U.S. wildfire fighters to mask up after decades-long ban on smoke protections
“This is going to make a huge difference in protecting people’s health,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the nonprofit group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology…noting that his worst exposures as a Forest Service firefighter had come while traveling old logging roads choked with smoke. “I wish I’d had the option to wear a mask,” he said.
Boosting timber harvesting in national forests while cutting public oversight won’t solve America’s wildfire problem
Trump, federal officials and members of Congress who are advancing legislation such as the Fix Our Forests Act have also called for speeding up approval of timber-harvesting projects by reducing public comment periods on proposals, limiting environmental analyses of the plans and curtailing the ability of groups to sue to block or change the projects in court.
Research shows that environmental reviews are rarely the main barrier to forest projects aimed at reducing fire risk.
The bigger obstacles are the shrinking of the federal forest workforce over the past two decades, the low commercial value of the small trees and brush that need to be removed, and the lack of contractors, processing facilities and markets for low-value wood.
‘If I Live to 25, I’ve Lived a Good Life’
For decades, wildfire fighters have been sent to work in toxic smoke without masks or warnings about long-term health risks, The New York Times has reported. They inhale poisons that are linked to more than a dozen kinds of cancer, including leukemia. Many are falling gravely ill, and some are dying at young ages.
But when these firefighters get sick, they don’t all receive the same help.
Wildfire veterans furious at DHS claim that raided crews were not firefighters
Wildland fire veterans are seething at a claim made by federal officials that two crews raided by immigration agents at the scene of a wildfire in Washington state were “NOT firefighters.”
Many political figures and media outlets have repeated the claim, even though public documents show the crews have firefighting classifications and were assigned to key frontline roles battling the blaze.
Heroic efforts — and preparation — saved hundreds of homes near the Flat Fire
Aside from the firefighters’ efforts, both Puller and Schulze credited homeowners for practicing Firewise guidelines, which recommend measures like clearing combustibles away from the first 5 feet of a home and keeping roofs and gutters clear of leaves and pine needles.
It’s a community-wide effort that Schulze said he saw throughout Sisters.
“Just driving through you can tell that there’s been a lot of Firewise prep in this area,” Schulze said. “And rightfully so. It’s probably the worst area in Oregon for fires. So I guess they’ve learned a thing or two about it.”
Firefighters question leaders’ role in Washington immigration raid
Wildland firefighters were stunned when federal immigration authorities last week raided an active wildfire response in Washington state, arresting two firefighters and sidelining crews for hours.
Wildfire veterans say the operation was nearly unprecedented, a breach in longstanding protocol that federal agents don’t disrupt emergency responders to check immigration status.
Worse, many wildfire veterans believe the management team overseeing the fire crews played a key role in handing over the firefighters to immigration authorities.
Border Patrol arrested firefighters as they were battling a wildfire
The immigration raid by Border Patrol agents on an active fire scene shocked many veteran wildland firefighters. Several of them said they could not remember a similar episode happening in the past. And some worried that such enforcement efforts would distract firefighters working in strenuous environments and have a chilling effect among a workforce that relies heavily on immigrant labor.
“Firefighting is a difficult, dangerous job and firefighters need to keep their focus on the fire,” said Dale Bosworth, a former chief of the U.S. Forest Service. “We don’t need to have those kind of distractions. It’s dangerous.”
5 years after Oregon’s Labor Day fires, scientists find surprises in streams
Scientists have been studying how water quality and wildlife have fared in 30 streams in the five years since Oregon’s Labor Day Fires, one of the state’s most extreme wildfire events. Now, their preliminary results are turning the scientific understanding of fire recovery on its head. Instead of suffering, aquatic wildlife is thriving in all of the streams — with one exception — where salvage logging has occurred.
Federal agents arrest firefighters working on WA wildfire
Two people fighting the Bear Gulch fire on the Olympic Peninsula were arrested by federal law enforcement Wednesday, in a confrontation described by firefighters and depicted in photos and video.
Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday about the confrontation.
“You risked your life out here to save the community,” the firefighter said. “This is how they treat us.”
