I’m a forester with thirty-five years of experience, many of those years were with the California Dept of Forestry. My background includes forestry, fire fighting, law enforcement, teaching, and public information.
I have been a forester all my adult life. My career started with a summer job working for the (then) California Division of Forestry (CDF) on Mountain Home State Forest in 1973. I worked for the Forestry Division of Los Angeles County’s Fire Department for a while, and then returned to CDF (now the Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection, a/k/a Cal-Fire) in 1977. Since Mtn Home was so far from any sheriff’s response, I went through the department’s academy, which is certified by California’s Commission on Peace Officer’s Standards and Training (POST).
As the name implies, fire is a big part of Cal-Fire; the State agency responsible for protecting natural resources from fire on land designated as State Responsibility Area (SRA) land. Perhaps ninety percent of Cal-Fire’s employees are related to the department’s fire mission. All employees have fire duties, from the frontlines to purchasing and paperwork. Fire camps are miniature communities with traffic controls, law enforcement, and infrastructure that entails.
My publishing credits toward the peer-reviewed technical side with California Forestry Notes and an article from a symposium on giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum).
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