Left Column

Right Column

Mark Raymond Harrington Award for Conservation Archaeology

Presented to:
CAL FIRE
Archaeology Program Team

Presented by:
Shelly Davis-King, President
Society for California Archaeology
March 30, 2006

California wildlife, vegetation, and cultural geography are sculpted by wind-whipped wildfires that tear through our state annually and leave scorched desolation across broad swaths of landscape like the deadly imprint of a nightmarish fire monster. As development, recreation, and private enterprise increasingly press our State’s wildland frontiers, this fire monster increasingly threatens people and property. Ancient traces of human habitation are increasingly threatened as well.

CAL FIRE is responsible for the protection of over 31 million acres of California's privately-owned wildlands, and CAL FIRE personnel in Police Blue (used to be khaki) uniforms with the bright logo patches are a familiar sight as they provide emergency services to most corners of the State. CAL FIRE’s dedicated workforce responds daily to all types of emergencies, and each year CAL FIRE's firefighters, fire engines and aircraft engage an average of 5,700 wildland fires, and answer more than 300,000 calls for other emergencies. In 2004-2005, CAL FIRE responded to 14,506 incidents impacting 241,120 acres.

While all Californians are acutely aware and appreciative of CAL FIRE’s valiant fire-fighting efforts, most of us are unaware of the agency’s parallel efforts to protect cultural resources threatened by fire. Developing from events that transpired during the Pines Fire Incident in 2002, CAL FIRE archaeologists in 2003-2005 have responded by creating a model incident-specific fire-response cultural resource preservation plan. CAL FIRE archaeologists and long-time SCA members Rich Jenkins, Linda Pollack, Gerrit Fenenga, Chuck Whatford, Steve Grantham, and Dan Foster have been instrumental in developing this program, now a regular component of the CAL FIRE’s incident response activity. CAL FIRE fire archaeologists are now active on every major fire incident around the State. Consequently, between May to October these fire archaeologists are always on-the-go, traveling to all corners of the Golden State to respond to wildfire incidents. As described in the 2005 Wildfire Incident Cultural Resource Manual, the goals are simple:

The purpose of assigning an Archaeologist to an incident is to identify and protect important archaeological, historical, and other types of cultural resources whenever feasible if such protection can be accomplished in a safe manner without delaying or hindering emergency response operations. The Archaeologist must never compromise safety for the protection and preservation of archaeological and historic properties. A successful Archaeologist is one that is viewed by most members of the team as an asset, rather than a hindrance, to the team that he or she supports” (Procedures for an Archaeologist Assigned to a CAL FIRE Wildfire or Other Emergency Incident 2005).

CAL FIRE’s fire-response cultural resource program is distinguished by three solid years of success marked by increased integration with incident response command and control, and increased influence in moment-to-moment decision making critical to heritage preservation. For example, in year 2004 alone, the fire archaeology team responded to 139 incidents involving 223,129 acres, in fire zones that proved to contain 471 previously recorded sites and 72 sites newly encountered and managed in the course of the fire incident. In order to accomplish their innovative and integrative approach, the fire archaeologists have devised a program featuring:

Critical Training: CAL FIRE firefighters receive training in cultural resources protection work, and five of CAL FIRE’s six staff archaeologists themselves have completed the month-long Firefighter I Academy so that they, in turn, can work directly on the fire-lines.

Incident Management: The CAL FIRE fire archaeologists are fully integrated into Incident Management and Planning Section and Rehab and Repair teams in order to provide information and guidance in the planning stages of suppression to protect resources from impacts by fire fighting equipment operating ahead of the burn.

Monitoring: The fire archaeologist also monitor known sites for effects of fire and/or suppression activities and conduct inventory to locate and identify new cultural resources that might have been exposed by vegetation removal from fires or dozer lines, or other activities related to fire suppression.

Coordination with Federal and Other State Agencies. The fire-response program requires innovative and complicated preservation partnerships with Federal agencies, other State agencies, and private parties. For example, CAL FIRE fire archaeologists have worked with the Information Center system to develop protocols for emergency access to IC records, and are now engaged with the USFS, BLM, NPS, and agencies to develop protocols for direct access to site information. The big challenge here is to gather information in timely manner. It is notable that most California fires span multiple jurisdictions, but the CAL FIRE fire archaeologists are often the only fire-qualified cultural resource specialists on hand.

Coordination with Native American Communities. In 2004-2005, CAL FIRE fire archaeologists were regularly assisted by members of local Native American communities who assisted with fire-line surveys and post-suppression inventory.

The CAL FIRE fire archaeologists face a daunting task, with a few hours to gather information about archaeological resources in the fire area, travel sometimes hundreds of miles to the incident, coordinate with fire personnel, and then hit the ground with the goal of finding and flagging known sites and assisting CAL FIRE equipment operators in avoiding sites. If there is time, the archaeologists also put themselves even further in harm’s way by surveying ahead of the fire for new sites. CAL FIRE fire archaeologists have chalked up many small accomplishments which together are having a big, cumulative impact on California heritage preservation, for example, redirecting fire-suppression drops to avoid petroglyph panels, identifying alternative fire-break routes to avoid sensitive cultural resources, and conducting inventory on burned lands during post-suppression incident management in order to assess the status of known resources and identify and record newly revealed resources.

The CAL FIRE program has demonstrated that firefighters and archaeologists can work together—even in the context of emergency response—to save fragile and irreplaceable heritage resources threatened by fire on Federal, State, and private lands. Three crucial benefits are recognized and honored here by the SCA: (1) The CAL FIRE fire-response cultural resource program, including training courses and incident response, has increased awareness of, and interest in, cultural resources on the part of CAL FIRE units throughout the State; (2) The CAL FIRE fire-response cultural resource program has increased cooperation and improved relationships between CAL FIRE and its State, Federal, and private partners with access to cultural resources information; (3) The CAL FIRE fire-response cultural resource program has generated innovative and efficient new emergency response protocols for information gathering on known archaeological and historic sites. The CAL FIRE fire-response cultural resource team is currently developing a needs assessment for a digitized data-base for instantaneous access to information in an electronic format, and hopes to have a pilot project in place covering all of San Diego County sometime in 2006. We wish them the best in this effort, as well.

The SCA is pleased to offer the 2005 Mark Raymond Harrington Award for Conservation Archaeology to CAL FIRE Archaeologists and long-time SCA members Rich Jenkins, Linda Pollack, Gerrit Fenenga, Chuck Whatford, Steve Grantham, and Dan Foster.

The SCA is also deeply honored to have as our guest tonight the Director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Chair of the State Board of Fire Services, and 13th State Fire Marshal of California, Chief Ruben Grijalva. Chief Grijalva is himself renowned for his 32 storied years in public safety, and we are especially excited that Chief Grijalva has come here to honor the CAL FIRE Fire Archaeology team, and thrilled that by accepting the award for the team, Chief Grijalva is sending a clear signal that his agency respects and honors CAL FIRE’s Archaeology Team members for their notable heritage preservation accomplishments.