MONTAGUE, Richard FS 19__- 19__ 03-08-07 04__Original

U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service Region Five History Project

Interview with: Richard Eugene (“Dick”) Montague Interviewed by: Gail Strachn Location: Escondido, California Date: March 8, 2007 Transcribed by: Mim Eisenberg/WordCraft; March 2007

[Begin CD File 1.]

GAIL STRACHN: Today is the 8th of March. I’m here to interview Montague. We’re in

Escondido, California, and we are going to talk about a number of things with Dick. Dick,

would you give me your full name, please?

DICK MONTAGUE: Richard Eugene Montague.

STRACHN: And how do you spell Montague?

MONTAGUE: M-o-n-t-a-g-u-e.

STRACHN: And this is Gail Strachn [ pronounced STRAWN] doing the interview. It’s G-a-i-l.

Last name is S-t-r-a-c-h-n. We’re going to get started a little bit, Dick, with some background. I

understand that you were raised in the San Luis Obispo area?

MONTAGUE: Yes, I was born and raised in San Joaquin Valley and spent half my life in the

San Luis Obispo area. My dad worked for PG&E [Pacific Gas and Electric], and we moved

back and forth. So I started the first grade in San Luis Obispo and graduated from high school

and moved five times back and forth.

STRACHN: And you went to college in San Luis Obispo. Is that correct? Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 2

MONTAGUE: I went to junior college for one year in San Luis Obispo, and then I went into the

Air Force, then once I got out of the Air Force, I went up to Humboldt State College in Arcadia.

STRACHN: And you graduated from Humboldt?

MONTAGUE: Graduated from Humboldt.

STRACHN: With a degree in?

MONTAGUE: Forest management.

STRACHN: So you were planning to be a forester from a young age.

MONTAGUE: Yes, I got my first start working for the California Division of Forestry in 1952 and ’53 as a seasonal firefighter in San Luis Obispo County. That gave me the desire to go on and get an education in forestry, and I spent one year getting pre-forestry at San Luis Obispo

Junior College. Then the end of the Korean War, and so I decided to in to get a G.I. Bill to help

finance my college education, so I spent four years in the Air Force and then got out and went up

to Humboldt State after that. In the meantime, I worked for the Forest Service in summertime.

STRACHN: And what were the locations of your jobs with the Forest Service.

MONTAGUE: They’re multiple. I started out in [unintelligible] County on the Los Padres

[National Forest], San Luis Obispo District. Then once I got out of the Air Force I went up to

the Six Rivers [National Forest] and got, well, basically a call-when-needed position, working

summers and even during the winter months for the Six Rivers National Forest. I worked

primarily on the Lower Trinity District, and then out of the supervisor's office.

STRACHN: And you graduated from Humboldt when?

MONTAGUE: In 1961.

STRACHN: Nineteen sixty-one. Now, you began your full-time Forest Service career when?

MONTAGUE: Nineteen sixty-one.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 3

STRACHN: Nineteen sixty-one, okay. But you had done how many years with Forest Service

before that?

MONTAGUE: Well, it was about—a combination of five summers. In that summertime, I

would do prescribed burning, I would do timber inventory and brush management work as a

crew leader, because with my previous background with CDF and with the Los Padres National

Forest as a crew foreman, I had the experiences to run summer crews. That’s basically what I

did. Then I would go back to college during the winter months.

STRACHN: Was that primarily in fire, fire prevention, that kind of thing, fire clearance?

MONTAGUE: Basically it was—my interest has always been stronger in fire, but I did some

road design work up there during the winter months; I did tree planting and other brush disposal work, preparing for prescribed burns after timber sale harvest.

STRACHN: You had a love of the fire prevention, fire management aspect of the Forest Service from the beginning?

MONTAGUE: Yes, I think the thrill and the excitement of being involved in fire suppression

was probably my biggest interest, but then as I developed in my career, fire prevention took on a

very strong emphasis, with the idea that we can’t always just keep putting them out, we got to start preventing them. And that’s where—I think about in my mid career, as a district ranger, I started working at fire prevention techniques and concepts. How can we live and survive in a wildland fire environment? We just continue to burn homes. We must be able to do a better job by preventing them, fire starts, and helping the citizens protect themselves.

STRACHN: Let me ask you: What you’re telling me [is] you did start at a very early age with

the fire suppression. Tell me a little bit about those years. What roles did you play? Crew boss?

Big fires you were on, that kind of thing.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 4

MONTAGUE: Basically, I started as a sixteen-and-a-half-year-old for the CDF. At that time, you could be seventeen, and maybe I fudged about my age, and I took a job just on an engine crew for the CDF the first year. The second year, then I was a driver, lead fire crewman, seasonal. And then the third year, when I was going to San Luis Obispo Junior College I went to work for the Los Padres National Forest at [Pozo?] as a crew foreman, suppression crew foreman. And so I fought multiple fires, several hundred fires, small fires as well as some of the

larger fires, and then I became part of a sector division team with the Los Padres, so then I got to

go off forest, I guess is the best word, and I fought fires in Monterey District, down here on the

Cleveland, in Lake Elsinore area, as sector boss and division boss.

STRACHN: So you were primarily in fire suppression at that point in time, and then you got

your job as ranger?

MONTAGUE: No, my first official job, from a professional standpoint, was on the Redwood

Ranger District as fire and timber sales officer, so I had fire responsibilities on the district and timber sale preparation. It was a three-person district. And so we had a ranger, [Theodore]

“Ted” [Hadspenolis?], and myself and several scalers, but that was all it was, so it was somewhat of an assistant district ranger position, but it was still in [unintelligible] resource officer category.

STRACHN: And when was that?

MONTAGUE: In 1961.

STRACHN: Nineteen sixty-one is when you actually were, like, an assistant district ranger, huh?

MONTAGUE: Right.

STRACHN: And then from that point, where did you go and what did you do?

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 5

MONTAGUE: Then after I believe seventeen months—let’s see, in 19—I’m a little confused here. Help me our here, Laura.

LAURA MONTAGUE: You forgot [Lee Bonnell?]

MONTAGUE: I’m sorry. When I first started, he was not there. Okay, then I went on to become assistant district ranger, with responsibility for fire and resource management, on the

Lower Trinity District of the Six Rivers.

STRACHN: Okay.

L. MONTAGUE: Sixty-two.

MONTAGUE: Sixty-two. Then I was promoted in place to district ranger. I got to get—uh,

’65.

STRACHN: So you became the district ranger there—

MONTAGUE: At Lower Trinity.

STRACHN: —on the Six Rivers in 1965.

MONTAGUE: Nineteen sixty-five. And then we combined two ranger districts, the [Tish

Tang?] and the Lower Trinity Ranger District, and I became the ranger of both districts, the combined districts.

STRACHN: And when did you go to the Angeles National Forest?

MONTAGUE: Okay, I’m going to back up a little bit.

STRACHN: Sure.

MONTAGUE: I left I September of ’68 and became a GS-12 ranger on the Lassen National

Forest at Hat Creek [Ranger District].

STRACHN: Okay, that was before the Angeles National Forest.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 6

MONTAGUE: That was before the Angeles. Then we combined the Hat Creek and the Fall

River districts, and then in 1971 I left district ranger and then came to the Angeles, but as a

district ranger at Hat Creek I was qualified as a Class One fire boss, so that gave me my

advanced experience, and that was mainly based upon having a lot of experience in prescribed burning on the Six Rivers and the Lassen national forests.

STRACHN: Tell me a little bit about the prescribed burning at that point in time.

MONTAGUE: At that time, especially on the Six Rivers National Forest, it was clear-cut logging, and then we had debris left after the logging, and then we would go in and burn forty- to

100-acre clear-cut blocks to open up the stand so we could plant the trees. So we logged it, clear-cut, patch-cut and then we burned the debris, and then that was clearance enough so we could plant the trees and get reforestation established.

STRACHN: Now, you left Lassen and came to the Angeles.

MONTAGUE: That’s right.

STRACHN: That must have been quite a change.

MONTAGUE: It was a change.

STRACHN: And you came as fire management officer?

MONTAGUE: Of the Angeles National Forest.

STRACHN: And tell me what you found when you came to the Angeles.

MONTAGUE: Well, the first day, I arrived with my son, coming down to get a [unintelligible], and there’s a fire on Tujunga District, and so the first view of the Angeles was a fire burning on the Tujunga District. I checked in with the office, and they told me about the fire, and more or less information. I did not get involved in the fire till the next day.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 7

So probably the biggest experience on the Angeles was the fact that I was used to having

fires on ranger districts and maybe getting some help from the BLM [Bureau of Land

Management] or from the CDF, but once you arrived on the Angeles you got help from

everybody. You had L.A. City, you had L.A. County, you had the City of Pasadena, you had the

City of Glendale, and, you know, really multiple-function fires. That really developed my

awareness that we can’t do it alone and that we have to call in our cooperators. And I felt very

early on that it wasn’t embarrassing to call for help, it was probably the smartest thing to do,

instead of trying to do it all yourself.

