Much of the Western U.S. is in severe to exceptional drought
Drought monitor, March 16, 2021
This article was first published at Writers on the Range
By Harrison Raine
For the 2021 fire season, the writing is on the wall. The West, despite a few days of intense winter, is far drier than it was leading up to last year’s record-breaking fires.
As a hotshot crew member, the reality of what’s to come fills me with two distinct thoughts: money and dread. With my financial stability tied to overtime pay, I know that my pockets will be full when I am laid off next winter. But the unrelenting fires that stand between now and then make me nervous.
I also know that I am not alone. Across the West, people in homes and communities are filled with anxiety as they look at dry timber and brown hillsides that are usually white this time of year. For them, when the air fills with smoke, there won’t be any fire paychecks, just a prolonged sense of uncertainty.
Drought levels often serve as a good indicator of the fires to come, and things are far worse now than they were in the build-up to 2020. Rich Tinker, an author of the U.S. Drought Monitor at the Climate Prediction Center, told me, “In 2020, the highest we got to anywhere, was a D2 — Severe Drought. Now we are looking at D3 — D4 — Extreme and Exceptional Drought across much of the West and almost all of the Southwest.”
Fire on the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho. Photo by Harrison Raine
When Nick Nauslar, a fire meteorologist at the National Interagency Fire Center, talks about the fire season to come, he’s particularly blunt: “The deck is stacked against us. I fully expect a busier season than normal across the Southwest.”
For Tinker and Nauslar, the areas of concern primarily encompass the Four Corners states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. When you put together light snowpack, dry fuels and high temperatures, every wildland firefighter knows what that means.
In my time as wildland firefighter, the question I get asked again and again is whether I am ever scared. The answer to this question is “yes,” but not in the life or death way in which its asked.
There are far more constant threats than the flames themselves. Smoke, for one. Carbon emissions, for another.
I think I’m worried most by the knowledge that damage from these wildfires affects the health of millions of people, and that the large wildfires of today are ensuring bigger ones in the future. Everyone should be concerned about this reality, not just those of us on the fire line.
Wildfires and their management are known by some researchers as a “wicked problem,” where no optimal solution exists. For decades, forest managers were convinced that suppressing all fires was the answer. But we’ve known for a while now how misplaced those beliefs were, even as many agencies cling to that failed strategy of a century ago.
Jerry Williams, former fire and aviation director for the U.S. Forest Service, puts it best about our stubborn wrongheadedness: “Every year we set a new record, we invest more in (fire) suppression, invest less in mitigation and wonder why we’re not getting on top of it.” If someone who directed the largest wildland firefighting force in the world makes this statement, it’s probably time to try something else.
Brian Head Fire, Near Brian Head, UT, Dixie National Forest, 2017. Photo by Harrison Raine
What we need are policies and programs that address wildfires in ways beyond putting fires out. This Spring, Colorado showed that it’s willing to learn from last season’s pain when Gov. Jared Polis and State legislators from both sides of the aisle released a series of bills aimed at wildfire mitigation, not only wildfire suppression.
The millions the state spends now on restoring forests and hardening homes pale in comparison to the costs of firefighting and rebuilding homes. Every dollar spent on prevention saves $17 in suppression, according to a report from former Utah Gov. Gary R Herbert.
There is also a bill to allow former inmates with firefighting experience to seek future employment with the state, which will help ensure a consistent workforce.
I hope the federal government is taking notes.
Cameron Peak Fire, Near Red Feather Lakes, Arapahoe and Roosevelt National Forest, Colorado – 2020. Photograph Harrison Raine.
Harrison Raine is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He started fighting wildfires in 2016 and is a recent graduate of Colorado College.
Will they also cover up vehicle accidents, tree strikes, and burnovers?
Fire personnel on the Williams Fork Fire in Colorado in 2020. USFS Photo by Kari Greer.
The U.S. Forest Service and the four land management agencies in the Department of the Interior have refused to disclose how many of their firefighting personnel have been hospitalized due to the coronavirus.
To their credit, the FS has provided the numbers that have tested positive throughout 2020, and as recently as January 19 spokesperson Stanton Florea told Wildfire Today that since the pandemic started 642 have tested positive. Of those, 569 have recovered, Mr. Florea said, but 74 have not yet fully recovered or returned to work as of January 19. But he said they did not know how many had been hospitalized.
