Much of California was on the brink of disaster when a wildfire raged in the mountains of Fresno County late last month. hot winds which will go further Break records for both your intensity and durationOver the next week and a half, as Basin Fire The fire spread to more than 14,000 acres and temperatures in the area reached 112 degrees, with at least nine firefighters having to be treated for heat-related illness. Four were taken to local hospitals, three of whom were airlifted from the fire line.
As the heat wave intensified, the incident management team overseeing the fire created a working group to deal with the extreme conditions. They provided firefighters with electrolytes to mix into drinking water and cool towels to place on their necks.
And on July 5, in what was possibly a first in the state, they built five generator-powered, air-conditioned yurts — three on the fire line and two at the incident command post — that will be used as emergency cooling stations.
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“I’ve been doing this job for over 35 years, and I can tell you I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Mike Lindenberry of the U.S. Forest Service, public information officer for the Basin fire. “Because of the heat this team, which originally comes in to solve problems, is starting to look at a different aspect of problem solving.”
Much attention has been paid to ways to combat extreme heat. The risk of forest fires increases And intensifies his behaviorwhich results in longer lead times, more destructive Fire season. But perhaps just as troubling are the challenges the heat poses to the health of firefighters, who are already working hard with heavy equipment in difficult terrain.
On Tuesday, Daniel Foley, 27, a first-year Forest Service firefighter assigned to the Bailey Ranger District in Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest, collapsed after completing a fitness test and died at a local hospital. It’s not yet clear if the heat was a factor. A heat warning was issued for the area, with afternoon temperatures in the 80s and 90s, depending on elevation, according to the National Weather Service.
“This is the hottest year I can remember,” said Mike Noel, assistant director for risk management for the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest region. He has been a wildland firefighter for 38 years. “All agencies have had a number of heat-related injuries this year.”
The team monitoring the Basin Fire in Fresno County built an air-conditioned yurt earlier this month for firefighters to use as an emergency cooling station.
(California Complex Incident Management Team 11)
He said California has seen an increase in heat-related illnesses among firefighters over the past 10 days, which coincides with higher temperatures. Lake of Fire He said more than 1,000 people were treated for such illnesses in Santa Barbara County on Thursday alone.
At least four firefighters suffered from heat-related illnesses while battling the blaze. Thompson Fire in Butte County on July 2, and at least one Massive fire in Ventura County According to public information officers of these fire incidents, the incident took place on July 3.
“We’re experiencing extreme heat across the West, and it’s possible entire teams are being affected,” said Timothy Inglesby, a former wildland firefighter and executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters unite for safety, ethics and ecology,
Firefighters working in wildland areas wear personal protective equipment weighing about 50 pounds, including a helmet, safety goggles and a personal pack containing water and other equipment, said David Acuna, battalion chief of communications for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s southern region.
They may also carry a 25-pound hose pack, as well as hand tools like a chain saw or nozzle. And they often must travel to remote locations on foot and then perform physical labor once they get there, which can include digging fire lines, laying hoses and clearing vegetation to bare mineral soil to prevent the fire from spreading — all while breathing in smoke, dust and debris.
“Sometimes it feels suffocating because it feels like you can’t escape the heat and the smoke,” Acuna said.
He said Cal Fire firefighters typically work 24-hour shifts, then take 24 hours off to rest and refuel. During those 24 hours, it can be hard to get a break. “If we can take a quick nap on the engine, that’s great, but most of the time we’re busy,” he said.
There was a time when breaks were openly disliked — “It’s a tough, macho culture,” said Riva Duncan, a former wildland firefighter and vice president Wildland firefighters on the groundAn advocacy group composed of retired and current federal fire personnel.
But for many, a wake-up call came in 2011, when Caleb Hamm, a 23-year-old fire chief for the Bureau of Land Management, said they were ready to send their kids back to school. died due to excessive heat He became the second federal wildland firefighter to do so, fighting a fire in Texas. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Report An article with recommendations for improved protection of firefighters was widely distributed.
Duncan said the incident raised awareness about the early signs of heat illness among superintendents, crew leaders and engine captains and encouraged firefighters to speak up when they don’t feel well. He said many crews now have EMTs who carry extra electrolytes and cooling blankets and are trained to recognize the early warning signs of heat illness, which can include cramps, weakness, nausea and fatigue.