STRACHN: When you said the fire was on the Tujunga Ranger District, do you recall when that

was?

MONTAGUE: That was probably August of ’71.

STRACHN: August of 1971.

MONTAGUE: It was right above—you might help me here. [Sunland?], Tujunga, and then that

little hillside behind that lake view?

STRACHN: Lake View Terrace, right.

MONTAGUE: Lake View Terrace. It was on [cross-talk; unintelligible].

STRACHN: An area that burns frequently on the Angeles.

MONTAGUE: Right, right.

STRACHN: When you came in 1971, the Angeles was already doing a great deal of cooperative

firefighting.

MONTAGUE: Yes, mainly with L.A. County, not very good cooperation with L.A. City. It

took really probably later in ’71, when the FIRESCOPE [FIrefighting RESources of California

Organized for Potential Emergencies] program started; then that pulled us all together, because

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 8

when I first arrived on the Angeles—the season before I arrived, the Angeles was sending fire trucks to the Cleveland, CDF was sending fire trucks to Santa Barbara, and we were passing each other on the road. And we decided we better start coordinating and send the closest resources, so that really started not by my input but just the fact that we were all involved and we were getting together and deciding that this was necessary.

It also was influenced by a judge, Panetta, after the 1970 fire bust, where we lost a lot of acres, we couldn’t communicate with the various fire departments, so he assigned a task group in

Southern California to almost [issue an] edict that “you fire agencies are going to start talking together,” and that started the concept of the FIRESCOPE program. There’s more to that, but that’s really where it started, in initial phases.

STRACHN: You mentioned the fire bust of 1970. Was that on the Angeles?

MONTAGUE: It was all over Southern California.

STRACHN: It was all of the forests in Southern California.

MONTAGUE: A very large fire in Laguna Canyon, called the Laguna Fire, and I don’t know the acreage, but it was close to 100,000 acres. The Angeles had their fires. San Bernardino had their fires. L.A. County had their fires. L.A. City had the fires in the Malibu. And there was

[sic; were] some fires on the Los Padres. So the fire trucks spent more time running up and down the road than fighting the fires.

STRACHN: And that was kind of the beginning, after the judge issued his edict—

MONTAGUE: Yes.

STRACHN: —of the FIRESCOPE program?

MONTAGUE: That started. He said, “You fire agencies have to get together.” There was another initiative that was taking place at the same time. The aerospace industry was phasing

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 9

down, and they offered a lot of high-tech terminology and procedures that can help the

firefighters, so there was a group of us. Seven counties got together—Santa Barbara County,

Ventura County, Los Angeles County, CDF, and Office of Emergency Services, and the Forest

Service—all got together and had this aerotech [sic] industry give a proposal to us how they could help us. That was part of the judge’s edict, that we have to get higher tech, be more

professional and [sic; et] cetera.

It started out then. That led to the FIRESCOPE research program for five years. I might

be getting ahead of myself here a little bit, but for five years it took place. Then once what the

research people told us, aerospace research told us and helped us with, then we started

developing procedures, guidelines and concepts, and they in turn decided we needed to have a

management. Then the Forest Service funded not the research side of it but the operational side

of it. Then they appointed a board of directors, which—[Douglas] “Doug” Leisz, the regional

forester, was the one board member representing the Forest Service. Richard Millar was on the

operations team, and he mainly made the more day-to-day decisions. And because I was located

in Southern California and had a secondary role, as [unintelligible] coordinator, also as the

Angeles fire staff, I was the [unintelligible] coordinator, so therefore I was local, and I

represented both Doug Leisz and Richard Millar in the FIRESCOPE program. I was in the day-

to-day operations and met with the county and the city and different fire chiefs almost daily.

STRACHN: Let me clarify something, Dick. As I understand it, the beginning of FIRESCOPE

was about 1970.

MONTAGUE: Nineteen seventy-one.

STRACHN: Nineteen seventy-one. And then they did research for five years after that?

MONTAGUE: Right.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 10

STRACHN: So the implementation really didn’t begin till about 1976 for FIRESCOPE?

MONTAGUE: Officially, but in 1972 we started forming these task groups and committees and board members. In other words, Doug Leisz would take the input from Dick Millar [about] how we should approach something, like common terminology, common radio frequencies, common

[unintelligible]. Then Doug Leisz would say, “Yes, we will fund it.” He was the line officer that authorized the funding. L.A. County fire chief would say, “Yes,” and how much each agency would fund and will we provide training and all the other things that take place.

At the same time, we had Safety First [an initiative begun by Doug Leisz]. That was a

Regional [sic; Region] Five initiative, because we had some fatalities and we had some injuries from wildland fires. So all these things were taking place at the same time. Research was trying to [ascertain] how we can [sic; could] do it better, a judge [was] telling us we had to do it, and then our own regional forester [was] saying, “We got to improve our fire safety record,” so it was all taking place at the same time.

STRACHN: Was FIRESCOPE just focused in Region Five, California?

MONTAGUE: Only in Southern California.

STRACHN: Only in Southern California.

MONTAGUE: The acronym is—I’ll have to look it up here.

STRACHN: Would that be FRFC?

MONTAGUE: It’s F-I-R-[E]-S-C-O-P-E, and it’s Fire Resources for Southern California

Operations, something [sic; FIrefighting RESources of California Organized for Potential

Emergencies]. In fact, I’ll let you look at it, and you can get it down in your notes.

STRACHN: Okay, thank you. So were you involved in the research side of it at all, or were you primarily implementation?

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 11

MONTAGUE: I was in the operations, implementation.

STRACHN: Okay. Did that consume a great deal of your time when you were down here?

MONTAGUE: It probably consumed more than half my time as Angeles fire staff. The Angeles

fire staff had the responsibility for FIRESCOPE operations, South Zone fire coordination

operations, and South Zone aviation management, so that was assigned or the fire staff hosted

that and had oversight of those programs.

STRACHN: Could you elaborate a little on each of those programs?

MONTAGUE: Yes. For approximately a year, I wore three hats—well, actually four hats:

FIRESCOPE operations, South Zone aviation and South Zone fire coordination, as well as the

Angeles fire staff. Within a year, they hired a GS-13 South Zone aviation manager, they hired a

South Zone coordinator, and they hired a GS-14 FIRESCOPE project manager, and then I left the Angeles at that time. I was leaving the Angeles, and I went up to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie

[National Forest in Washington] as deputy forest supervisor.

STRACHN: When was that, Dick?

MONTAGUE: That would be in November 1976.

STRACHN: In 1976 you left the Angeles.

MONTAGUE: Left the Angeles.

STRACHN: But for a year or more, you actually wore three hats—

MONTAGUE: Actually four hats. I was primary fire management officer and then the three

other assigned tasks. During that period of time on the Angeles, we had the [unintelligible] Fire,

which was the very first ICS [incident command system] fire run under the FIRESCOPE

concept. It was no longer run under the fire boss, large-fire organization but run under the

incident command system. And the FIRESCOPE—because of [my] being the Angeles fire staff

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 12

officer, the FIRESCOPE board of directors nominated me to be trained and to run the very first

ICS fire.

STRACHN: Was the ICS system a result of FIRESCOPE?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

STRACHN: Could you describe the ICS system a little for us, and what it was like back in those

early days?

MONTAGUE: In the earlier days we had the large-fire organization. The commander was

called the fire boss, and he had his team for planning, logistics—actually, planning, logistics,

finance—one more. Planning, logistics, finance—well, logistics was service chief, so that was it.

Then under FIRESCOPE, we started saying, well, the Forest Service runs the fire under the large-fire organization, L.A. City runs it under a different organization, L.A. County runs it under a different organization, and the closest to the way the Forest Service runs the fire was

CDF. Well, now we’re all going to be working together, sharing resources. We had to have

common terminologies. So what we did was identify—instead of being a fire truck, it became an

engine, and then the fire engine, based upon its capacity, was either a Type 1, Type 2 or Type 3

engine. The Forest Service used to call them tankers, so a fire truck was a tanker. A tanker to

the City of Los Angeles was an air pack on your back. So when you had ordered two tankers,

you could get an air tanker, a ground tanker or a pumper or a fire truck or an air attack. So we

finally came up, under FIRESCOPE, [with] one common terminology, and that’s the ICS

terminology that everybody uses today.

