California Department Of Forestry And Fire Protection

Conflicting reports about when state fire officials first identified accused serial arsonist Raymond Lee Oyler -- before or after he allegedly set a wildfire near Palm Springs that killed five firefighters -- have escalated tension between the Riverside County Sheriff's Department and the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Underlying the dispute is the question of whether Oyler could have been arrested earlier, possibly preventing the deaths of the firefighters.

When wildfires burned toward neighborhoods in Temecula and Corona last May, firefighters from the state's forestry agency were called in to help contain the flames, just as they have done in Riverside County for more than half a century. But some county supervisors are considering scrapping their contract with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and creating their own firefighting force because, they say, the state has ignored the county's needs.

A career firefighter has been named director of the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor's office Friday announced the appointment of Dale Geldert to oversee the agency that regulates logging in private forests and is responsible for fire protection on 31 million acres of wild lands. Geldert, 61, is a Republican resident of Oceanside who served as fire chief and deputy city manager there before retiring in 2002.

After receiving criticism for its handling of last autumn's wildfires, a state agency has rewritten a rule that prevented a sheriff's helicopter from dropping water on the Cedar fire minutes after it was first spotted. The new rule, written by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, gives helicopters up to one extra hour on firefighting missions at the end of the day. Prior rules prohibited choppers from taking off on any new missions 30 minutes before sunset.

Few things stoke worries in the California backcountry like wildfire. So when the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection proposed closing its air tanker base in Ukiah, amid the North Coast forests, residents voiced fear and outrage. The planes and their loads of fire retardant will be that much farther away, meaning that precious minutes could be lost in the battle to save not just trees, but towns, residents said. Small fires, they argued, could turn into infernos.

Robert Lewin couldn't keep his eyes off the shiny quarter-size pin above a fellow captain's name plate. It was January 2001, just after the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officially pinned new chaplains in the San Luis Obispo unit. "I was so taken aback that a person who was wearing the exact same uniform in every way was wearing a cross on her uniform," said Lewin, who is now a battalion chief.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has eliminated its official chaplain program after six state firefighters filed a lawsuit against the department earlier this year. They alleged that the department breached the separation of church and state by introducing Christian prayers at fire scenes and graduation ceremonies, paying for chaplain training and giving chaplains, who are line officers, religious pins to wear on their uniforms.

They wait. It is the bulk of their job, this waiting, and they fill it with necessary tasks. They roll hose. They clean the engine. They hone their bodies. They ready themselves for fire. Few of them can articulate what compels them to fight wildland fires. They fall back on describing their obsession in bits and pieces: the hikes, the outdoor work, the camaraderie, the deadly magnificence of flame.