I attempted to obtain similar information from the Department of the Interior, but after several days of delays, receiving no data, and the request being elevated to higher levels, spokesperson Richard Parker wrote in an email, “We respectfully decline to comment further on this topic at this time.”
Four land management agencies in the DOI employ fire personnel, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Fish & Wildlife Service, and National Park Service.
There is no legitimate reason for the DOI or the Forest Service to be secretive about the effects of the pandemic on their firefighting personnel. If they refuse to say how many have been sickened by the coronavirus because of their jobs, what’s next? Will they cover up other injuries and fatalities, such as tree strikes, vehicle accidents or rollovers, broken femurs, concussions from rolling rocks? Will the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center have to stop issuing reports about accidents which can provide learning opportunities? Or have they already?
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) does not prevent the agencies from releasing anonymized summary data that does not identify individuals. For example, anyone can go to the Centers for Disease Control website and get COVID statistics at the county level. Numbers available on a day by day chart include cases, deaths, percent positivity, and new hospital admissions (COVID). Below are the stats for Clay County, South Dakota which has fewer residents, 13,864, than there are wildland firefighters in the federal agencies. This does not invade anyone’s privacy or violate HIPPA.
COVID statistics for Clay County, SD, January 27, 2021. CDC
It is not asking too much for the agencies that employ around 15,000 firefighters to maintain and release the same information available for Clay County residents, few of whom are serving their country battling wildfires in a job that was already dangerous before the pandemic.
Refusing to disclose the number of infected or hospitalized fire personnel prevents these tactical athletes from making an assessment of the degree of additional risk they are in. Providing this life and death data is the least we can do to help fire personnel make decisions about risking their health … or not.
It is immoral and unethical to keep this information secret.
The upper levels of the BLM have been in turmoil for the last two years. During the entire Trump administration no BLM Director was confirmed, and 200 Washington office employees were told their jobs were being moved thousands of miles away to western states. The term “hollowed-out” has been used to describe the management of the agency. And in the Department of Agriculture, 250 researchers in Washington quit after being faced with forced relocations according to Propublica.
Maybe under the new administration the cloud of secrecy over the effects of the coronavirus on forestry and range technicians will be lifted and transparency will become more normal.
The article was edited to indicate that the 250 researchers who quit, according to Propublica, were within the Department of Agriculture, not necessarily with the Forest Service (which is in the Department Agriculture).
By mid-September, there was no one left to call. The West, with its thousands of federal, state, and local fire engines and crews, had been tapped out.
Wildfires across the West had consumed the labor of all available wildland firefighters, and though there were fewer fires burning, those fires were larger and more difficult to contain. They consumed 13 million acres — an area almost the size of West Virginia.
In the midst of the 2020 wildfire season, John Phipps, the Forest Service’s deputy chief, told Congress that this “was an extraordinary year and it broke the system. The system was not designed to handle this.”
Draining the national wildland firefighting pool was why my fire crew and I had to work longer and harder than usual on the Idaho-Oregon border. We were fighting the Woodhead fire, which had peaked at 85,000 acres and threatened to burn the developed areas around the towns of Cambridge and Council, Idaho.
With only three crews to try to contain a fire that required probably ten crews, it meant day and night shifts for 14 days. Each crew found itself with miles of fire line to construct and hold. With not enough person-power, we were always trying to do more with less, and it was no comfort to know that what we faced was not unique.
Across the nation, the large fires meant working in hazardous conditions that called for far more workers than were available. For those of us on the line, it came down to little sleep and a heavy workload, combined with insufficient calories and emotional and physical exhaustion.
Fighting wildfires week after week takes a toll on the body. Smoke contains carcinogens, and firefighters spend days exerting themselves immersed in air thick with ash. We all figure that the long-term health effects cannot be good.
One of my co-workers confessed that he goes to sleep “with pain in my knees and hands,” and added, “I wake up with pain in my lungs and head.” Over a six-to-eight month fire season, minor injuries can become chronic pain.
Wildland firefighters are also vulnerable to suicide due to job-related stress and the lack of resources outside of the fire season. Long assignments put a strain on firefighters’ families and can damage relationships. A 2018 psychological study, conducted by Florida State University, reported that 55% of wildland firefighters experienced “clinically significant suicidal symptoms,” compared to 32% for structural firefighters.
Wildland firefighters who work for federal agencies, such as the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management, are classified as “Range” Technicians” or “Forestry Technicians” — a title more suitable for golf course workers than people wearing heavy packs and working a fire line.