STRACHN: That’s a national system today.

MONTAGUE: It’s a national system.

STRACHN: But Southern California was the first to develop it.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 13

MONTAGUE: That’s right. Then it went state wide. Then in I believe 1975—no, I’m sorry, it

was not. It was [unintelligible] in Washington, D.C. It was 1982, ’81, ’82 it went nationally

[sic; In 1982 it went national.].

STRACHN: I’m just curious, Dick. Bringing the organizations together, coming up with

terminology, coming up with similar practices, communication—tell me a little about the

dynamics of that. I can just imagine that with meetings and trying to hash things out— difficulties?

MONTAGUE: Very much so. I can remember a lot of yelling and shouting over the word [sic;

terms] “suppression chief,” “search and rescue”—and it’s just how different people used them.

They wanted to call what is now the suppression chief, the line boss of the old fire organization,

the on-the-ground manager. The city and the more structural fire departments wanted to call

them S&R, search and rescue. And, of course, the Forest Service would stand up and say, “No,

it’s really operations.” So now we’ve all agreed its operations chief, but we had a lot of yelling

and shoving and—you know, professionalism, but it took months just on that one definition.

STRACHN: How many groups or organizations? You had L.A. County, L.A. City, CDF.

MONTAGUE: CD F.

STRACHN: Who else was with you?

MONTAGUE: Office of Emergency Services. We had Santa Barbara County, Ventura County.

STRACHN: San Diego County?

MONTAGUE: No, San Diego County did not want to join. San Bernardino came in under

the—they weren’t a fire department at the time. They came under the Forest Service. And then

later, Kern County joined us, but they were not [part of] the original seven.

STRACHN: There were original seven—

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 14

MONTAGUE: Seven members.

STRACHN: Seven members. Were we in compromising—“we” being the Forest Service—

were we in compromising positions, or were we the largest organization?

MONTAGUE: I want to say that there was no compromise on the forest. There was a lot of

give and take, but we were recognized, even at that time, as the largest wildland fire

organization, with the most [sic; greatest] amount of resources. Basically, the wildland fire

approach was led, in my mind, by the California Department of Forestry, L.A. County and

Ventura County and the Forest Service. Santa Barbara County—because, remember, all these counties were contract counties, the CDF. So they were kind of—I won’t say—they were

dictated by funding to go along with the program. Even though they wanted to come along, they

just didn’t have the large chunk of money like the federal and the state agencies, to contribute.

STRACHN: And that leads to the next question I have with regard to funding. I’m assuming

undertaking this kind of dynamic organization really cost the Forest Service some money. How

was it funded?

MONTAGUE: Originally it was funded, the first five years, on a research type grant. Then, as it

started to develop, I believe the State and Private funds of the Forest Service paid for it as well as

Region Five paid for the upgrading and the training and [sic; et] cetera. And then— that was

dollars. And CDF put dollars into it. But then the other participating agencies assigned cadre,

task group members and [sic; et] cetera, so they gave you in-kind talent, their training branches

and [sic; et] cetera. So all that worked together. Everybody contributed. I’m not trying to imply

that—it’s just that the federal funds—and it was a federal-mandated [sic; federally-mandated]

project—we got extra money from Congress, and our regular operations money, to push on the

FIRESCOPE program.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 15

STRACHN: Were the other agencies glad that Forest Service was a part, or was there any resentment? I’m curious what the working relationship was.

MONTAGUE: I would say generally each one of the board of directors from the seven departments got together and said, “We need to do this.” How we do it—and each—getting down to the details—then there was conflict. But, again, we had a task group, which were at the

[Indian captain?], battalion chief level. They ironed out their difficulties. Then they had the next level, which was more or less the operations managers, the fire chiefs of the agencies. Then you had the board of directors, which were the political fire chiefs. And each level had their [sic; its] own disagreements, but they all had an agreement to agree, and I think that was the best thing.

That was our motto: We agree to agree, but we’re going to fight getting there, okay?

STRACHN: I’m assuming those seven agencies all agreed that this was the benefit for all.

MONTAGUE: Yes.

STRACHN: It was a buy-in by everyone.

MONTAGUE: Yes. Highly supported by all.

STRACHN: Tell me about some of the products that were developed. You explained the ICS system as a way to manage and run the fire. How about products?

MONTAGUE: Through research, we were able to get fire behavior modeling; we were able to get a lot of high-tech inventorying of your resource [sic; resources] on the fire. That first started computers. We had aircraft above giving infrared signals down to a command center. We had then a lot of training guides, training manuals. I think that was the biggest product. They had

the operations guide. It’s very [similar where?] it was copied, but modified but after the Forest

Service [sic; Service’s] Fireman’s Handbook. And then we had an operations guide, so it was a

hip-pocket type guide. You could pick it up and get the organization. If you wanted a strike

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 16

team, a certain model of strike team, you knew exactly what you were getting, so we didn’t now

all know what it was in our mind at the time—and then we were able to develop things like task

force, structural task force, where we put unlike engines together for a strike team, where all

engines were alike, [with the] same capabilities. In other words, Type 1 strike team would have

so many gallons of water; Type 2 strike team would have lesser amounts and lesser amounts and

amounts of hoses et cetera. I don’t want to go into the details of everything.

But one example is a fire during this period of time. I think it’s worthwhile talking about

[it]. It was the Pelican Fire [in 1972] on the Eldorado National Forest. My fire team went up to run the fire. It was one of the first of six fire teams we had in Region Five that were on a rotation basis. So we went up to the Pelican Fire, and we received about 100 fire engines, and the firefighters were all in cowboy boots and straw hats, and we had just implemented Safety First.

Safety First said you’ll be all equipped with personal protective clothing, you’ll be red carded and [sic; et] cetera. So here we received all these OES engines from all over the state.

My decision was, under the edict of Safety First, is [sic; was] not to use them because they weren’t red carded, they weren’t equipped property, and [sic; et] cetera. Well, fire team got together and decided [sic; asked], “What are we going to do?” Well there’s [sic; there were] multiple fires going, so we weren’t going to get more help, so how could we best use them? So we decided, as a team, to put them in the little community of [Kaibers?], right on Highway 50, and [to] be honest with you, the goal was: They’ll go in there and do structural protection and

plan for all the structural protection, get all the hydrants set up—because we weren’t skilled in that line of work. So we sent them there to do that with the idea [that] they’d probably come back in two or three days and said [sic; say], “The fire’s not close to us. We want to go home,” and then we’d say, “Yeah, thank you for your help. You can go home.”

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 17

But what we didn’t know is the wind shifted in the middle of the night. The town of

Kaibers was overrun with the fire, Pelican Fire, and they saved all the homes, including the lieutenant governor’s summer home, so we had national attention instantly. Think about if we had sent them home early. What would have happened?

STRACHN: Tell me when that fire was.

MONTAGUE: The [sic; In] 1971 [sic; 1972?], and it was called the Pelican. It was on the—I don’t remember what district, but it was on Highway 50, right on the Eldorado Forest. We had closed Highway 50 for five days. And with that concept—the reason why I’m telling you that—

OES was a real big player in the FIRESCOPE program. OES was sending the crews. They were a big player in the FIRESCOPE program. They in turn came back and said, “You know, we just invented something in that fire,” the three agencies.

STRACHN: And that’s what I’m wondering, because you’re telling me it’s 1971

MONTAGUE: Seventy-one.

STRACHN: FIRESCOPE was just getting started.

MONTAGUE: Just starting.

STRACHN: And yet you’re talking red cards?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

STRACHN: You’re talking about personal protective gear; you’re talking about working in a very different team concept with several agencies. How did that play out, just by it having to play out?

MONTAGUE: I think it was trust, trust between the leaders. You know, at the time, I was the fire boss, and the state people knew who I was from my up and down the state career. I knew them. And they would say, “Okay, we’ll joint [sic; jointly] do something together, make joint

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 18

decisions” or “You got the biggest workload. You make the decisions and we’ll support you.”

And that started pulling us together.

What I was alluding to in my earlier conversation [was] the term “structure task force”— wording developed out of that, kind of missed communications or trying to pass off with communications. We found out that the right people in the right place is the best way to do it,

because the Forest Service engines were not equipped for structure protection. They are today a

little better because they’re wildland-urban interface engines, but then they weren’t. And for

sure, the big structural engines weren’t good out on the dirt roads. So it was just kind of a play.

