BIA, Darren, BLM discussed on Native America Calling

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Had a young man get medevaced off the fire here the Florence fire was our helicopter and he passed on our helicopter, got hit by a tree. His first fire. We've got people that have been hit by a rocks and things of that nature. Trips stumbles falls are a big piece. So obviously night operations and footing have to be looked at and addressed aviation assets. We have a lot of moving parts when we have a large fire so you have helicopters and airplanes coming in and servicing and helping support and that also adds a level of risk and a level of exposure to firefighters and to the pilots. And so in driving, just driving long days driving after shift, driving to the fire I mean, there's just a lot of risk that these folks are firefighters face in every aspect of the job. Listeners, if you've got a question or a comment for one of our guests today or you want to pay tribute to a firefighter, one 809 9 6 two 8 four 8. That's the number to call. Bodie, I'd like to bring you back into the conversation. BIA has an honor guard that pays tribute to fallen firefighters. Can you talk about that? Well, let me back that up just a little bit and I'll shift this to Darren. But this is a proposal that we're looking at providing to national leadership and we'd love to have Indian countries engagement, discussion. But Sean, if we could because Darren is really the brainchild behind this, I'd love to have him take the floor if we could. Absolutely. Darren, please step in. Yeah, you bet. And I appreciate this question, because this is huge. And this is really to establish the bureau of Indian affairs identity in honoring the families and the loved ones, coworkers. Oh, the fallen firefighters. Like Ron said, there's risk in everything. And there's so many multiple ways we take that risk when we engage in wild on fire. Originally, when Ron actually mentioned south canyon, the director of the bureau of land management went to those funerals and he wanted a way to express the bureau's appreciation for the lives, those fallen. And so he established the BLM honor guard. And that was established in 2000 in 2000, I was actually working for the BLM and was selected to be part of that. And develop that program as well as be the national lead during my last few years there with the BLM. Came to the BIA in 2011 and noticed that we did not have an honor guard. And so that was always in the back of my mind. But here recently, we've been able to make that national proposal to stand up and honor guard and to have the BIA along with forest service for service has about 50 plus on our guard members, bureau land management, has honor guard for their wildland firefighters, fish and wildlife service park service, as well as.

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