(Senator) Burns (R) tells Hotshots they did a "poor job" in Billings fire

Divernan

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Thu Jul-27-06 02:49 PM
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(Senator) Burns (R) tells Hotshots they did a "poor job" in Billings fire

Edited on Thu Jul-27-06 02:50 PM by Divernan

So here's a fat-ass Republican Senator chewing out a bunch of firefighters who just came to his state and risked their lives for $8-12 an hour! The state of Montana owes these firefighters a public apology. If the esteemed Senator had a problem with policy decisions by the Montana state Department of Natural Resources, he should have taken it up with them. What kind of stupid, inept moron can be a U.S. Senator and not understand that the decisions he's arguing with were not made by the firefighters in the field?

www.helenair.com/articles/2006/07/27/montana_top/a01072706_02.txt

Burns tells Hotshots they did a �poor job� in Billings fire
By JENNIFER McKEE - IR State Bureau - 07/27/06
HELENA � Republican Sen. Conrad Burns chastised a group of firefighters over the weekend for doing a �poor job� dousing a 92,000-acre blaze near Billings, a state report shows. Burns and the firefighters � members of the Augusta Hot Shots from the George Washington and Jefferson national forests in Virginia � were at the Billings Logan International Airport each awaiting flights, according to Burns and Forest Service representatives.

Burns approached the firefighters and told them they had �done a poor job� and �should have listened to the ranchers,� according to a report prepared by Paula Rosenthal, a state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation employee who was sent to the airport to speak with the senator.

Rosenthal wrote in her report that she received word of an �altercation� occurring between Burns and the hot shot crew. The crew had been in Montana working on the Bundy Railroad Fire near Worden. The 92,000-acre timber, grass and sagebrush fire was contained on July 19 and the 368 people who came to fight it began dispersing a few days later.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
�The toughest part of the conversation was the point where the senator was critical of a firefighter sitting across from us in the gate area,� Rosenthal�s report reads. �I offered to the senator that our firefighters make around $8 to $12 an hour and time-and-a-half for overtime. He seemed a bit surprised that it wasn�t higher.�

(End of excerpt)
Here's a good comment from the news source.
Conrad Burns was totally out of line for his behavior and comments to fire fighters at the airport in Billings. Those fire fighters are out there doing an extremely difficult, stressful job for an inadequate wage that the government should be embarrassed about. They are not the ones who make policy or decide where the fire is going to be fought. They go where the fire bus takes them, do what the crew boss tells them, and put out fire, where ever that happens to be. Just because Burns has been getting his ear bent by his ungrateful, ranching cronies, doesn't mean he has any business even speaking to those fire fighters except to get down on his knees and thank them for coming to Montana and doing the difficult, stressful job they do. This just points out that Conrad Burns is not fit to continue in his position in the U.S. Senate. He is NOT representing this state and ALL its citizens -- only his own agenda and that of his like-minded cronies. He should be ashamed of himself and he needs to apologize profusely and publicly to those fire fighters as well as to every one else.
Posted by: Colleen Howard at 2006-07-27 06:12:59