NYT: Firefighters’ Survivor Benefits Value Some Lives Over Others
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/19/us/for-families-of-dead-firefighters-a-fight-over-compensation.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130819&_r=1&
Kyle Green/Idaho Statesman, via Associated Press
This year has been one of the deadliest for wildfire crews in a decade. Firefighters battled a large blaze in Pine, Idaho, last week.
By JACK HEALY
Published: August 18, 2013
DENVER As a wilderness firefighter, Caleb Renno hiked over mountains until his heels bled, living out of tents and eating packaged food for weeks at a time in rugged corners of the burning West. He did not love the work, but like many young adults in southern Oregon, he knew he could always find steady pay fighting fires.
In 2008, while fighting a blaze in the mountains of Northern California, Mr. Renno and eight other people were killed in a helicopter crash, and his parents tried to seek federal benefits under a government program for the families of first responders who die on the job. But Mr. Renno, 21, was a contract firefighter, paid by a private company. The government denied his parents application.
Its just a horrible inequity, said his mother, Catherine Renno. These guys were doing some of the hardest firefighting there was, period. They were on the front lines. They work the line right next to the Forest Service workers. The only difference is that if one of them dies, theyre not going to get benefits.
In life, firefighters from disparate states and backgrounds work side by side, fighting the same blazes on the same terrain. But in death, families say, they are sifted into different categories based on their official employment status.
FULL story at link.