STATE EYES NEW RULES FOR FIRE VAN DRIVERS

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, March 5, 2003

By Alice Perry Linker

Observer Staff Writer

Driving rules for private wildland firefighting contractors in Oregon will be tightened this season, following last year’s Colorado accident that killed five firefighters from Oregon and Idaho.

Proposed contract language, expected to be approved by the Northwest interagency fire team within a matter of days, limits one driver to 10 hours of driving time in a 15-hour duty day, with eight consecutive hours off duty after driving. If two or more share driving responsibilities, they cannot keep the vehicle traveling on the road for more than 15 hours in one day before the eight-hour break.

Similar driving requirements for U.S. Forest Service employees have been in place for some time but have not been required by private contractors. A new contract, drafted by the Oregon Department of Forestry, is expected to become effective with the coming fire season.

Bill Lafferty, program director for fire protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry, has been the lead in drafting the contract proposal for all private contractors in Oregon and Washington.

Lafferty said Monday members of the interagency team are expected to approve the new language within a matter of days. The team is made up of representatives from federal and state agencies.

A Forest Service investigation, reported in a copyrighted story in the Aspen (Colo.) Daily News, determined that the driver of the ill-fated Grayback Forestry van was the only assigned driver for a 1,138-mile trip from La Grande to Colorado and had rested no more than 4 1/2 hours during the more than 22-hour trip. Eleven Grayback Forestry employees were traveling to the Hayman Fire in Colorado last June when the van rolled over when the driver, Megan Helm, tried to correct the vehicle after it drifted off the pavement.

Helm, a former resident of Union County, pleaded guilty last week in a court in Rifle, Colo., to one count of careless driving. She was fined $200 and sentenced to 50 hours of community service.

According to news accounts, the Forest Service report concluded that Helm was probably fatigued.

"The existing contract was never built with anticipation of people driving across the country," Lafferty said. "We’ve been using it as a tool since 1990. It was designed to be for Oregon and Washington that was the primary purpose."

The investigation also found that three of the accident victims were not wearing seat belts.

Michael Wheelock, president of Grayback Forestry, could not be reached for comment directly, but his spokeswoman, Leslie Habetler, said the company has instituted a policy that allows only 13 hours of driving during one day.

The company has always had a seat belt policy but "emphasized the existing policy" after the accident, Habetler said.

Although the Forest Service investigation did not address the issue of the safety of the 15-passenger van in which the firefighters were riding, Grayback stopped using the vans after the accident. The company has purchased 15 six-passenger crew cabs and five crew carriers, at a cost of about $755,000, to replace the vans, Habetler said.

"The result of this is that agencies and contractors have started working much closer together to reach the common goal," she said. "I think the industry will become much much safer."