Calling them “technicians” negates the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to work with wildfire. Most firefighters sign contracts as seasonal “1039s,” agreeing to work 1,039 base hours for $12-$16 an hour. This is one hour short of being defined as a temporary worker who is eligible for benefits such as retirement and year-round health care.
Overtime work is what allows “technicians” to pay the bills, but once they reach 1,039 base hours some firefighters are laid off even while the fire season continues and their regions continue to burn.
There is a remedy in sight: the Wildland Firefighter Recognition Act, which formally identifies wildland firefighters as exactly that, tossing out the technician term and recognizing the “unusual physical hardship of the position.”
Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines introduced the bill last year, and recently, California Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa introduced the bill in the House. Co-sponsored by California Democratic Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, the bill currently sits with the House Oversight and Reform Committee. This is a nonpartisan bill that deserves support from every Westerner.
We all know fires will continue to burn throughout the West, but right now many of the men and women who fight those fires on our behalf are suffering from burnout. Addressing wildfires as a national priority starts with recognition of the profession fighting them.
From Writers on the Range.
Harrison Raine has been a wildland firefighter since 2016.
Vice President Biden at the memorial service for the Granite Mountain Hotshots in 2013: “Firefighting is not what they did — it is who they were”
Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Granite Mountain Hotshots’ Memorial Service, Prescott Valley, Arizona. July 9, 2013. Screenshot from C-SPAN video.
With a new administration taking the reins of the federal government January 20, some may be thinking about what changes, if any, will affect wildland firefighting. Of course it is dangerous to attempt to predict what any government official will do, but in this case President Elect Joe Biden has a lengthy track record even before he served as Vice President for eight years under the Obama presidency.
Vice President Biden spoke at the memorial service July 9, 2013 in Prescott Valley, Arizona, for the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who died June 30, 2013 on the Yarnell Hill Fire. From the C-SPAN recording, we made a video clip of his remarks and the slide show that followed featuring the 19 men. You can see the entire two-hour service at C-SPAN.
Granite Mountain Hotshots’ Memorial Service, Prescott Valley, Arizona. July 9, 2013. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
At Prescott Valley Mr. Biden showed tremendous empathy and appreciation for the deceased men, their families, and firefighters in general, saying, “All men are created equal, and then a few became firefighters,” and, “They were heroes long before we knew their names.” Few public servants would be capable or have the desire to exhibit the degree of compassion for firefighters showed by Mr. Biden. Most people will find themselves choking up while listening to his sympathetic words. Cameras caught people in the audience wiping away tears.
Vice President Biden also spoke September 12, 2009 at the memorial service for the two firefighters killed on the Station Fire near Los Angeles, Tedmund Hall and Arnaldo Quinones.
In 2013 Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder presented the Medal of Valor to 18 firefighters and police officers for exhibiting exceptional courage. The Vice President, a former Chairperson of the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, made some very meaningful remarks, some of which appeared to be unscripted. Here is a brief excerpt:
There’s something special about firefighters and cops……. You all share — you’re all crazy, God love you — you all share a selflessness that is not easily explained, a commitment to your fellow man that’s rare, bravery that inspires, literally inspires almost everyone that hears about it……. Being a firefighter or police officer is not what you do, it’s who you are….. There’s something about ya’ll. You can smell it when you’re 10, you’re 12, you’re 15. And God we’re lucky for it man. I marvel at what makes them tick. I marvel at what makes them tick.
But showing compassion and empathy does not guarantee future action or passing legislation when necessary.
The Obama/Biden administration worked with Congress to address climate change in many ways, including participating in the 2015 Climate Agreement. During the last four years the U.S. has withdrawn from the Agreement and taken other actions to reverse previous progress, but Mr. Biden has said he will make dealing with climate change an important priority, will again honor the agreement, and has an ambitious goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The large majority of respected climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change has greatly affected our weather. The higher temperatures and bouts of drought and extreme weather have resulted in lower fuel moistures and extreme wildfires that are very difficult to suppress. At stake are lives, private property, health of the population, and natural resources. Lack of action to slow climate change is not a reasonable option.
Here are some examples of Mr. Biden’s record on firefighter issues documented by the International Association of Firefighters:
As vice president, Mr. Biden was tasked by President Obama as the administration’s point-person on first responder issues.
During his time in the Senate, he played a leadership role on nearly every piece of legislation introduced affecting fire fighters.