Now, because of the lieutenant governor’s involvement, he then got the California State

Senate to give a citation to the fire team and to the individuals managing the fire team that stated

that we did the right thing and this was a concept, and so Senator [William] Campbell, who was

head of the FIRESCOPE program for the state legislative [sic; legislature]—he then awarded us

these awards. That gave it statewide attention, and so a little thing got big politically, and it was

done right, and it was really a career maker for a lot of people. It could have been done wrong.

STRACHN: I can certainly understand that, and I would think that just by virtue of the influence

that you had, and knowing the people—it really was something that worked to your advantage to

make it go right.

MONTAGUE: Yes. Even though the fire, itself, was the seventeenth fire in the region at the

time, the resources were down, the fire cache equipment was stripped. All this was taking place

at the same time. This made things hard. We had—the camp was too big, because we only had

one fire camp. [Chuckles.] We could have had four fire camps; we could have had four spike

camps, and [sic; et] cetera. So these are all things in the earlier days that I guess we take for

granted today.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 19

STRACHN: It was a true learning experience.

MONTAGUE: For all of us.

STRACHN: Tell me a little bit about red carding and the little book in your back pocket, so to

speak.

MONTAGUE: Okay. Since the early fifties or even before that, the Forest Service had what we

called a fire qualifications card. It was a red card, and it says: You can only perform these

functions on a fire. Other agencies didn’t have it. Even the California Department of Forestry

did not have it. By coming together, it forced us to have some kind of a fire qualifications card.

So in the earlier days, the pre-1970 days, if you had a large fire, the regional office or the forest

supervisor’s dispatch office would pull together the list of red-carded people and call you up in

the middle of the night and say you report someplace at this position. After the seventies and the

start of this, Region Five developed six teams that were on rotation, on call. It was all the functions that we normally perform in a large fire. So then you worked and trained together as a team. Otherwise, you might get a call in the middle of the night and say [sic; be told], “You’re going to go down to the Los Padres as line boss.” Somebody from the Cleveland would come up as the plans—you never worked together. Even though we are all kind of trained to the same level, we never really worked together. And so in 1971 Dick Millar developed what he called the Six Team Concept. He had six teams in California, and the most qualified people filled those positions.

STRACHN: And you were working with the same team all the time.

MONTAGUE: All the time.

STRACHN: So you developed a working relationship and could know how—

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 20

MONTAGUE: The overhead principals on the team all worked together, and you’d go from one

fire to the next fire if you were on that weekly rotation, so the way it was set up, you’d be on

rotation. You were on two-hour call for a week, for seven days. Then you’d go off, but because

California had many fires, sometimes you had to come back on. And so then they’d go to the

bottom of the list, and so hopefully Team One would go out first, Team Two would go out

second, Team Three, and now we’re down to Team Six.

There were times when a certain team was more skilled in timber fires and another team

more skilled in Southern California brushfires. Then that was the regional office [sic; office’s]

choice which teams they would send, but most of the time it was a rotation basis, and the teams

were balanced so you had a balance of a cross-section of the state, so you weren’t all timber

people and all Southern California brush field, because you were asked to go anyplace. Then you were asked to go national. They we went [sic; became?] national teams after that. But that was just part of the earlier days, say 1970, ’71, when they established the—

STRACHN: Were you one of team leaders of those six teams?

MONTAGUE: Yes.

STRACHN: And were you used to traveling up and down the state for any of the fires that might break [sic; break out]?

MONTAGUE: Yes, our previous experiences—we’d go as individuals, single resources. Now

we went as a full team. And we would know when we arrived, it was really good. A perfect

example: On the Pelican Fire, the line boss and I were planning on doing a backfire, a large

backfire from Highway 50. And the line boss forgot to order the backfiring equipment, but

because our service chief was familiar with us, he just took notes and ordered it, because he was

used to the team concept. Then, as we got down to the last minute [and were asking], “Well,

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 21

where’s all the equipment?” we couldn’t find it, and the service chief said, “It’s all loaded over on the Stateside truck, ready to go.” They were used to working with us.

And those kinds of things—that’s the benefit of learning to work together. They’d go to the briefing, the service chief knew their [sic; his] role, the finance chief knew their [sic; his] role, the planning chief knew their [sic; his] role, and then of course the operations chief and the incident commander were really looking at their plans.

STRACHN: So it really made being the person in charge, the incident commander at this point—made that role perhaps easier because others knew exactly what they needed to do?

MONTAGUE: Oh, definitely, definitely. The incident commander was technically the manager, and the operations chief was your best fire person, and then everybody else were skilled in their specialties, and you worked as a team, you made decisions as a team, and the incident commander, just like any other line officer, has to say, “We’re going that way.”

STRACHN: I want to get back a little bit to the I guess you would call it the guide book that you had in your back pocket. I know we use it today. I know it’s updated today. Tell me how that came about and who is responsible for keeping it current.

MONTAGUE: We’ll start out—even in the fifties, we had what we called the Fireman’s Guide.

Then later we made it the Firefighter’s Guide, more for—take the “man” out of it, okay? And

we all had it, and we carried it in our hip pocket [sic; pockets], and it gave us safety issues to

consider, it gave us type of equipment, it gave fire behavior calculations—in other words, if you

have somebody change the open line, how fast could a bulldozer build line on a certain slope and

size of bulldozer, how fast could a Type 1 crew build it, how fast could a Type 2 crew build it.

And they were estimates. And so if you had a mile of line, you’d say, “I need so many people.”

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 22

That’s what we had. That was all before we had computers and [sic; et] cetera that does [sic; do] all that.

FIRESCOPE then developed what they called the Operations Guide, because they didn’t want to use the Forest Service terminology. They used all the information the same, and they inputted new information, more up-to-date and revelant [sic; relevant] information. And so that was carried by every firefighter on the fire line, and that was our bible, especially if you were a crew boss or a sector boss in the old stage, or division chief or whatever you are in the new ICS concept, you can look up, and it gave [sic; gives] your job description, what your briefing should encounter, what communications systems and what safety features. So you almost had your little checklist right there with you. If you were working with helicopters, what you had to consider.

So it was really all you need to know about firefighting, plus having experience once you went out on the line.

STRACHN: And who updates that now? Is that still a Forest Service function?

MONTAGUE: I really believe the FIRESCOPE program updates it, Office of Emergency

Services. The Forest Service and all the agencies make input to it and make the modifications.

STRACHN: You referred to FIRESCOPE today. Where is FIRESCOPE housed today? What’s the lead agency?

MONTAGUE: Office of Emergency Services in Sacramento.

STRACHN: So they’ve taken on the role—

MONTAGUE: They’re the what do you call it? Resource management role? They have the oversight; they receive state funding. The Forest Service contributes funds, and they have the role—Office of Emergency Services has the role for coordination and publications and research

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 23

development. But the board of directors still direct Office of Emergency Services on what to do,

okay?

STRACHN: And Office of Emergency Services is just one person on that board?

MONTAGUE: One person on the board, but fifteen or twenty staff members assigned to the

FIRESCOPE program.

STRACHN: Right. And how many other people are on that board?

MONTAGUE: It’s a brand-new board. It’s been expanded now. I’m looking it up, because we

have thirty years of FIRESCOPE dedication [sic; had a dedication for thirty years of

FIRESCOPE] on May 8th, 2001.

STRACHN: And do you go to that?

MONTAGUE: I went to that and participated. I want to say the agencies now—[Pause as he

looks at documents.] That’s the old working group, and then the new board of directors is what I

was looking for. [Continues to search.] Let’s see. They had the board of directors—and a note

from the board. Let me see. Here we go, first page. Today it is Los Angeles County,

Sacramento City, Santa Barbara County, Los Angeles City, Kern County, Office of Emergency

Services Fire and Rescue Branch, Vista Fire Department for the local, small fire departments,

California Department of Forestry, and the state fire marshal, National Park Service, Stanislaus

County, Orange County, Ventura County, Livermore [Pleasant and?] Fire Department for the

small fire departments, Grass Valley Fire Department, Santa Clara County, and U.S. Forest

Service and BLM. That’s the board of directors. It’s a larger group.

I overlooked Orange County in the very first of the seven. I counted out the six, and it was Orange County that I left out. When it started out, Orange County was CDF, and then it

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 24

became its own county fire department, fire authority, and it joined up in the FIRESCOPE program. They were early members.

STRACHN: You mentioned that there was a thirty-year anniversary event. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

MONTAGUE: Yes. They held it at Camp Two, in a Los Angeles County camp, and they used the ICS concept, working together in the thirty-year celebration with all the functions developed under ICS, and then additional members—these were more resources, retirees telling them what—kind of telling the same story over again. And then they just kind of brought the younger manager up to date and told the same story we’re telling today. It wasn’t all easy, this work. It’s something you do today. It’s just routine. This is where it came from and why, why the safety features involved [sic; why the safety features that are involved were developed].

STRACHN: What was your role in that event, the thirty-year event?

MONTAGUE: Just advisory.

STRACHN: But you did go.

MONTAGUE: I did go, and I participated in sending e-mails and telling stories and [making] phone calls, trying to get the history of it. There aren’t a lot of us still around that are staying involved, too.

STRACHN: Was the event primarily just information sharing, or were there exhibits? Were there demonstrations?

MONTAGUE: There was [sic; were] exhibits and demonstrations and PowerPoint presentations

[about] how things developed. But they had the L.A. County Fire Hawk, large helicopter, water- dropping helicopter. They had some of the high-tech computer stuff. But mainly PowerPoint presentations. What it looked like there and what it looks like today.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 25

STRACHN: Now, we’re thirty-five years down the road. What do you think? How does it feel?

Do you think it was something we would have come to one way or the other, or was the judge’s edict really necessary to make it happen?

MONTAGUE: I think the edict was necessary to speed up the process. I really want to give credit to the aerospace agency [sic; agencies] that were used to pulling different functions together and making things work. And they had the large-fire organization; they had the military command operations, and then we had the structural high-rise fire organization, and they did the research, they did the development, they did the staff work for us, and then they brought together products that we could reject, accept or accept in concept—you know, those type things.

STRACHN: This was all in the development stage.

MONTAGUE: Yes, all in the development stage. It was really a good cooperative [effort] between the operations phase of fire, research phase of fire and private industry research and aerospace research and all that type of thing.

STRACHN: In looking at the development stage, you mentioned the aerospace and the military.

I noticed that on the board of directors of FIRESCOPE there is not military involved, and yet I know we do training practices here in Southern California with Camp Pendleton. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

MONTAGUE: In Southern California as well as the northern California zone coordination centers—I believe it’s March [Air Force Base] now; it used to be Riverside and Redding.

They’re joint, CDF and OES and the Forest Service. There is a position in the FIRESCOPE organization for military liaison, so Chief [Prader?], who was the fire chief at Camp Pendleton— any time they reached a certain level—and I might be wrong, but I think it’s a Level Four—he

would leave and go and be the military liaison with all these chiefs. And he would say, “I can

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 26

supply so many crews, so many helicopters, so many whatever,” okay? So they’re not in the

board of directors, but they’re in the ICS system. Each one of these command centers—they have a military representative.

Now we can go one step further and go to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.

They have a military officer that comes from the Sixth Army [who] comes in, and that person really makes the decision what resources—military—Fort Lewis, Washington, whatever, and they bring them in from all over their western region, so that person makes the decision as part of the ICS at the Boise operations. But the work down here—remember, we use MAFFS [Modular

Airborne Fire Fighting System].

STRACHN: Would you talk a little bit about MAFFS?

MONTAGUE: Yes. MAFFS is the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System, which is— basically the system was purchased by the Forest Service. I’m going to call it the fire extinguisher. This very large fire extinguisher system, gas operated, was purchased by the Forest

Service, and the military operated the C-130 aircraft, and they would be called whenever life and property was [sic; where] threatened or whenever the national air tanker resources were called down or—you might have an air tanker in Pennsylvania, but we need it in two hours, so the military would be activated. I’m wrong in saying two hours. Really it takes the military twelve to sixteen hours to be operational, so we have to plan ahead. We trained their pilots, and they’re

mainly Air National Guard and Air Reserve pilots that are around locally.

STRACHN: So we equipped the military planes with this system.

MONTAGUE: Yes, it’s a modular system. It’s just shoved right into the back of the airplane.

The C-130 is equipped so [that] the cargo door opens, and the large fire extinguisher tubes go out, and then of course it has the typical retardant, approved retardants by the Forest Service [sic;

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 27

retardants approved by the Forest Service] and state. And then it applies it on a large basis. The

value of the MAFFS system is that it can lay a long, continuous retardant drop. The aircraft cannot get down as low as the CDF air tankers and some of our air tankers, so there was a lot of drift to it, but when you’re putting retardant ahead of the fire, the drift wasn’t as critical. But today we have the large helicopters that carry the same amount of—we have the very large super-tankers, so it’s just been an evolution of: If this was could, can’t something else be better?

And industry has developed it, and increased their capabilities.

But I once described, as I was running the fire, to the local [station] KFWB—you [will?

All?] know them—they wanted to know why MAFFS weren’t flying twenty-four hours a day, waiting for a fire, and yet we had our helicopters on the Angeles and [were] next-door neighbors.

The helicopter was sitting on the ground because we didn’t need him [sic; it] yet. We described it as—you know, when a naval commander wants a PT-boat, he asks for a PT-boat. When he wants an aircraft carrier, he wants an aircraft carrier. Each one has a different mission. So with our air tankers, each air tanker has a different mission, and so give us the choice, selecting the proper, most appropriate one.

We still have—the media loves the big air tankers, the Super Scoopers and everything else, but sometimes they’re not the most appropriate resource for the time, just like the large fire ladder truck is not the best one out on a dirt road. The small pumper might be a better fire truck.

STRACHN: Dick, you entered your career at a time when you really were in a position to see the fire organization change. Within a ten-year period, it sounds to me like the fire organization within the Forest Service really were [sic; was] making some critical changes. Tell me how that feels to you today.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 28

MONTAGUE: Oh, I think it’s pleasing to think that you were involved when the very first air

tanker, which was a Stearman, bi-wing air tanker, 300 gallons at the most dropped on your fires

till you see the super tankers. I think it makes you feel good that you participated in that. I like

to think of the time on the Angeles. We joint [sic; jointly] funded a large helicopter, L.A.

County helicopter. We supplied the military surplus helicopter and $10,000. L.A. County

supplied the pilots and the maintenance and everything, and that was up at Camp [unintelligible],

so we got the first large helicopter on the Angeles then. Then we went night vision. San Dimas

Equipment Development Center. Angeles Forest, [unintelligible] aviation, and L.A. County joint-ventured the night vision helicopter, the larger helicopter, to fly at night. I know we had a

fatality, a bad accident up near Tanbark [Flats] on the Angeles, from it. But it was a tool where

we would take aerospace or military excess property and apply it to everyday firefighting. You

wouldn’t recognize—a person in the fifties, starting out with Levis and a khaki shirt and even a

khaki hat—what you see in personal protective equipment: web gear, radios. You were lucky if

one person on the crew had a radio. See, I mean—so, you see the progress. You see the safety.

But what probably bothers me—and that’s from my continuing consulting business—is

that the people are not getting the on-the-ground actual experience that some of us had earlier,

because there’s more of them. I mean, you can call in your neighbor, you can call in San

Bernardino County, you call in somebody else, so you’re not really getting the experiences

multiple times over, okay? You might get it once, maybe bump up to another level.

I think personal protective equipment—very valuable. Communications, very valuable.

But I think people, during the excitement and the adrenaline, are putting themselves in places

they shouldn’t be because they think they got personal protective clothing. When you wore the

old khaki shirt, you backed off, okay?

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 29

STRACHN: In those early days, did you have the fire tents?

MONTAGUE: No, no.

STRACHN: When were those developed?

MONTAGUE: Let’s see, mid seventies [it] really took off.

STRACHN: So if I’m understanding you correctly, with all the personal protective gear and fire shelters, those kinds of things and all of our high-tech equipment, we may be putting ourself [sic; ourselves] out there too much?

MONTAGUE: I hesitate on that, and I won’t say that. I’m going to say yes, but the reason why is I think we give [sic; have?] a false impression that we’re protected. It’s valuable, and people that really get trapped shouldn’t have been there in the first place. But because they have equipment, better radios, better this, we continue to push the envelope just one little bit further.

And I think the lack of overall fire behavior experience is multiple times [sic]. I’m not trying to say you got to be burned over to understand, but you got to see these things and have some supervisor over you—and I’ve had those people—say, “It’s time to get out and leave now.”

Then I’ve also been in the position to tell people, “It’s time to get out and leave now.” And they get out, and it’s safe. We anticipate. But having the helicopter above or the aerial surveillance and better radio communication, that is also telling people, “Time to get out” or “It’s a blow-up condition,” or [et] cetera.

I just don’t know. I think the more equipment we get, we have our firefighters wanting to do more. They are heroes, and they try to get in there and do things, and maybe they shouldn’t be there. I might [sic; don’t?] want to go into any more on that.

STRACHN: I appreciate your comments, Dick.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 30

We’ve covered extensively kind of the seventies [portion] of your career. You went as

deputy forest supervisor to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, and I think you

mentioned that was in ’76?

