A forest firefighter is suing the US Forest Service, claiming he was “rejected” after speaking publicly about loose coronavirus safety regulations during last year’s historic fire season that razed millions of hectares 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, was “discriminated against and retaliated for protesting the lack of COVID-19 protocols and protections for firefighters, families and the public. “
Rios says he has been denied rehiring rights, the process of hiring federal firefighters each season of fires, after he publicly criticized his boss’s treatment of safety guidelines.
He also filed a complaint with the United States Special Counsel Office, alleging that his rights to freedom of expression as a public official were violated. Both complaints were received in February and investigations are ongoing, according to his lawyer, Tom Dimitre.
In a statement sent by e-mail, the Forest Service declined to comment on pending litigation and said “as a matter of policy, we do not discuss personnel issues”.
The federal complaints come from a message that Rios posted on a Facebook community page in July. In the post, he warned residents of his small Northern California county that his fire crew would be returning home to Klamath National Forest without first quarantine after spending a week in Southern California, which was considered a Covid- hot spot. 19 during the summer and for many months afterwards.
“We chose this job and knew the dangers, bringing us back to Siskiyou exposing an older public population and our own families is absolutely myopic in our opinion,” he wrote in the post.
He posted a screenshot showing the names of officers in the Klamath National Forest that community members could contact with questions or concerns.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic spread across the country, Rios was concerned about his son’s health compromise and what could happen if his 4-year-old son contracted a respiratory infection.
Like her mother and father, Felix Bell-Rios was born with severe asthma that can trigger attacks at any time. In 2019, he was taken by helicopter to an intensive care unit after a particularly cruel episode and spent two days in the hospital. He now uses Flovent medication and a nebulizer to keep the air passages unobstructed.
When Covid-19 arrived in the United States last year, Rios wondered what it would mean for the next fire season and for his son’s safety. After discussing the matter with his girlfriend and members of his fire team, he said he felt confident that the Forest Service would adopt security measures for Covid-19.
But that was not his experience when the fire season began, he said.
His team received hand sanitizer and masks, but were not instructed to quarantine before traveling to Southern California or later. Instead, his crew was told to isolate themselves if they developed symptoms after returning to Siskiyou County, a rural community near the Oregon border.
Rios feared that these mitigation plans were insufficient, he said. He and other team members used public restrooms and grocery stores while in Los Angeles and did not wear masks near them or during firefighting.
During his time in Southern California, he said, he expressed concern to his managers that traveling to an urban area with high Covid-19 rates could put his son and elderly residents in Siskiyou County at risk.
“They left us to dry,” he said of the Forest Service. “They didn’t care about us or our safety, the safety of the public, the safety of our children.”