Early in his Senate career, Mr. Biden championed the Public Safety Officers Benefit (PSOB) program, which provides death benefits to the families of fallen fire fighters. He later introduced and passed legislation to increase PSOB benefits from $150,000 to $250,000, and indexed it to inflation so the benefit is now $340,000.
Senator Biden helped create the Assistance to Firefighters (FIRE Act) and Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant programs, and consistently advocated for robust funding.
As vice president, Mr. Biden helped push through the Zadroga 9/11 Act to provide healthcare and compensation to those fire fighters who participated in the 9/11 response and recovery efforts. (Video of Jon Stewart advocating for the extension of the Act in 2019.)
William Shakespeare wrote in his play The Tempest, “What’s past is prologue.” We can safely assume that in his administration, Mr. Biden will continue to care about firefighters. But he can’t pass legislation — he will need the cooperation of Congress, which has found it difficult move any kind of bill in recent years.
Perhaps Mr. Biden will have more luck than previous presidents due to having served in the Senate for 36 years and his relationship with Mitch McConnell, who may still be the Majority Leader in the Senate going forward. Here is an excerpt from an article at Firechief.com:
In his book “The Long Game: A Memoir,” McConnell stated that trying to deal with then-President Obama was impossible. “[Obama] acted like a professor every time we tried to discuss legislation. The first 45 minutes was always a lecture about how and why we were wrong,” McConnell wrote. On the other hand, McConnell loved dealing with Biden. “Joe would come into a meeting and say, this is what I need, and this is what I understand that you need. Is there any way to work out a deal here?”
It would appropriate $300M annually for the federal land management agencies’ prescribed fire programs. But are there other ways to reduce fire risk?
September 24, 2020 | 8:10 a.m. MDT
Prescribed fire at Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Oklahoma by M. Fidler, February, 2013.
A bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate that would make large sums of money available to increase the number of acres treated with prescribed fire (also known as controlled burns).
It has been fashionable during the last two years to blame “forest management” for the large, devastating wildfires that have burned thousands of homes in California. According to a 2015 report by the Congressional Research Service the federal government manages 46 percent of the land in California. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection manages or has fire protection responsibility for about 30 percent.
Research conducted in 2019 to identify barriers to conducting prescribed fires found that in the 11 western states the primary reasons cited were lack of adequate capacity and funding, along with a need for greater leadership direction and incentives. Barriers related to policy requirements tended to be significant only in specific locations or situations, such as smoke regulations in the Pacific Northwest or protecting specific threatened and endangered species.
The National Prescribed Fire Act of 2020, Senate Bill 4625, which was introduced last week by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and two cosponsors, would help address the capacity issue by appropriating $300 million for both the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior (DOI) to plan, prepare, and conduct controlled burns on federal, state, and private lands. It would also provide $10 million for controlled burns on county, state and private land that are at high risk of burning in a wildfire. Additionally, the bill establishes an incentive program that would provide $100,000 to a State, county, and Federal agency for any controlled burns larger than 50,000 acres. (Summary and text of the bill)
In order to carry out the projects, the legislation would establish a workforce development program at the Forest Service and Department of the Interior to develop, train, and hire prescribed fire practitioners, and creates employment programs for Tribes, veterans, women, and those formerly incarcerated.
In an effort to address air quality control barriers, the bill “Requires state air quality agencies to use current laws and regulations to allow larger controlled burns, and give states more flexibility in winter months to conduct controlled burns that reduce catastrophic smoke events in the summer.” The legislation will allow some prescribed fire projects larger than 1,000 acres to be exempt from air quality regulations.
Our Take
Appropriating more funds and hiring additional personnel for conducting prescribed fires could definitely result in more acres treated. If the bill passes, it would be a large step in the right direction. It is notable that the bill specifically mentions hiring those who were formerly incarcerated. Those who served time for non-violent offenses often deserve another chance, especially if they learned the firefighting trade on a state or county inmate fire crew.
There are many benefits of prescribed fires, including more control over the adverse health effects of smoke, improving forest health, and returning fire to dependent ecosystems.
But it gets complicated when prescribed fire is expected to “…help prevent the blistering and destructive infernos destroying homes, businesses and livelihoods”, as cited in a release issued last week by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
One provision of the bill is poorly worded and is confusing. In Section 102 it is either saying that no later than September 30, 2022 every unit of the USFS, FWS, NPS, and BIA must conduct a prescribed fire larger than 100 acres, possibly only applying to units west of the 100th meridian. Or, it might be interpreted as meaning each unit larger than 100 acres must conduct at least one prescribed fire. But either way it is ridiculous and arbitrary. Some 100-acre units might never be suitable for prescribed fire. Planning to use fire as a tool is based on science and the determination that treating an area with fire is PRESCRIBED in order to accomplish a number of specific objectives, not well-meaning but possibly detrimental legislation.
