A survey of 3,362 firefighters conducted by the International Association of Wildland Fire showed that 36% of the full-time wildland firefighters surveyed will make themselves less available to be assigned to wildland fires as a direct result of recently filed manslaughter charges against a firefighter in Washington state.

The Thirtymile Fire, started by an escaped campfire near Winthrop, Was., claimed the lives of four U.S. Forest Service firefighters on July 10, 2001. This year on Jan. 30, the U.S. attorney in Spokane, Wash., charged Ellreese Daniels, the incident commander of the fire, with four counts of involuntary manslaughter and seven counts of making false statements.

This is the first time a wildland firefighter has faced criminal charges after firefighters have been entrapped and killed on a wildland fire. As one of the survey respondents stated, these charges "will have a chilling effect on the ability of agencies to recruit and retain qualified supervisors."

The IAWF initiated the survey after hearing speculation that some firefighters were no longer going to serve in certain key management positions on wildland fires due to the new threat of going to prison for making mistakes on fires. The objective was to collect data to determine the scope of the issue and to provide objective information to the wildland fire agencies.

"We conducted this survey to collect objective information about the impacts to wildland fire personnel and their organizations that are caused by the Thirtymile Fire legal proceedings," said IAWF President Chuck Bushey in a press release. "We are providing this data to the land management agencies and other fire organizations so that they can determine if they need to mitigate any adverse impacts that may be identified."

The IAWF conducted the online survey between Jan. 28 and Feb. 15. Wildland firefighters were invited via e-mail and postings on wildland fire online forums to take the survey, which could be taken only once from each computer.

Of the full-time survey respondents surveyed, 6% said that because of the possibility of criminal charges they will no longer accept any fire assignments, and 23% said they will not serve as an incident commander.

Other survey results among employees whose primary duty is wildland firefighting include: