House of Eratosthenes

Fire departments in Oregon need to operate with good communication in order to fight fires. So, in Oregon, it just logically follows, no way of getting ’round it, that if you’re a crew boss in a fire department in Oregon, and you can’t speak Spanish, and one or more of the firefighters on your crew speaks Spanish only, you’ll have to be demoted.

With 24 major wildfires burning across the southwestern United States, fire officials need every firefighter they can get. They’ve done that in Oregon but it’s created another problem.

Officials are now having to lay off some of the bosses who manage those firefighting crews because the bosses are not bilingual. Many of the newer hires in Oregon only speak Spanish.

The state said all bosses must speak the same language of their crew on the fire lines for safety reasons. They want to make sure that the leader of the crews can quickly communicate during an emergencey if the fire turns or if there is another problem on the fire lines.

“Our main concern is that they are safe, and they are in a safe environment, and a lot of that deals with communication,” said Jim Walker, with the Oregon Department of Forestry.

“If you have one Spanish guy on the crew, as an English crew boss, you can no longer be a crew boss. You have to step back to a squad boss, which is a demotion,” said Jaime Pickering, a firefighter squad boss.

The state of Oregon actually made the change in 2003. It just started strictly monitoring the law this year.

I know of no similar policy for fire crews in Arizona. Or California. Or New Mexico, or Washington State, or Texas. In those states, either they can hire an adequate number of firefighters who speak English, or the fires can be fought by fire crews who can’t commuicate amongst themselves, or both.

I’m being instructed to believe that proper safety procedures necessitate the demotion or dismissal of crew bosses who don’t speak Spanish, yet if it works that way in one place why doesn’t it work that way everywhere?

The most obvious explanation would have to be that Oregon has lost control of the criteria applied to new recruits. Slide down the pole in X seconds, lift X many pounds, X many push ups, and oh by the way you must speak English. I mean, Jim Walker spoke; you heard the man. Proper communication is essential for safety. Wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.

And yet, they didn’t insist that firefighters speak English; they did the opposite. They insisted the crew boss speak Spanish.

What’s wrong with the way they did it? Well let’s start with the obvious. When the inmates run the asylum and their bosses are demoted for failure to master some marginal-appendage language, an issue must arise wherein the firefighters’ ability to communicate amongst themselves, must be called into question. You’re not expecting me to sit here and start believing that everything a firefighter does, is a one-man job, are you? Because that’s what you’d have to do if I’m to believe the firefighter has a need to communicate with the crew boss, and with nobody else. Gimme a break. There’s heavy shit to be carried around. There are hoses to be hooked up. Even fishing the legendary kitty out of the tree, could be a tough row to hoe if only one guy’s doing it.

Come to think of it, how many tasks does a firefighter have to do, which can be completed if he can just communicate with the crew boss — but with nobody else?

I mean I don’t want to decide how the Department of Forestry does its job, but I’d certainly like this to be explained. Safety protocols are concerned with the ability of each firefighter, to communicate with his boss. The crew boss, not the squad boss, the latter of whom can keep his job if he doesn’t speak Spanish. So just the crew boss. But there’s no requirement for all the firefighters to speak any one particular language. I’d just like to know — how’s that work? How is it, that there’s no equivalent pressing urgency for the firefighters to communicate amongst themselves?

What are the situations that emerge wherein there’s no time to call an interpreter? That would be an emergency, usually involving a fire, right? Wouldn’t the safety/communication protocols apply, first-and-foremost, to the boots on the ground?

Monday, I wrote about Lou Barletta, mayor of Hazelton, PA, who has made English the official language of his city. Jim Walker, of the Department of Forestry, talks about “safety” while Mayor Barletta talks about a “drain on city resources.” The two concerns, I would argue, are practically equivalent: Agencies are finding it difficult to complete their missions when they have to screw around with multiple languages. And yet the remedies they’ve selected are a hundred and eighty degrees opposite.

The comments I made about Mayor Barletta, still hold true: “If he can do it, anybody can.” That means Oregon could do what Barletta did, starting out first and foremost with their fire departments. Speak English, just enough so you can communicate effectively and get the job done, or no go.

I mean, safety first after all. Wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt.

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Speak Spanish Or You’re FiredFriday, June 23rd, 2006

Speak Spanish Or You’re Fired
Friday, June 23rd, 2006