This year the U.S. and Mexico celebrated their 200th year of diplomatic relations, and for almost 25 years now the two countries have worked together in information-sharing and wildfire management. The U.S. Forest Service and the National Forest Commission of Mexico (Comisión Nacional Forestal, or CONAFOR) work with similar wildland fire challenges and a shared approach in the Incident Command System.
This collaboration has its roots back in 1998, when Mexico suffered through its worst fire season on record and was mounting a massive response to try to contain environmental damage and community threat. According to a recent feature story by the Forest Service’s International Programs, smoke from the 1998 Mexico fires caused serious air quality deterioration across hundreds of miles from Veracruz north to the Gulf States along the U.S. border.
The USFS sent literally tons of equipment, personnel, and other resources to Mexico, initiating what’s become a longstanding knowledge-sharing exchange. U.S. firefighters began then to regularly travel to Mexico to teach ICS principles and operations and to share resources, and Mexican firefighters started traveling here to help fight fires and add skills alongside U.S. firefighters.
photo courtesy CONAFOR
Eduardo Cruz traveled from Mexico to the Sequoia National Forest soon after the 1998 fires. He worked on a helitack crew in California and launched longtime international friendships; Cruz is now the fire management director of CONAFOR. During 2020’s brutal R5 season, he brought five crews of Mexican firefighters to California to work on fires — the first time that Mexico had sent an entire delegation of firefighters to support U.S. efforts.
CNN reported back in September 2020 that the Mexican crews brought to California by Eduardo Cruz worked on the Sequoia Complex, which at the time had burned more than 144,000 acres and was just 35 percent contained. “Fires do not have borders, fires do not have different languages and cultures,” Cruz told CNN. “In the end we all speak the same language when it comes to fighting fire.”
The Forest Service has a 2020 photo album online [HERE].
An archived story from WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER Magazine about the 1998 fires in Mexico is online [HERE]. (NOTE that it’s on the archive.org website and most of the old links on that page are no longer functional.)
During the 2007 Fire Siege in Southern California our CAL FIRE Incident Management Team was assigned to the Harris Fire that was burning on both sides of the border. Hundreds of structures destroyed, 8 deaths (mostly immigrants crossing the border) and scores injuries occured on the U.S. side. With the State in full drawdown we had no relief for anyone assigned. I received a call from the Tijuana Fire Chief asking if we wanted some help. Within 4 hours we had 45 firefighters from Tijuana and Tecate at the incident base. We immediately provided them with a Spanish speaking fire captain, training on fire shelters and then deployed them in their fire engines and vehicles. This was able to happen because the State and Mexico had a written agreement to assist each other. The Mexican firefighters were as diligent and committed as our firefighters. I have a fond memory of many of our firefighters in fire camp exchanging fire t-shirts with their Mexican firefighter brothers and sisters.
In April 2008 I was on the Alamo Fire on the Coronado NF. The fire started in Mexico near the border and burned into the Coronado. There were six fire fighters (Bomberos) on the Mexico side. They had walked several miles to get there. The Crew boss was 73 years old and the only one that had a hard hat. They all wore nomex shirts and blue jeans. There were armed Federales on horse back to protect Bomberos from drug smugglers. Our deputy IC met with them and asked what equipment they would most like to have. The answer was sleeping bags, so he got some bags from our supply unit and gave to them to keep.
I got to spend 2 weeks in Cancun setting up a Fire-Trol retardant base after Hugo, I believe early nineties. Set it up at the international airport.
Very hard working and nice people to work with. Spent several days training with the people about the retardant and its uses along with the pilots and crew training. Enjoyed some great food as we travelled around the out country. Great lesson about working together with the crew.
Zoom in on a couple of the pics. Why do the FS employees have the “US” blacked out on their agency badges??? Is this some kind of R5 PC?????
Danne, those are the little black bands that people often wear after a firefighter fatality.
That’s how you wear your badge when you’re honoring a fallen firefighter.
I had to google “lady shovel”.
I know it as “lady shovel”, I must be older than you…retired FS
Sure enough Chris. Lady shovels were (are?) a staple of any ground-pounder crew. Perhaps more utilitarian than a Pulaski because you can scrape and dig, throw soil and even chop saplings and branches when properly sharpened, I always thought it was named so because of its petite size. About the only thing it isn’t good for is a Pulaski-throwing contest! LR
The fire shovel is quite versatile.
On one fire “back in the day” our crew could not make it back to an established helispot on time, so we quickly built a new one using our shovels. The crewleader chose a site that was appropriate and we started chopping alders in order to get a 206L in for pick-up. Luckily we were beside a lake, so the clearing effort was reduced. A very rudimentary landing site, but it worked.
Back then we sharpened our shovels most of the way up the sides. Can’t do that anymore.