MONTAGUE: Seventy-six to ’78.

STRACHN: And what were your functions there? Were you still very heavily involved with fire up there?

MONTAGUE: No, I was probably more into wilderness management, timber sales and skiing resorts, because I really was deputy for resources, but I did have fire. My only involvement was

[to] take the experience that I had with me to try to build a stronger fire organization on that forest. Then right after that—

STRACHN: Let me ask you about—

MONTAGUE: Go ahead.

STRACHN: —a little bit. You were more heavily involved in recreation and resources. Was

that a nice change in your career?

MONTAGUE: Yes, yes. Probably it helped me understand that probably my career in timber

and other fields that I had as a ranger and recreation and wildlife and [sic; et] cetera, that I

probably liked fire better. I have to be honest with [sic; about] that. But I also had established—

say, the red card, so they would call you on fire. The region used me as a technical expert on

fire investigations [and] aviation accidents. Even though I wasn’t there that long, I was involved

in several, because the regional forester knew my background in fire, and he would call up and

say, “Please help me out on this accident investigation.”

STRACHN: This was in Region Six?

MONTAGUE: In Region Six.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 31

STRACHN: And you were there for two years.

MONTAGUE: Two years.

STRACHN: And then where did your career take you?

MONTAGUE: Then I was asked to go as regional fire director of Region Four, so then I was the regional fire director involved with a very large aviation program. Region Four has one of the largest aviation programs, their own fleet of airplanes. And then two years there. I say two years. Sometimes they’re twenty months and twenty-two months and [sic; et] cetera, but basically they were two years. Then I was asked to head up the Boise National Interagency [Fire

Center] for the Forest Service , and when I selected the job, they said, “Oh, by the way, it’s now going to be in Washington, D.C.” So I went back as fire chief—no, deputy director for fire suppression in the Washington office.

STRACHN: Now, when you mentioned the Region Four experience and you talked about the aviation equipment that you were responsible for, was Region Four working with the ICS system then, or were they working with all of the interagency—

MONTAGUE: They were in transition. I would say yes—

STRACHN: And that would have been about—

MONTAGUE: —but it was transition.

STRACHN: —1980?

MONTAGUE: Yes. Like anything new, they were in that transition.

STRACHN: So they were about ten years behind Region Five.

MONTAGUE: Yes, the whole Forest Service was about ten years behind Region Five. And some of it was reluctancy [sic; reluctance] because it was invented in Southern California and it wouldn’t work in Utah—you know, that type of thing. But it was well accepted.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 32

One experience I had—the region why I went to Region Four [is] they had a fire and had large fatalities, a large amount of fatalities. And so I was asked to go there and try to build up the program to make sure all the firefighters are [sic; were] qualified, and [unintelligible] if you were the ranger, you’re [sic; you were] the boss. You have [sic; had] to be fire qualified and

[sic; et] cetera and build the program with that. And the regional forester asked for that, and

[that I help] build up some strong regional teams, like elsewhere, Region Six, Three and Five.

So Region Four [unintelligible] into two teams, so they were just breaking the [sic; breaking into an?] awareness.

During that two-year period, Region Four had their largest (for the time being), the largest series of fires, and they had, like, four major fires going at once. And so they were just transition [sic; in transition] and were ready for them, and they handled them well, so they were ready for it, but it just took someone to kind of push them or prod them and build their confidence.

STRACHN: Get the structure in place.

MONTAGUE: That’s right. And the timing was good, which also—that helped my career, too.

STRACHN: So you took that two-year experience and then went to head up the whole national

system?

MONTAGUE: Right, assistant director for fire suppression.

STRACHN: And tell me a little bit about that, to take it nationally [sic; national].

MONTAGUE: Well, it was just—the difference [was that] I spent more time flying back and

forth to Boise, where the operations would be, and any time there was a major bust, then I’d have

to fly to Boise to meet with the BLM director there and the Park Service directors and set

priorities for the nation, because the large helicopters—maybe we had four of them. Every fire

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 33

wanted one. So we’d have to say: Well, priorities—life and properties first, and then wilderness values that can’t be replaced or maybe other priorities and [sic; et] cetera.

So we would sit there and move crews back and forth across the nation. We had funding process so we could move crews from Florida and Pennsylvania out to Boise and stand by, waiting for a fire in the West, or we could take people to—the fire season on the East Coast and the Southeast was earlier, or in Alaska was early, and we’d move crews around. So it was setting national priorities, setting national manual requirements, and then I think you have to say it’s more of a leadership role, convincing people that these are appropriate techniques and concepts and training on a national level for fire managers, incident commanders, resource officers—because remember, during this period of time, that’s when the line officer had a major role on what options to take, on how to suppress the fire. The fire team had built some options and put costs to them, and then the line officer says, “I accept Option One, and I’ll take this risk” or “I’ll take Option Four and no risk.”

STRACHN: So does the ranger have any of that role now?

MONTAGUE: It’s mainly the forest supervisor on a large fire.

STRACHN: Let me just ask you, when you talk about that national position—I’m assuming that’s 1980, early 1980s anyway?

MONTAGUE: It was 1980 to 1982.

STRACHN: And in taking on that role, was the incident command system in place then nationally?

MONTAGUE: Halfway through.

STRACHN: And were the teams in place nationally? We now have Team One, Team Two,

Team Three designations.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 34

MONTAGUE: Right.

STRACHN: Were those in place?

MONTAGUE: They were just coming aboard. Each region had their [sic; its] teams. In that era

we started going to a national team.

STRACHN: So when you talk about moving your fire teams around, were you primarily talking

about your Type One teams?

MONTAGUE: Hotshot crews, organized crews, Southwest Indian crews, all the resources that

were on the national priority list. Fire caches, air tankers, large helicopters.

One thing that was interesting—and I think it’s worthwhile in history—while I was in

Washington—it was not because I was in Washington, but I had the position—three members of the regional FIRESCOPE group—[Clyde Bragg?], an ex-L.A. County fire chief, was on the board of directors for FIRESCOPE, was head of the U.S. Fire Administration in Washington,

D.C. [Vilna Vill?], L.A. City representative, was head of the U.S. Fire Academy, Emmetsville

[sic; Emmitsburg, Maryland]. Richard Montague was [sic; represented the] Forest Service in the

Washington office. When the FIRESCOPE group, then, our peers really, came back to make a presentation [as to whether it] would it be accepted nationally, three of the decision makers were already there and had been part of the FIRESCOPE program.

STRACHN: You were all part of original—

MONTAGUE: We were all part of the original group. And so we were all elevated to a higher status, and—now, true, the chief of the Forest Service made the decision. We know that. And the regional foresters had to accept it. But in your position as staff, you laid it out and the program, why it was necessary. It wasn’t just me. I’m not really trying to say that. But if it had been somebody else in that position, they’d probably have asked a hundred questions [about]

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 35

why it works. That’s all I’m really trying to say, at any of the levels. So then U.S. Fire

Administration adopted it, then the city fire departments all over the United States started adopting it. Emmitsburg, which is the fire academy for volunteer fire districts and fire departments gets [sic; and where they get?] their certification, adapted it. But it was all three of them—the seven members, original members on the FIRESCOPE task force and operations members.

STRACHN: In a ten-year period, you really saw the fire organization as we know it today change and grow to a national organization.

MONTAGUE: Yes, yes. I think that’s the pleasant part of it. I feel like maybe I contributed a little bit to it. But it was a lot of selling and educating and lecturing on it, too, [that] took place,

[the benefits?].

STRACHN: How about—you left there in 1982, left Washington?

MONTAGUE: Came to Region Five, back as fire director.

STRACHN: Kind of full circle, back to California?

MONTAGUE: Back to California.

STRACHN: And tell me what you did there.

MONTAGUE: Then I got back on the FIRESCOPE or Office of Emergency Services fire and rescue board of directors. The governor appointed—you know, [a fine tune?]—appoints you, then we took FIRESCOPE even further. FIRESCOPE was growing. It wasn’t any one individual. I like to think L.A. County fire chief and [Richard] “Dick” [Barrels?] from OES were probably the political pushers in it. The Forest Service was the big role player, but we weren’t the political side of things. We were the lower echelon political power, yes. If Region

Five does it, all the forests are going to do it and all the ranger districts are going to do it. But it

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 36

took political pressures to get the governor to support it and [sic; et] cetera, all the way down, so

the regional forester, which—[there] were several regional foresters during that era—just

allowed it to happen and participated and supported it, and that was—

At the time, Doug Leisz was—of course, you got to realize he was on the board of

directors. I overlooked him. He was back in Washington, D.C., at the time when it all came

forward, as associate deputy chief, isn’t it? He wasn’t the number two chief, whatever the title is

[sic; was] at that time. [R.] Max Peterson was the chief. He was the San Bernardino engineer and was on fire teams. So I mean, the previous administration had been [sic; had] been firefighter backgrounds, okay?—as well as the engineers and recreation and [sic; et] cetera, but

they had all been there. Today’s administration—probably not a lot of them have the

background in fire and understanding.

