July 23, 2006; 1020 hours

At approximately 1020 hours, I was given a message at the Southern Land office (DNRC), that an altercation was occurring between Senator Conrad Burns and a hotshot crew at Logan International Airport. I responded to the airport and, after requesting of Airport Security that I be escorted to the gate area, met with Burns at gate A3 of the airport, where he was waiting to board the 11:20am flight. By the time I arrived, there was no altercation occurring, just the senator sitting at the gate with his laptop computer.

I let him know that I was there to listen to his concerns and he didn't mention dialogue with firefighters, but did have some concerns resulting from conversations he'd had with local ranchers the previous day. When I could, I provide him with some clarification, but mostly, I informed him that would write down what he said to send it along to others. The key points from the conversation:

• Burns said, "This command and control system doesn't work, and we need something new." He also said, "Running these fires out of Boise is ridiculous. The government needs to listen to these ranchers." I provided clarification about the eastern MAC, the NRCC, etc. and assured Burns that our response was coordinated and local, etc.

• Several comments about us "not letting ranchers fight the fire on their own land." I mentioned that private citizens were integral to our success, as were VFD's, law enforcement, county governments, etc. I asked if he'd had the opportunity to visit with local government, VFD's or fire chiefs, and he said he had not. I also mentioned that we want to work with the ranchers, but we are concerned about safety, and I mentioned that ranching couple who died several years ago trying to fight a fire on their property, though I couldn't cite the specifics. He replied, "We're fighting a war on terror and we're concerned about safety there too, but we're out there doing it."

• Numerous complaints about using local equipment, he said, "You would rather let the fire burn than let a local rancher use his tractor on his own land."

• Burns said most of these complaints were from a rancher (whose name he didn't recall) that had a large ranch "south of castle". He did say it wasn't John Patterson. He said the rancher told him that, "The BLM put down a strip of retardant on the edge of BLM land to keep the fire from getting on there from private, implying that more effort was made to protect federal land than private.

• The toughest part of the conversation was the point where the Senator pointed to a firefighter sitting across the room from us in the gate area and said, "See that guy over there? He hasn't done a God-damned thing. They sit around. I saw it up on the Wedge fire and in northwestern Montana some years ago. It's wasteful. You probably paid that guy $10,000 to sit around. It's gotta change." I offered to the Senator that our firefighters make around $8-$10 per hour, and time-and-a-half for overtime. He seemed a bit surprised that it wasn't higher. I also provided the IA statistics that we had 330 fires, and 30 project fires, telling him that these firefighters had essentially caught more than 90% of the new starts. Burns agreed that initial attack was important.

• Burns also was critical that we didn't run night operations anymore. I told him that, at the Bundy closeout, I had learned that they staffed a night operation most, in not every, night. We agreed that night ops is very beneficial if the humidity recovers and the temperatures come down, but I also noted that we hadn't been getting the overnight recovery and these fires were burning actively well through the night.

• I told that I was taking notes to relay his concerns back to the agency administrators, etc. and he expressed his appreciation for my taking the time to listen to his concerns. He mentioned plans to host several meetings in the coming weeks/months to work on these

issues.

After I met with Burns, I called XXX, IC on Bundy. He was the one who originally called to tell of the incident at the airport. Apparently, the hotshot crew was from Augusta, GA, and he said the crew boss called him from the airport. Burns apparently approached them saying they had "done a poor job" and "should've listened to the ranchers." The name he provided was XXX, phone number XXX XXX XXXX. Also, two members of XXX IMT were there: XXX (FSCZ) and XXX (DIVS). XXX number is XXX XXX XXXX. I don't have a number for XXX.

Dispatch also has details about additional fire personnel who were booked on the flight and may have witnessed the exchange between Burns and the Augusta Hotshots.

If I can recall any additional information about this incident, I will submit another report.

Paula Rosenthal

Montana DNRC

7/23/06, 1248 hours