A Furloughed Funeral

It’s no secret that the government is partially-shut down and over 800,000 federal employees are furloughed.  One of the groups of furloughed employees is the U.S. Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture.  This agency is comprised of people specializing in biology, botany, recreation and wildland fire to name a few.  A wildland firefighter from the San Bernardino National Forest passed away in his sleep on January 6^th, just 3 days after turning 57.  His name is Frank Esposito and he was the Superintendent of the Big Bear Hotshots, due to retire at the end of the month.  Frank spent his career with the Forest Service after serving in the U.S. Navy.  Frank served mostly on Hotshot crews through his time with the Forest Service. Hotshots are the special operation units of wildland firefighting.  They hike into remote areas of fires and fight them with hand tools, chainsaws and with fire itself.  The past few seasons, the four San Bernardino National Forest hotshot crews have been averaging around 800-1200 hours of overtime in a period of 6-months.  Those are hours on-top of their normal 40-hour work week.  These men and women risk their lives, are separated from their families for much of the summer, and work long hours both day and night to protect lives, property and public lands.  Frank was amazing at what he did and had an incredible impact on everyone he worked with. He served as a mentor for many of his employees.  Most importantly, Frank always emphasized family first for his crew.  He would fight for more than the normal 2 days off between fire assignments so his crew could reconnect with their families and have time to recover before going out for another 2-4 week assignment.  With Frank’s passing everyone wanted to make sure he was honored properly, except for the U.S. Government.

Even though Frank was off-duty when he died, honor is deserved for his years of service to this country as a federal wildland firefighter. A typical firefighter funeral consists of an agency vehicle procession, uniformed personnel, an honor guard to present a memorial flag and a uniformed salute for the family entering and exiting the services.  Requests for vehicle usage, employees being able to wear issued uniforms, and an honor guard is usually handled by the local forest.  With the government shutdown in place, these requests were required to be addressed in Washington DC.  In short, all requests were denied because it was not, “Essential to the Mission.” The management of the San Bernardino National Forest tried everything they could to send Frank off in the appropriate manner, but Washington DC would not budge.  Washington DC did however approve Forest Service Vehicles and uniformed employees to participate in the 2019 Rose Parade during the shutdown. The request to simply to have Frank’s Superintendent truck and one crew-buggy from each of the 3 crews he fought fire with…denied.  Forest Service employees were instructed that they were forbidden from wearing government issued uniforms, which had to be printed on the funeral announcements. There was a request for a 5-person federal honor guard to be at the services; again, it was denied. Apparently according to the government honoring someone who risked his life on the fire line for his career was not, “Essential to the mission.”  Not only did Frank spend his career working for the Forest Service but his wife is a career employee and three of his five children work for the agency. The government is not only disrespecting Frank, but his family and the rest of their employees.

Everyone involved is extremely humbled by the generosity of the community that surrounds them.  The memorial service is being funded through donations, mostly from furloughed forest service employees who have not been paid for over four weeks. A large contribution was made from the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. The day’s events were planned by furloughed forest service employees and their families.  Since Frank was a Veteran, a motorcycle procession was organized with the Patriot Guard Riders to bring the family from the mass to the cemetery. Over 200 firefighters from municipal departments attended the day’s events along with over 300 ununiformed Forest Service personnel. For the Memorial, a group of 25 firefighters from multiple different fire agencies came together just two days before the event to form an honor guard when it was finalized that the government would not authorize a federal honor guard.  Big Bear, Cal Fire, Camp Pendleton, Cathedral City, Corona, Costa Mesa, Idyllwild, Los Angeles City, Los Angeles County, Orange County, Redlands, Rialto, Riverside City and San Bernardino County all sent uniformed personnel, trucks and/or honor guard members. The San Bernardino National Forest was able to get an American Flag for his wife and Forest Service Flags for his five children, which was not approved till the last minute.  Even though Frank did not receive the honor and respect that he deserved from the government he worked for, the members of the larger fire community and ununiformed Forest Service employees showed how important personnel and community are.  Maybe the government needs to learn that personnel and community are more essential to the mission than they think.