The U.S. Army is addressing complaints by federal firefighters about unsafe conditions at Pohakuloa Training Area, according to an Army official.
In March, firefighters at PTA made a complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration listing several unresolved safety violations. Those violations included a missing fire suppression system in the living quarters of the PTA fire station, reportedly requiring firefighters to live in decades-old prefrabricated steel Quonset huts without a formal kitchen area, and forcing them to wash dishes in a makeshift area by their toilet and shower.
Other violations reported included a lack of proper fit-testing for breathing apparatuses and masks, a nonfunctioning ventilation system that failed to remove gases from fire trucks, and other safety rules not being followed.
Furthermore, firefighters reported concerns earlier this month that the U.S. Army wanted to conduct a prescribed burn at Pohakuloa despite insufficient manpower and equipment to keep the fire under control.
Michael Donnelly, spokesman for the Hawaii U.S. Army Garrison, issued a statement last week acknowledging the complaints and seemingly indirectly confirming some of them, but claiming that others already have been resolved.
“U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii is in the final stages of transitioning our team to a new, and required, fire station on PTA,” wrote Donnelly. “U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii is actively addressing the requirements to install a fire suppression system in the facility, with construction starting early in fiscal year 2023. A separate sink to facilitate dishwashing was installed outside of the bathroom in the fall of 2021 and corrected within weeks of learning about the situation.”
Donnelly also stated that replacement and repair of equipment occurs on a timeline set by the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army based on fiscal year congressional funding.
He added that PTA’s current operational firefighting fleet includes “two wildland firefighting brush trucks operational with another in the shop for routine services, two fire engines, two ambulances, one crash truck, one tanker, and multiple command and utility vehicles.”
But firefighters insist that the situation at PTA is intolerable.
“What (Donnelly) doesn’t say is that those two brush trucks are barely standing,” said Kaanapu Jacobsen, president of the Federal Firefighters of Hawaii union. “The crash truck only has half a tank of the foam it needs, and those command vehicles can’t be driven by us because they don’t have lights and other equipment. We’re not allowed to drive them.”
Jacobsen said the firefighters filed two more complaints Friday regarding “managerial mismanagement” surrounding overtime and other concerns.
“They are lacking in so many areas,” Jacobsen said, adding that Army officials investigating the complaints earlier in the week agreed.
“They couldn’t believe what they were seeing,” Jacobsen said. “Folks in (Washington) D.C. said these are some of the worst living conditions in the country.”
Donnelly also stated the U.S. Army Garrison has not and does not plan to conduct prescribed burns within PTA this year, and will only do so “once all of the required personnel, equipment, coordination, and safety protocols (are) in place.”
Jacobsen agreed that the PTA firefighters are woefully underequipped — at minimum, PTA requires 13 firefighters on duty per shift, but it currently averages only six, he said.
“If we had a fire now, we could not respond to it,” Jacobsen said.
But he added that the current leadership at PTA is “very young and inexperienced,” which Jacobsen said has led them to make rash decisions such as ordering a controlled burn without understanding the risks.
Neither Jacobsen nor Donnelly have received a final report from OSHA inspectors who visited PTA in March, nor from the Army investigation earlier this week.
Reporter John Burnett contributed to this story.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.