Forest firefighter says he was ‘blacklisted’ for speaking out against Covid’s lack of security

Wildland firefighter sues US Forest Service, claiming he was ‘blackballed’ after speaking out publicly about loose coronavirus safety rules during last year’s historic fire season that burned millions acres in several western states.

According to a complaint filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Pedro Rios, a firefighter with 13 years of experience, has been “ the victim of discrimination and retaliation due to the lack of protest against COVID-19 protocols and protections for firefighters, families and the public. “

Rios says he’s been denied rehire rights the federal firefighter hiring process undergoes every fire season, after publicly criticizing his boss’s handling of safety guidelines.

He also filed a whistleblower complaint with the US Office of Special Advocates, alleging that his rights to free speech as a public service employee had been violated. Both complaints were received in February and investigations are ongoing, according to his lawyer, Tom Dimitre.

In an emailed statement, the forest service declined to comment on ongoing disputes and said, “as a matter of principle, we do not discuss personnel matters.”

The federal complaints stem from a post Rios posted on a Facebook community page in July. In the post, he warned residents of his tiny northern California county that his fire team would return home to the Klamath National Forest without first self-quarantining after spending a week in Southern California. , considered a Covid-19 hotspot during the summer and for several months afterwards.

“We have chosen this job and know the dangers, bringing us back to Siski, exposing an older public population and our own families is absolutely myopic in our opinion,” he wrote in the post.

He then posted a screenshot showing the names of Klamath National Forest agents that community members could contact with questions or concerns.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic spread across the country, Rios worried about her son’s compromised health and what could happen if the 4-year-old contracted a respiratory infection.

Like his mother and father, Felix Bell-Rios was born with severe asthma which can trigger seizures at any time. In 2019, he was airlifted to an intensive care unit after a particularly vicious episode and spent two days in hospital. He is now using Flovent medication and a nebulizer to keep his airways clear.

When Covid-19 arrived in the United States last year, Rios wondered what that would mean for the upcoming fire season and for the safety of his son. After discussing it with his girlfriend and members of his fire team, he said he was confident the forest service would have Covid-19 safety measures in place.

But it was not his experience when the fire season started, he said.

His crew were given hand sanitizer and masks, but they were not ordered to quarantine before or after traveling to Southern California. Instead, his crew were asked to self-isolate if they showed any symptoms after returning to Siskiyou County, a rural community near the Oregon border.

Rios was concerned that these mitigation plans were insufficient, he said. He and other crew members used public restrooms and grocery stores in Los Angeles, and they did not wear masks around each other or when fighting the fires.

While in Southern California, he said, he told his officials that traveling to an urban area with high rates of Covid-19 could put his son and elderly residents at risk. of Siskiyou County.

“They let us dry,” he said of the forest service. “They made fun of us or our safety, the safety of the public, the safety of our children.”