Risky work: Vendors for firefighting camps face revenue swings

Alex E. Tavlian | Staff Writer The Sacramento Business Journal Oct. 4, 2013 Neither compares to Rome, but the Rim Fires base camps at Tuolumne City and Drew Meadow were seemingly built overnight, thanks to a small group of third-party vendors providing and setting up equipment. The base camps in and near Yosemite National Park are equipped with ofce trailers, showers, sinks, bathrooms, kitchens, washing machines for laundry and tents. Located in areas that typically have limited or no cellular service, base camps also are equipped with wireless internet and cellular service while res are fought. These miniature cities wouldnt be possible if not for the handful of vendors who work with government reghting agencies. They are contracted to supply the tents, showers, kitchens trailers, and food to reghters during the duration of res. The re support service industry is one of the least-known parts of reghting logistics, but one key to operations during large-scale wildres. While it can be lucrative it cost more than $125 million cost to ght the Rim Fire it is also one of the most unpredictable seasonal industries you could nd. Building a base camp starts with a vacant piece of land. Typically, youll have 12 to 24 hours to set up and serve breakfast for the crews, fuel equipment and arrange sleeping locations, said Bob Wood of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

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Wood, who served as the logistics section chief during the Mount Diablo-based Morgan Fire earlier in September, works regularly with the vendors who supply equipment and services during wildres. In the 12- to 24-hour window, logistics managers such as Wood will begin determining the equipment and services needed to set up and start operating a base camp. Thats when Jeff Abel gets a phone call. Abel, the owner of Placerville-based Abel Fire Equipment, provides showers, sinks, tents, water trucks, air conditioning and heating units and generators. Well get a call asking for 20 tents, power systems, washing stations and a shower, Abel said. We have to gure out what their needs are and the time frame to get something up and running. Abel said that the public is typically surprised when they learn about the sheer size of base camps. They think that all reghters go to hotels, he said. They dont realize that a micro city is built overnight. Versatility, exibility is key The business of supporting reghters is almost as stressful and unpredictable as that of reghting itself, Abel said. One moment youre being sent to one area of Yosemite and next youre heading to Tuolumne City, he said. Your company needs to be versatile. Abels staff is comprised of college students and retirees who are on-call for emergency dispatches to res. Most get the idea to enter the industry when they see the price tag for a large wildre or other natural disaster, he said. Yosemites Rim Fire is a prime example where the costs of ghting the blaze are upwards of $100 million.
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They watch a big re and think Oh my God, theres a $100 million re, Abel said. Then they decide to start a business. Theres a fundamental problem with that kind of thinking, he said: Prot margins in the emergency-support service business are thin, and revenue unpredictable. Youll have 50 viable, sustainable vendors on one day, he said. And then 400 after something like Hurricane Katrina. Even with the rapid expansion of emergency service vendors in the wake of Katrina, Wood recollected that the ight of California vendors to New Orleans left little to no options for California reghting. We had to start calling party supply companies for tents, Wood said. The party supply companies jumped at the chance to get a piece of the action in a major re, despite not knowing the process or having an agreement with the state. No money guarantee Cal Fire usually will sign agreements with a variety of vendors, spelling out the types of equipment available and cost to procure it, Wood said. Unlike a contract, Cal Fires agreements with vendors do not guarantee any money until the agency procures equipment or services. For example, a company supplying generators would have an agreement that would include the model, wattage, and whether it will be refueled by the vendor or Cal Fire, Wood said. With each variation comes a different procurement rate the cost of using the equipment. The process varies from agency to agency and from contractor to contractor. For Abels brother Steve and sister-in-law Laura, the process is very different. Steve and Laura Abel own Redding-based AAA Mobile Showers and Blaggs Food Service. Unlike many vendors, both of the companies are signed to ve-year national agreements with the National Interagency Fire Center, based in Boise, Idaho.

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Instead of receiving a call from individual re agencies, Abel gets a call from Boise to see if his equipment and services are available. Theyll give us the expected duration of the re, number of people to feed and location to report, Steve said of calls from the NIFC. For the Rim Fire, they told us there would be 800 people to feed. At the peak of the re, we were feeding 2,700 to 2,800 people. Be ready to be lucky The couple bought Blaggs Food Service from the Blagg Family in July 2012. Within a few days of taking ownership of the company, they were working their rst re as caterers for the reghters. It changed our summer plans for the last two years, he said. For the Rim Fire, the three meals provided daily by Blaggs Food Service cost roughly $50 per person, Steve Abel said. Unlike the U.S. Forest Service, which contracted Blaggs, Cal Fire used inmates to prepare meals for reghters at the Tuolumne City base camp to cut down costs. Abel believes that the cost to assign guards to watch over the inmates is more than what he charges for his services. Collectively, the Abel brothers have spent roughly 50 years in the re support industry. Both have learned how difcult the business is. It can be really tough, Steve said. You have to budget for multiple years. The reason? No two years are exactly alike in the re industry, especially when it comes to spending on equipment and support services from third-party vendors.

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Cal Fire spent more than $60 million on hired equipment such as water tenders, bulldozers, tents, trailers and kitchens in 2008-2009. Two years later, the agency spent less than $5 million, spokesman Daniel Berlant said. Even Wood, one of Cal Fires logistics experts, notes that vendors typically have two options to remain solvent during lean years: sell your equipment and enter another industry or start a second side business. Some small vendors are relying on res only, Wood said. But the re season only lasts four to six months in the North and eight to 10 months in the South. From when he started in the industry in the 1980s to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Abel supported his mobile shower company with Steves Christmas Trees, selling trees to keep aoat during lean years. Sometimes, youll get two lean years in a row, Abel said. Thats when calls come pouring in to both Steve and Jeff Abel asking whether theyd be interested in buying equipment. Ive known people who spent their retirement savings to start an equipment business,Jeff Abel said. A little while later, theyll be asking me to buy it so they can get back as much as they lost. Jeff Abel admitted that the nature of the industry is predicated on gambling. As difcult as it can be to survive, Steve Abel points to the intangible to explain success in the otherwise tough business: luck. It can be very lucrative, he said. But you have to be ready to be lucky. More importantly, you have to last long enough to be ready to be lucky.

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