Firefighters walk up a hill with burned ground behind them in Mariposa, California, on July 5.
(Noah Berger/Associated Press)
Still, the baseline for the conditions firefighters expect to encounter continues to change due to climate change, including More intense, longer-lasting heat waves,
“It’s not even halfway through July. This extreme heat condition has already started,” Duncan said.
“People need to understand that fires are behaving differently than they did before,” he said. “They’re not easy to put out because they’re burning under different conditions than they were 10, 15 years ago.”
Acuna said 3,630 wildfires had burned 228,756 acres in California as of Friday, while the five-year average over the same period is 3,743 fires and 111,813 acres.
“The fires are much more intense,” he said, attributing this to the heat and dryness, as well as the abundance of grass and other fuels that were fueled by two wet winters and remained largely untouched by two mild fire seasons.
Members of the Redding Hotshots, an elite team of Forest Service firefighters, are accustomed to dealing with extreme heat. But this season has been torturous even by their standards. They recently battled fires in the Tahoe and Modoc national forests, where temperatures hovered around 100 degrees.
“It’s always hot when it comes to fires, but it seems like this year so far we’ve certainly had to deal with temperatures well over 100, if not higher,” said Dan Malia, the fast-talking superintendent.
Forest Service firefighters typically work 16-hour shifts, followed by eight hours of rest that are often spent sleeping outside. Although Malia said breaks can be hard to come by depending on fire behavior, he says they encourage their members to stay hydrated, eat well and stay in the shade whenever possible.
He said the teams acclimatise to the heat through training, but it is difficult to fully prepare for such extreme conditions.
“When you finally get to the fire, it’s a little different,” he said. “There’s a lot of work, stress, smoke, heat, fire – all of those things definitely add up.”
Max Alonzo, national trade representative for the National Federation of Federal Employees and a former wildland firefighter who worked most of his career in the Forest Service, said the matter is further complicated because wildland firefighters are often sent to work in unfamiliar areas, causing them to experience the effects of extreme heat more acutely.
“I’ve noticed when people go to different climates and different topography, where they’re not used to, where they’re not used to the altitude, where they’re not used to the weather, they really struggle,” he said. “We’re a national resource, so they’ll go all over the country.”
He said agencies could do more to protect firefighters from the heat, including creating cooldown areas on fire lines. Although he applauded the use of cooling yurt on the Basin fire, he said it’s not a common practice. The common thing would be, “Hey, make sure you tell guys to stay hydrated,” he said.
He said more work could also be done to alternate staffing — taking firefighters off the line to let them cool down and then bringing them back on the line.
Cal Fire has already made changes to its personal protective equipment in response to rising temperatures, including wearing single-layer pants and removing colored ink from wildland jackets and undershirts because of evidence that it increases the body temperature of firefighters wearing them.
Federal agencies and many state and municipal departments have also begun using drones to spot fires or threatened fires before they occur, easing the burden on firefighters who would otherwise have to reach the scene on foot.
Malia said wildland firefighters in hot climates sometimes have to work double shifts — working hard in the mornings, then shutting down during the heat of the day and returning in the evening when the weather cools down.
Still, some say more changes may be necessary because The planet continues to warmThis could include sending more firefighters to an incident scene to distribute the workload more evenly, or placing a greater emphasis on nighttime operations.
Duncan said these circumstances also reflect a growing wisdom about managing some backcountry fires for ecological benefit, treating them like controlled burns rather than trying to suppress them immediately. That benefits the environment, he said, and it protects the physical health of firefighters, because it allows them to focus on fires that pose a threat to people or structures. The idea remains politically unpopular, he said.
Inglesby said it will also be important to have more controlled fires in the spring and fall to reduce the amount of fuel on the ground over the summer.
“The big thing is we have to actively control fires during the coldest time of year, rather than trying to control all the fires during the hottest time of year, when we fail, and we outstrip the human physical ability to operate in those conditions,” he said.
One thing is certain: these conditions are unlikely to improve.
“I had a desperate call from one of our members this morning, ‘When is this going to end?'” he said Wednesday. “Summer isn’t ending. We just have to adjust to the new normal, whatever that is.”