Scenario #1, Moderate fire conditions
There is no doubt that if a wildfire is spreading under moderate conditions of fuels and weather (especially wind), when the blaze moves into an area previously visited by any kind of fire the rate of spread, intensity, and resistance to control will decrease. Firefighters will have a better chance of stopping it at that location. The size of that earlier fire footprint will be a factor in the effectiveness of stopping the entire fire, since the wildfire may burn through, around, or over it by spotting. The availability of firefighting resources to quickly take advantage of what may be a temporary reduction in intensity is also critical. Unless the prescribed fire occurred within the last year or so there is usually adequate fuel to carry a fire (such as grass, leaves, or dead and down woody fuel) depending on the vegetation type and time of year. It is much like using fire retardant dropped by air tankers. Under ideal conditions, the viscous liquid will slow the spread long enough for firefighters on the ground to move in and put out the fire in that area. If those resources are not available, the blaze may eventually burn through or around the retardant.
Scenario #2, Extreme fire conditions
The wildfires that burn hundreds or thousands of homes usually occur during extreme conditions. What the most disastrous fires have in common is drought, low fuel moisture, low relative humidity, and most importantly, strong wind. In the last few weeks in California and Oregon we have seen blazes under those conditions spread for dozens of miles in 24 hours.
Rich McCrea, the Fire Behavior Analyst on the recent North Complex near Quincy, CA, said the wind on September 8 pushed the fire right through areas in forests that had been clear cut, running 30 miles in about 18 hours.
We can’t log our way out of the fire problem.
Burning embers lofted by the Creek Fire are seen as people are sheltering at the Mammoth Pool Reservoir Boat Launch, Sept. 5, 2020 in Northern California. Photo by Cameron Colombero, via Mike Ikahihifo.
On September 8, 2020 the Almeda Drive Fire burned 3,200 acres in Southern Oregon — it was not a huge fire, but there were huge losses. The 40 to 45 mph wind aligned with the Interstate 5 corridor as it burned like a blowtorch for 8 miles, starting north of Ashland and tearing through the cities of Talent and Phoenix. Approximately 2,357 structures were destroyed — but not all by a massive flaming front. Burning embers carried up to thousands of feet by the fire landed in receptive fuels near or on some structures, setting them alight.
A portion of the Almeda Drive Fire in the area of Phoenix and Talent in southern Oregon. Screenshot from video shot by Jackson County on September 8, 2020.
What can be done to reduce fire losses?
Jack Cohen is a retired U.S. Forest Service Research fire scientist who has spent years determining how structures ignite during extreme wildfires. In a September 21, 2020 article he wrote for Wildfire Today with Dave Strohmaier, they addressed how homes ignite during extreme wildfires.
“Surprisingly, research has shown that home ignitions during extreme wildfires result from conditions local to a home. A home’s ignition vulnerabilities in relation to nearby burning materials within 100 feet principally determine home ignitions. This area of a home and its immediate surroundings is called the home ignition zone (HIZ). Typically, lofted burning embers initiate ignitions within the HIZ – to homes directly and nearby flammables leading to homes. Although an intense wildfire can loft firebrands more than one-half mile to start fires, the minuscule local conditions where the burning embers land and accumulate determine ignitions. Importantly, most home destruction during extreme wildfires occurs hours after the wildfire has ceased intense burning near the community; the residential fuels – homes, other structures, and vegetation – continue fire spread within the community.
“Uncontrollable extreme wildfires are inevitable, however, by reducing home ignition potential within the HIZ we can create ignition resistant homes and communities. Thus, community wildfire risk should be defined as a home ignition problem, not a wildfire control problem.”
"Community wildfire risk should be defined as a home ignition problem, not a wildfire control problem." Jack Cohen and Dave Strohmaier.
Again, prescribed fire has many benefits to forests and ecosystems, and Congress would be doing the right thing to substantially increase its funding.
But in order to “…help prevent the blistering and destructive infernos destroying homes, businesses and livelihoods”, we need to think outside the box — look at where the actual problem presents itself. The HIZ.
I asked Mr. Cohen for his reaction to the proposed legislation that he and I were not aware of when the September 21 article was published.