Wildfire disasters are increasingly in the news, yet less land is burning globally – here’s why
With intense, destructive fires often in the news, it can seem like more land is burning. And in parts of the world, including western North America, it is.
Globally, however, our team of fire researchers also found that the total area burned actually declined by 26% over those two decades.
Private land used for logging is more prone to severe fire than public lands. A new study shows why
And while public lands are less likely to experience severe fire than timber lands — with a 57% probability of experiencing high-severity fire, compared to timber lands’ 66% — government forest managers aren’t necessarily doing a perfect job either, experts say.
While timber companies’ approaches tend to be too “hands-on” — bulldozing over the natural ecosystem (sometimes literally) — the U.S. Forest Service still tends to be too “hands-off,” experts argue: National Forests are still lagging behind on much-needed prescribed burning and mechanical thinning work (or “forest raking” as the president likes to call it).
Wildfire fighters, unmasked in toxic smoke, are getting sick and dying
The U.S. Forest Service has fought decades of efforts to better protect its crews — sending them into smoke without masks or warnings about the risks.
Top Democrat on oversight committee demands Trump administration account for wildland firefighter vacancies
The request follows ProPublica reporting that DOGE cuts and voluntary resignations left thousands of vacant jobs at the Forest Service, severely hampering its ability to fight wildfires.
Fighting wildfires is hellish work. It’s even worse under Trump
Trump administration’s climate denial is now colliding with its quest to shrink and incapacitate the federal workforce. Federal firefighters—spread across government land management agencies—are on the front lines of both crises, facing dire staffing shortages and bureaucratic chaos on top of shockingly meager pay, benefits, and protections.
Study: Prescribed burns substantially reduce wildfire severity, smoke
Prescribed burns are widely recognized as an effective wildfire mitigation tool. Now, using satellite imagery, land management records and fire emissions data, a team of researchers has put hard numbers to those impacts. During the 2020 season, fires that burned over recent prescribed fire areas were 16 percent less intense and emitted 220 fewer pounds of smoke per acre.
Unified wildfire service plan stalls after Congress demands answers
“Wildfire management is more than extinguishing fires,” the letter stated. “The critical linkage between fire suppression and forest management, including fuels reduction and prescribed fire, must be maintained. Severing forest management and forest managers from fire suppression will make firefighting less safe and put communities at greater risk.”
After Grand Canyon fire, forest experts say managed burns still needed
Pyne said it’s unfortunate that managed fires only make news when they get out of control and destroy large tracts or someplace special to people. He pointed to two controlled burns near Payson and Pine, Arizona, that achieved their desired effects without fanfare earlier this year.
Pyne likewise welcomed an investigation. He just hopes it won’t lead to an “all-suppression” fire management regime.
Firefighter In British Columbia Attacked By Grizzly Bear On Wildfire.
Within just seconds, the grizzly bear charged the crew lead, swiping at his legs with her claws. Even though the bear made contact with the firefighter's legs, he was able to remain standing long enough for him to take two swings with his paws before the bear knocked him to the ground.
All this happened within seconds. Watch the video here.
Vlogger captures amazing scene.
We Are Living in the Age of Fire. And It’s Only Going To Get Worse
“Fire is always where people are,” Flannigan continues. “It goes with us wherever we go. But the genie is out of the bottle. Fire is now uncontrollable, and we're going to see more and more fire and more and more catastrophic fire.”
Flannigan thinks we are living in the pyrocene, the age of fire, an idea from Arizona environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne. By burning so much coal and oil, we have changed the climate and can no longer control the processes.
2 Firefighters Killed in Idaho Sniper Ambush
Law enforcement officers exchanged fire with the gunman while the wildfire burned. Officials later found the body of a male suspect on the mountain with a firearm nearby, Sheriff Robert Norris of Kootenai County said at a news conference on Sunday night. The authorities said they believed the suspect had acted alone, but they did not release any information about his identity or motives.
“This was a total ambush,” Sheriff Norris said. “These firefighters did not have a chance.”