Respect for Federal Wildland Firefighters

Floor Speech

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Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, during the month of August, we had several wildfires break out in my district up in Siskiyou County at the top of California.

As you know, our Federal wildland firefighters are on the front lines battling the blazes and preventing them from spreading to populated areas and burning down all of our forests and the habitat that is in them.

They are doing their jobs, working 16-hour days often, grueling heat, remote rugged terrain, and what happens?

The new food vendor for the Forest Service tried serving them beans and rice on bread on the far side there and then moldy cheese sandwiches for our firefighters that we ask to be out there in risky conditions and tough, hot conditions as well.

What an insult. What a slap in the face as they have a national food vendor trying to provide meals like that that actually would cause harm to their health as well as just the sustenance they need to work hard.

In light of all this, we also find that the Klamath National Forest supervisor who fired this food service vendor was later investigated by the Forest Service higher-ups, and they only backed off because a scandal was made public.

Since then, it has been corrected, thanks to that Klamath Forest supervisor, and these unacceptable conditions are not going to continue.

The American people expect accountability for our firefighters and for our workers.

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