STRACHN: By providing the kind of background that you had and the others had, do you think

that helped more the fire organization to where it is today?

MONTAGUE: Yes, because when you were a line officer, forest supervisor or a ranger or

something like that, you’ve been there, done that. In other words, like I said, I was an engine

captain, I was a Helitack foreman, I was—I wasn’t a smokejumper. But, you know, you’ve been

through every one of the chairs by the time you were a ranger.

STRACHN: It’s quite a background to bring to the table.

MONTAGUE: It is, from a fire standpoint. I was weak in grazing, I was weak in recreation, and

[sic; et] cetera. So that—but that was—the forest supervisors and the regional forester and staff

that plotted my career selected me for my background and my interest, so I think that’s the

benefit, where today you don’t get that opportunity as well.

STRACHN: And you retired from the Region Five position?

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 37

MONTAGUE: In 1987.

STRACHN: And you decided to retire at the height of all of this activity?

MONTAGUE: Yes, I retired in January of ’87, and then fire season in ’87 was one of the

biggest—so I could sit back and watch it work without being the pressure being involved [sic; without the pressure of being involved]. I’m pleased. I started because we were still have large fires, still burning homes, and we had all this technology and all this equipment and all this more

[sic; additional] money, and we’re still burning as many homes as ever, burning more acres. I started a consulting firm with the idea just to look at the wildland-urban interface and [figuring out] how can we really do a better job educating the homeowner and be better prepared in wildland firefighting. That has grown, and then till January of ’06 [sic; The company grew until

January of ‘06], and then I sold the company, and I’m retired.

STRACHN: And the name of the firm was?

MONTAGUE: Firewise 2000.

STRACHN: And its role was to work with local fire departments and local cities?

MONTAGUE: That’s correct. And international. I’m sounding too much “I” here, but basically

I spent time—and it all originated from my time in the Washington office—in Portugal. I’ve

been to Portugal thirteen times, been to Spain four times, Yugoslavia, Chile a couple of times

[and] Greece.

STRACHN: And that consulting role was basically to help prevent fires.

MONTAGUE: Not so much prevent fires but prevent home losses and lives [from] fires, because when I was in the Washington office I spent a month in Portugal as part of the U.S.

AID-funded—World Bank paid for it. The U.S. AID, State Department, sent us over there, a four-person team—actually, three-people really. We had [unintelligible name] from fire

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 38

research, [Rex Skriggs?] from California Department of Forestry and myself went [sic; myself;

we] went over there and did an evaluation of what they need [sic; needed] to do to come up to

the modern-day world of wildland firefighting, because they were losing firefighters, ten or

fifteen firefighters a year.

Now, all this has petuated [sic; perpetuated] and grown and grown, and then my last thing—and I’ll kind of wrap it up with this—in May I go back to Spain, and I’m going to lecture

[sic; lecture about] what I’ve learned in fifty years of firefighting and how I’ve applied research and all this technology, at the Fourth International Fire Conference.

STRACHN: And that’s in Spain this May.

MONTAGUE: In Seville, Spain, in May.

STRACHN: What a wonderful way—

MONTAGUE: Got around the circle. And there’s [sic; there have] just been a lot of unique things that’s [sic; that have] happened, and a lot of people along the line, individuals along the line that you’ve worked with really have done wonderful jobs. I think one that I think [of] in fire prevention, because we’ve talked suppression a lot, is Smokey and the Pros.

STRACHN: Smokey and the Pros? Yes.

MONTAGUE: You understand that? It’s in the other room. But [Pumpkey McClellan?] and

[Press?] Johnson took initiative, and all it was was a challenge—number one, fire prevention people were mad at the regional office and mad at the director (me), because we were taking pumps off their pickup trucks. So Pumpkey McClelland and Press Johnson challenged me and said, “You’re not giving fire prevention its due role.” Okay? And so the challenge to two of them was to “find me a low-cost, high-visibility program and we’ll turn fire prevention around, because I agree with you because if you prevent a fire, you never see it, but you’ve got to have

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 39

something [that is] high visibility.” So those two creative characters built the Smokey and the

Pros. Now it’s Smokey and the country-western music, and it’s Smokey and the American

cowboy. That all took place, and all you had to do was say, “Do it.”

STRACHN: Do you still think that Smokey is getting the message out?

MONTAGUE: Yes. I think it needs to explain the role of fire. Everybody thinks fire is bad.

Fire can be a management tool for resource management, and if you apply it properly, it can be

beneficial, like wilderness management, healthy forest management, brush areas. Prescribed fire

is a valuable tool. But air quality and citizens’ fear of fire makes it awfully hard to apply.

STRACHN: I know that when I worked on the Angeles, one of the things we liked to do was

share the Smokey prevention message with teachers,—

MONTAGUE: Yes.

STRACHN: —hoping the young children would also get the [cross-talk; unintelligible].

MONTAGUE: Fifth and sixth grade [sic; grades] were my favorite as a ranger.

STRACHN: Did you do that with Smokey?

MONTAGUE: We did that. We did a lot of that. Conservation education and then we built— because we were doing a lot of prescribed burning, we had vistas built, signs built to explain to people; we’d invite people out if we were going to do a prescribed burn. On the Lassen there’s a vista point overlooking—I forget the name of the brush field—on which they burned four or five hundred acres, and then we planted the pines. You can’t see the brush field or the vista. It’s all pine trees now. It’s kind of a [unintelligible] pines concept. But we invited media; we invited

everybody else to say, “Skilled people can apply fire.” You just hope [sic; hoped] it didn’t get

away, because you had everybody there. No, it’s an educational tool.

STRACHN: One thing I’d like to touch on, Dick, and you mentioned it when you changed—

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 40

MONTAGUE: I’m not rushing. Would you like some lunch or something?

[Recording interruption.]

STRACHN: Continuing, Dick, one of the things I wanted to ask you: You mentioned changing from “firemen” to “firefighters.” We obviously had a changing workforce while you were with the Forest Service.

MONTAGUE: Yes, with the consent decree.

STRACHN: Can you tell me a little bit about how fire, the fire organization changed?

MONTAGUE: It would be a major change because I was in the regional office when the consent decree—or arrived when the consent decree was fully implemented, and the court- appointed monitor dealt with me every day because the majority of the workforce in the complaint area was in fire and fire research. So I had statements made to me—and this is not derogatory against the consent decree, but if a female can drive a school bus, they [sic; she] ought to be able to be a fire captain, because all of it [sic; because all it is is] driving an apparatus. So it was an educational [part] was saying no [sic], is what we’ve talked about up to now. It’s learning fire behavior, learning to be in a safe spot and [sic; et] cetera. You just can’t say, “You are now a captain.” So we were really challenged, and rightfully so, to try to build programs to advance the opportunity for women firefighters, more women in the workforce, period.

One of the things that came up in the regional fire staff group was accelerated training, where we had a competitive concept, and men and women could compete, but they were selected, and they got advanced training, both classroom training and then we sent them out—

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 41

these individuals that met the merit competition—we sent them out as trainees on fires, because we wanted to get them to the GS-9 fire, from a GS-5 to GS-9, with a goal [of] about two to three years and yet have them qualified, not just qualified—so they could lead troops safely. And so

we did start that program. That was a well accepted program.

One of the first ladies in the program was a smokejumper, a lady smokejumper. She

went on, and now she’s a fire management officer on one of the major fire districts in the region,

and she’s probably even been promoted beyond that by now. And then there were other women

that went into fire prevention. But it gave them an avenue to go up, rather than just “you will be

one.” But also there wasn’t [sic; weren’t] enough positions for us for the number of women that

we had. We had to go out and find opportunities for women. We had to go [sic; do] outreach,

go to other agencies and [sic; et] cetera. It was a lot of pressure on me, individually.

STRACHN: Would this have been about 1985, ’86?

MONTAGUE: Eighty-five to ’87, to January ’87, so ’85, ’86. I spent a quarter of my time just

working with the consent decree teamwork. In fact, [Thomas] “Tom” [Folke?], who was the

assistant director in aviation and fire management, went over to head up the program. He was

one of the original designers of the accelerated training. So then he went over and handled that

consent decree implementation for the entire region.

