A-Infos (en) Spaine, CNT, #433: The Board burns us - Basti (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Every year we access the contract through a series of tests, the offers appear on 
the internet and you have to be attentive since they have deadlines and dates to 
sign up, then they let you know what day it will be and we do them. The tests for 
an ELIF (Forest Fire Fighting Team), that is to say a helicopter, with which we 
cannot leave the community of Castilla y León, consist of running 2.4 km in 11:30 
as the limit, making a line of defense (dig into mineral soil) to cut the 
continuity of the fuel in case the fire came from one of the sides of said line, 
a multiple choice theoretical exam, and personal interview. Once the tests were 
passed, we signed a work and service contract, illegal since the last labor 
reform, which lasts from July 1 to September 30 for 80% of the operation against 
the fight against forest fires in Castilla y León. Period established by the risk 
of fire, according to the Board, Quiñones considers that having the crews longer 
is unnecessary and an economic waste and that the fault of the state of our 
mountains is environmentalism.

If they like the way you work, they can extend the campaign by 15 days, that is 
called post-campaign, there are people who start a month before, that is called 
pre-campaign, but the vast majority have 3-month contracts.

forestry agreement
According to the forestry agreement, we cannot be on duty for more than 12 hours 
in a fire, and we must have 12 hours of rest between one day and another. But the 
reality is that we spent 24 hours inside the fires, with hardly any food or 
water, as happened this summer in Zamora.
In the case of the helitransportada we have 4 days of work and 2 days of rest. 
With morning and afternoon shifts, the hours vary depending on the sunset, with 
24-hour availability on the days you work and the obligation to come to our job 
within half an hour at the latest from when we answer the call.

We have the professional category of specialist laborer, which means that we 
charge less, that the agreement does not correspond to our work and a long etc. 
of irregularities.

We are subcontracted by private companies, that is, the Board hires companies so 
that they have personnel and means, as we already know what private companies are 
looking for is the maximum benefit, for this they save on extra pay, on having 
tools such as hoes, pulaskis (ax with hoes), fire extinguishers, fire 
extinguisher backpacks in terrible condition, which break shortly after using 
them, or are "fixed" from other years by other colleagues with zip ties, rubber 
bands... they pressure people so that when they take a casualty they join as soon 
as before through the mutual, and thus obtain the maximum benefit.

At the beginning of the campaign they give us 2 t-shirts and 2 fireproof overalls 
(one from last year "sanitized" and the other new), we wear fireproof boots and 
gloves and work gloves, a helmet, anti-projection dark glasses, fire-fighting 
glasses (poor quality ) and helmet. EPIS that may not be enough for the risk we 
run. We always have in mind a security protocol that consists of: Observation. 
Attention. Communication. Exhaust. Safe Place (OACEL).

It depends on which mountain we go to, there are pine forests, broad-leaved 
forests, pastures, scrub, but in general it is not well cared for with a high 
density of vegetable fuel, something that would be resolved if the crews worked 
pruning, clearing brush, making sacks and taking care of roads , breaks fires and 
access to water points throughout the year, and every year we find it drier due 
to the climate crisis.

I always thought that the forests should not be touched, that nature has been 
here many centuries before us and that it would know what to do on its own, the 
problem is that we have modified the environment so much that today it is These 
forestry tasks are necessary, such as clearing and thinning (removing firewood 
from the mountains), clearing brush and pruning at height, it must also be taken 
into account that firebreaks and roads, if they are not kept clean, are 
repopulated with heliophilous species ( that like light) like heather, and that 
after a short time it is full of fuel again, so they are of no use to stop the 
fire in the event of a forest fire. This situation of abandonment did not happen 
until the 1960s because people lived in the towns and it was these settlers who 
took care of the forest with different uses, such as removing firewood, browsing 
the cattle, cleaning the scrub, with their footsteps and care. They kept roads 
mostly missing.

It depends on which mountain we go to, there are pine forests, broad-leaved 
forests, pastures, scrub, but in general it is not well cared for with a high 
density of vegetable fuel, something that would be resolved if the crews worked 
pruning, clearing brush, making sacks and taking care of roads , breaks fires and 
access to water points throughout the year, and every year we find it drier due 
to the climate crisis.

Many of the mountains of Castilla y León are repopulated by different species of 
pines that were planted in the middle of the 20th century, such as the Sierra 
Culebra, in most cases they are mono-specific plantations that are not taking the 
care they need, being found in very bad conditions, favoring the spread of fire, 
many of these species do not correspond to that habitat but were planted there, 
replacing the original ones that were leafy in most places (holm oaks, oaks...) 
since these take longer to grow and when used for economic use, the others are 
more interesting.

Those of us who have started this year see how in 6 badly given hours of practice 
they send us to the hell of fires, without doing enough practice laying hoses, 
without having done marches with the 20l backpacks that we should be used to 
carrying since then, in the best of cases, we will take them for more than 10 
hours, without having embarked and disembarked something dangerous enough in the 
helicopter so that they do not give you even minimal or practical notions before 
being supposedly prepared to entrust that task.

This added to the neglect of the rural world, the state of our mountains and the 
temporary nature of the contracts lead people to change jobs and those of us who 
want to stay, when we reach a minimum of preparation, send us to unemployment 
losing and forgetting the practice won for next year.

If we worked all year round with necessary tasks such as prevention, cleaning 
firebreaks and creating new water points, making access routes for the brigades, 
pruning and clearing the forests and with decent conditions, these virulent fires 
would not occur, the people who more campaigns it carries out, it would not 
abandon the operation and above all we would not be regretting the 3 deaths this 
summer in Losacio.

The demands that we have from ATIFCYL (Association of Forest Fire Workers of 
Castilla y León) are very clear and we will not settle for less, category of 
forest firefighters, public employment and operative all year round, in addition 
to the resignation of the counselor of the environment and director of natural 
heritage.

Labor dignity for the forest firefighter! 100% public operation, professional 
category and work throughout the year.

https://www.cnt.es/noticias/la-junta-nos-quema/
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