“Ignition resistant homes, and collectively communities, can be readily created by eliminating and reducing ignition vulnerabilities within the HIZ,” Mr. Cohen wrote in an email. “This enables the prevention of wildland-urban fire disasters without necessarily controlling extreme wildfires. Ironically, ignition resistant homes and communities can facilitate appropriate ecological fire management using prescribed burning. The potential destruction of homes from escaped prescribed burns is arguably a principal obstacle for restoring fire as an appropriate ecological factor. Therefore, it is unlikely that ecologically significant prescribed burning at landscape scales will occur without ignition resistant homes and communities.”
Here are some suggestions that could be considered for funding along with an enhanced prescribed fire program.
Provide grants to homeowners that are in areas with high risk from wildland fires. Pay a portion of the costs of improvements or retrofits to structures and the nearby vegetation to make the property more fire resistant. This could include the cost of removing some of the trees in order to have the crowns at least 18 feet apart if they are within 30 feet of the structures — many homeowners can’t afford the cost of complete tree removal.
Cities and counties could establish systems and procedures for property owners to easily dispose of the vegetation and debris they remove.
Hire crews that can physically help property owners reduce the fuels near their homes when it would be difficult for them to do it themselves.
Provide grants to cities and counties to improve evacuation capability and planning, to create community safety zones for sheltering as a fire approaches, and to build or improve emergency water supplies to be used by firefighters.
Lolo Peak Fire at 8:14 p.m. MDT August 19, 2017 as seen from the Missoula area. Photo by Jim Loach.
On March 19, 2020 I took an early look at the topic of how we were going to fight fires during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is time for another look.
A very interesting study released August 1 used modeling to show how COVID-19 could spread through firefighters assigned to large wildfires. Using actual firefighter mobilization data for three different sized fires in 2017 they estimated that on an incident similar in size and duration to the Lolo Peak Fire that burned 53,000 acres south of Missoula, Montana, approximately one to 13 fire personnel could be killed by the COVID-19 virus.
The U.S. Forest deserves praise for funding this very important study that applies science to an issue that literally can be life or death for firefighters. It is based on a model, and as they say, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
It really illustrates a risk that is added to what was already one of the more dangerous professions, fighting wildfires.
Another facet to consider in addition to the potential fatalities is, how many will be infected? Many will be non-symptomatic and could unknowingly spread the virus to their colleagues, friends, children, spouse, parents, and grandparents unless they are very careful about their interactions.
Frequent testing with rapid results is imperative to reduce the risk of our firefighters being killed by a virus during their daily work activities or while assigned to a fire.
Fatalities are the worst possible outcome of course, but if one to thirteen could die on a fire like the Lolo Peak Fire under COVID-19 conditions, how many will be hospitalized, spend weeks on a ventilator, or suffer long-term debilitating symptoms? Will some firefighters mostly recover but incur permanent damage to their lungs, heart, or other organs, ending their career? Who will pay the medical bills? With long term physical problems, will they qualify for disability benefits?
Wildland firefighters are tactical athletes. College football program administrators in the Power 5 conference are concerned about a heart condition exhibited by some of their athletes which may be linked to COVID, but it is too soon to say for sure.
Myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, has been found in at least five Big Ten Conference athletes and among several other athletes in other conferences, according to two sources with knowledge of athletes’ medical care… Left undiagnosed and untreated, it can cause heart damage and sudden cardiac arrest, which can be fatal.
And then there are the “long haulers”. From the Cleveland Clinic:
Approximately 80% of those with COVID-19 end up having a mild response and most of those cases resolve in about two weeks. For people who have a severe response to the virus, it can take between three and six weeks to recover.
But now, there is growing concern over a separate group who don’t seem to fall into either of those categories. A number of people are now reporting lingering symptoms of the illness for one, two or even three months. This new group is mixed with those who experienced both mild and severe cases. As health experts step in to try to manage these patients and learn more, many are referring to this group as coronavirus “long-haulers” or “long-termers.”
There is much still unknown about this novel virus.
Wildland firefighters are defending and protecting our homeland, a fact our government, including our Senators and Congressmen, need to recognize. These men and women on the front lines must be equipped with hardware and aircraft to match the quality supplied to our military. They all need to be working under Firefighter job descriptions (not forestry technicians), employed year-round, and must be paid a living wage. They also need access to useful and effective mental health counseling and support to try to stem the rising tide of firefighter suicides.