It was [sic; had] a major impact on morale. Then men firefighters felt there was no career

for them now, no advancement. We had to work awfully hard to come up with ideas to build

that morale and show them they could go up in the workforce, okay?

STRACHN: Did we have women in firefighting positions prior to 1985?

MONTAGUE: Maybe ’84—I was going to say ’84 I think we were really recruiting and trying hard. I just can’t say yes or no, but I do not think so.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 42

STRACHN: So we saw from the seventies, the decade of the seventies developing and incredibly organized and sophisticated fire management system, and then in the early eighties we

started impacting with the workforce changes.

MONTAGUE: That’s right. And each one was equally challenging, and all worthwhile. I

mean, I’m really proud—I enjoy going to retirement parties and seeing women in the workforce

that I either hired as a seventeen-year-old student intern [sic; as seventeen-year-old student

interns], now seeing them [as] personnel officers on forests. I mean, those are things that are

pleasing. I also like to think the eighties got women on fire teams. That made for better teams.

It made for problems, logistics: housing, restrooms, showers, but those are easy challenges.

STRACHN: How about equipment?

MONTAGUE: Yes, but equipment development centers were working on axes that fit smaller

people’s hands. Now, I’m careful not to say “women’s hands” because we had smaller men.

They’re not all lumberjacks. That used to be kind of what we hired, but when we went to

outreach and hiring any qualified person, they weren’t all the athletic lumberjack firefighters that

typically Hotshot crew members were, okay? So now we had to get tools to fit the size of the

workforce. We had to change the smokejumper parachute because at one time we had a

smokejumper—I forget what it was, but I’m guessing it was 150 pounds for the chute to work

fully functional [sic; functionally]. He had to carry a ten-pound sack of sugar because he was

only 140 pounds.

Then when we got the first female smokejumper in Region Four when I was there, they

said, “Well, she can’t be a smokejumper because she doesn’t weight 150 pounds.” Well, we said

the male could—put a ten-pound pack of sugar. So what are we going to do? Let’s adapt the

chute. We can change the chute better than changing people.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 43

So anyway, those are things that all took place during the consent decree, during

changing of the workforce, whether it’s minority workforce, female workforce or whatever,

okay? And that was a time. But it’s no different than how the computer is changing our

workforce, so it’s just a matter of time, and the fire leaders at the time have to be prepared for the

changes, because the next ten years are even going to be faster and more progressive.

STRACHN: Let me just ask you: You’ve talked so much about all the various responsibilities that you had. Is there one thing that stands out in your mind as what you enjoyed most?

MONTAGUE: I think the FIRESCOPE program. I take great pride in the FIRESCOPE program and then my participation in the Firewise community program. I take great pride that I was involved somewhat in all these. When the president of the United States, [William J.] “Bill”

Clinton, used the word “firewise” in his State of the Union [address], we went from seven guys sitting in a room in Southern California to the president using the word. FEMA [Federal

Emergency Management Agency] uses it every day. Our incident management teams go for more than fires. You like to think, Gee, we envisioned it as all risk, and it’s there. And we see it going today. I really enjoy hearing the word [sic; words], “incident management team has been assigned”—what is it?—Three Mile Island, the FEMA, the [Hurricane] Katrina, whatever, because we know when we were sitting there we were saying, “We’re trying to talk better and be more efficient, us [sic; we] seven people.” Now you look at it. It’s everyday language.

STRACHN: And even back in 1970 and ’71, you saw it going beyond fire.

MONTAGUE: All risk. All risk. We made it all risk, and the reason was wildland fire and structure fire. Then it became medical; then it became—you know what I mean? It just grew.

Hazardous material. And then this whole concept was [sic; was developed with] that in mind.

STRACHN: Is there anything you would change, you would have done differently?

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 44

MONTAGUE: In my career?

STRACHN: In your career.

MONTAGUE: No. My wife and I have talked about this a lot. I wouldn’t want to go back to certain things, but I wouldn’t want to change anything. I think everything is fine. I am—what’s the right word? I’m an action-oriented person, so you can see why fire attracted me. I do my best work under extreme pressure. And I just think that my supervisors prepared me well to take the next job, and only they can judge how well I’ve performed. But that’s the best way I can describe it.

STRACHN: One last thing for you and I’ll let you wrap it up, Dick, and it’s been wonderful talking with you. Do you want to add anything, any experiences that you had that might have been unusual at the time? You’ve seen the organization through such tremendous change. Do any incidents come to mind, your activities?

MONTAGUE: One answer to that: on the Angeles Forest. It’s events that occurred—is that at the time, the region had only two law enforcement agents: Northern California, Southern

California agents and then they had the regional office liaison coordinator agent, so it was really three. And the Angeles National Forest was having a lot of law enforcement problems. We were shifting our fire prevention into law enforcement but not [unintelligible]. And so money came about, and I still don’t remember, but there was national funding for law enforcement on national forests, so the Angeles National Forest put together a cooperative venture with Los

Angeles County sheriff, and we put a large helicopter with a minimum of five law enforcement officers and two paramedics, or medics, and they were just to handle events in the Angeles

National Forest: lost hikers, Law enforcement, and [sic; et] cetera. We offered the facilities in

Barley Flats, which was—we had taken our helicopter off of it. It was an old Nike base facility,

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 45

and we offered that for them. It was in the center of our national forest, and it provided excellent security to our fire prevention people that would go out in the middle of the night to chase the smoke or a bonfire and be out there all by themselves. Because the forest didn’t have that great a communication, so you get down in a hole, you couldn’t talk out. But we could always communicate with Barley Flats.

I recall a time that I had the monitor on at home, and I got a call or I overheard a call to the dispatch office for a fire prevention person on the [Mount] Baldy District, who was going down. He spotted a campfire and went down, drove down into—put the fire out and talked to the people around the campfire. It was a motorcycle gang. And they surrounded him and started cutting the house up, and he locked the doors, but they didn’t try to break the doors down. They cut up all the hose and were harassing him and not going to let him leave.

But the dispatcher had already called Barley Flats, and all of a sudden a helicopter with a big spotlight come [sic; came] over them, landed. Five sheriffs—actually seven, but five were

SWAT team type sheriff [sic]—just said, “Do we have a problem, gentlemen?” And so they took care of the situation, cited the people, and the prevention person was able to drive away. It could have been worse. We don’t know how much worse. But the fire prevention person really enjoyed that opportunity.

Then we don’t know how many lifesaving things the sheriff—search and rescue and [sic; et] cetera that was all developed since that, okay? The Montrose search and rescue group has all spread from it. Today I don’t know if Barley Flats is still in effect or not, but it’s been very valuable. And I watch Channel 5, L.A., on TV every night, ten o’clock, and I keep seeing things that have happened. Law enforcement today is totally different, totally different.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 46

STRACHN: If I’m understanding you, basically the law enforcement as the forests know them today kind of got its start on the Angeles?

MONTAGUE: I think it was on several national forests, because we were running into

marijuana, we were running into issues, and our people didn’t feel safe without weapons, and

[sic; et] cetera. I don’t think you could say it started; I think this program that the Angeles and

the sheriff started was one of a few. The publicity—it was so popular, the publicity—it was a

television show, and I believe it was [sic; delete “it was”] 240 Robert was the call sign of the

helicopter. Of course, Hollywood made it a lot different than what it really was, but it was at the

same time as Emergency One’s L.A. County people were doing things, and [sic; et] cetera.

Angeles National Forest people, namely Betty [Conrad] Hite—at the time, she was really

the [sic; in] Southern California but housed there in the Pasadena office, Washington office

position. She had a lot of roles with the media in Hollywood, so she got us involved in the

movie Earthquake; like I said, Emergency One and 240 Robert. Different fire people would go

down and be technical advisers on that program. And then, of course, the Lassie series. So

Betty, being in the office just around the corner from me, was—you know, [it was] fun to hear

her side of things, too, from her perspective.

STRACHN: So you had an opportunity to really capitalize on some of the messages by the

Angeles being so close to Hollywood.

MONTAGUE: Yes. I’d almost like to say a capital forest, but they weren’t; they were Southern

California media, and they always came to it, the Angeles, at the time, because [Donald] “Don”

Porter [public information officer on the Angeles] and then Betty Hite were all right there. And,

of course, the Angeles Forest had excellent PIOs. All of them were highly qualified and highly

skilled.

Dick Montague, 03/08/07, page 47

STRACHN: Well, Dick, I think this wraps it up unless there’s anything else you’d like to add.

MONTAGUE: No, I think that’s it. That’s a lot of—

STRACHN: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

[End of interview.]