasonal fire threat in forests still recovering from drought and bark-beetle infestation. San Bernardino National Forest's former supervisor, Gene Zimmerman, warned the cutbacks will place mountain residents and their homes at greater risk. "There are still millions of dead trees in this forest," said Zimmerman, who retired in January. "Most of the communities are hilltop, with one way in and one way out. Fire burns uphill, and it's a fire-prone forest with millions of tons of fuel ready to burn. This is not the forest to cut funding on." Zimmerman's successor, Jeanne Wade Evans, said forest officials will still have access to emergency funding for staff increases when the need arises. The most volatile part of fire season in Southern California comes later in the year with the Santa Ana winds, which can howl steadily at more than 100 mph. "We feel comfortable with our staffing," Evans said Monday. "We will always have the ability to staff up in hazardous conditions. As a national agency, we're flexible and able to move resources around." Zimmerman dismissed optimistic portrayals of the cuts. "They can say what they want about moving resources, but they won't be here in initial attack," Zimmerman said. "We need the resources here before the fires start. Computer modeling showed 25 engines on standby seven days a week is the most efficient level of preparedness. Now we're going back to 15. This says we didn't learn very much in the fall of '03." Gerald Newcombe, former San Bernardino fire chief during the 1980 Panorama Fire and current president of the Arrowhead Communities Fire Safe Council, joined Zimmerman's critique of the cutbacks. "I understand money's tight and they need to save funds, but any reduction will have a negative effect on initial attack," Newcombe said Monday. "You're not going to have as many people ready to fight fires. If the county is staffing up, it seems like the Forest Service should do the same. "Our fire problem is still extreme," Newcombe said. "Initial attack is critical. Even in the areas that burned in 2003, we still have serious problems. We have all these flashy fuels that pose a threat to lives and property." Resource shortage? Ruth Wenstrom, a resource officer and spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest since 1990, was reassigned to the Forest Service's fire laboratory in Riverside in April. At the same time, the federal agency was planning strategy for disclosing the staffing cuts to the public. Wenstrom declined to comment on why she was reassigned and referred questions to her former supervisors in San Bernardino and to Forest Service officials at Pacific Southwest Region 5 headquarters in Vallejo. Evans said Wenstrom's reassignment had nothing to do with the staff-reductions issue. It was a "management decision," Evans said. "Absolutely not," Dietrich said when asked if Wenstrom was reassigned because of the staffing issue. "Not to my knowledge. That's a better way of putting it." Despite local concerns about staffing reductions, Region 5 spokesman Mathes remained upbeat about Forest Service strategy in the San Bernardino National Forest. "Oh, they're in great shape," Mathes said. "I think they're in a situation where there's one or two less fire engines in a certain location, but they'll be moving resources around. We'll be able to bring in more engines when there's a need." Zimmerman blamed federal politics for forest officials' lack of candor about what the cuts really mean. "Local Forest Service folks are really under the gun to talk the party line," Zimmerman said. "The Bush administration signed off on it. The bottom line is there isn't as much to go around this year as last year. But this is still the most imperiled forest community in the country." White House spokesman Peter Watkins referred questions Tuesday to the president's Office of Management and Budget. The disconnect between the situation in the San Bernardino National Forest and officials in Washington continued Tuesday. Told of Zimmerman's statements, Department of Agriculture spokesman Jim Brownlee said, "Oh, they've got more firefighting resources than ever before." Six deaths were attributed to the Old Fire in October 2003. From the valley city of San Bernardino to Cedar Glen east of Lake Arrowhead in the mountains, nearly 1,000 homes burned. Two months later, torrential rains on scorched mountain watersheds unleashed boulder-packing flash floods that killed 16 people in Waterman Canyon and Cable Canyon on Christmas Day. The 2003 fires in San Bernardino County cost at least $1.2 billion, according to researchers at the Forest Service fire lab in Riverside. A preliminary report completed in July has not been updated. "These were conservative estimates," said planning specialist Alex E. Dunn, lead researcher on the preliminary report. "There's no timetable to update the report. The Forest Service stands by it as accurate." | 
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