The newly created U.S. Wildland Fire Service (USWFS) has hired its inaugural leader: Brian Fennessy, Chief of the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) in Southern California.
Fennessy has nearly 50 years of fire experience, which began in the late 1970s on elite federal hotshot crews and other wildfire teams. He eventually served as a crew superintendent before moving in 1990 to the San Diego Fire Department, where he became Chief in 2015, according to an OCFA career summary. He’s been with Orange County since 2018, according to his LinkedIn page.
The USWFS will be formed by consolidating the four current U.S. Department of Interior fire programs under the new agency.
Fennessy’s long and diverse career is part of why his hiring has been welcomed by some in the wildfire community, including the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters.
“If you haven't walked in those shoes and done those jobs and moved up through those leadership ranks, then I think it becomes very difficult to provide quality leadership or administrative management without a clean picture of the people you're leading,” the group’s President, Luke Mayfield, told the Mountain West News Bureau.
Fennessy’s hiring was also celebrated by Lori Moore-Merrell, who stepped down as U.S. Fire Administrator earlier this year.
“Brian's unique combination of operational wildland firefighting experience and metropolitan fire service leadership makes him the ideal person to navigate this complex consolidation and modernization effort,” she wrote on LinkedIn.
In a letter bidding farewell to his current staff, Fennessy said that the new service presents a “historic opportunity to strengthen interagency coordination, modernize capabilities, and elevate the profession of wildland firefighting.”
Fennessy has publicly advocated for better pay and benefits for wildland firefighters, telling federal officials last fall that federal firefighters are “being lost in record” numbers due in part to “low pay and benefits.”
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” he warned.
Permanent pay raises were finally approved by Congress in March.
Fennesy’s advocacy is another reason why Grassroots’ Mayfield embraced his hiring.
“If you take care of firefighters, then you provide the service expected by the … public,” he said. “And you meet the mission.”
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
