Covid and Wildfire

(& workers rights)

Hello All,

I hope this missive reaches you warm and cozy and healthy. I’m here in Seattle, in the (very cold) basement, writing at my new desk. The windows to my right are covered in cloth, and Miles Davis is playing through my speaker. Weeks ago I was frantically trying to figure out: do I come home to Seattle or go somewhere else? Somewhere safer? I chose to come home, and have moved in with some lovely roommates. Unlike a lot of folks in the fire world, I am no longer an active firefighter, which means I don’t have to walk the strange, scary liminal line that many wildland firefighters find themselves navigating.

Getting sick was always part of my life as a firefighter. In my seven years of fire, but specifically my four years of hotshotting, there was the predictable battering of my immune system which occurred as each fire season progressed. I’d start the season well rested and ready to go, but after only a couple “rolls” on fires, where we often started out with an initial attack shift (IA shifts could last up to 36 hours) and then worked sixteens, my body began to fray at the edges. Each morning around 5am someone would wake us up. I deciphered my fatigue as the season wore on by assessing how long that wake up took. I’m a light sleeper. Did I wake up with the first morning noises, like usual, or did someone have to come over and physically shake me in my sleeping bag?

By mid-season the fatigue coalesces into a cough, maybe a sinus infection, maybe an upper or lower respiratory thing. One of the crew members picks up the “camp crud,” which is what we call the sickness that swims around fire camp, circulating from body to body, host to host. A fire camp is like a tiny, dirty city. It’s a bunch of tents and temporary structures. A mobile kitchen handing plates to face after face, each face either scrubbed clean from a recent shower or masked in ash and dirt from a day of work. Hands touch everything. Sanitizer is slathered on palms which, when scrubbed, retain tiny dark shadows of dirt and ash, unscrubbable. People cough. Some cover their mouths with their hands. Many don’t know what a cough pocket is (a cough pocket is your elbow, ya doof). Some don’t cover their mouths at all. Everyone has a different concept of cleanliness. Some men and women may carry a bottle or cup around with them, where they discreetly spit their chewing tobacco residue. Some spit directly on the ground. Loogies are hocked. Phlegm and bodily excretions are part of fighting fire.

Soon, the whole crew is sick. Alka Seltzer cold and Sudafed is passed around. We gobble giant Wellness Formula pills and burp up the strange herbal flavor as they dissolve in our stomachs. Each morning we get up at 5am. Some of us go to the medical tent, where we’re given cough drops. We climb into our buggies- small busses where we live -and cough, cough, cough. Our bodies ache. We work. We get up at 5am and go to bed around 11pm.

This, of course, is a regular season.

Recently, the Department of Labor released a statement listing the procedures an employee must take when reporting a Covid-19 contraction. Many wildland firefighters are seasonal. They come on in April or May, and are laid-off in October or November. They don’t have health insurance. They’re paid about $15 an hour. The bulk of their money comes from overtime and hazard pay, which thank god for that or else how would a job like this be worth it? The work is grueling, but a “forestry technician,” which is what most firefighters are listed as, is not a public-facing job. So each firefighter is directed by the DOL to check off a list of procedures when they get sick.

First, they have to identify that they got sick while on the clock. If they can’t prove that, they will have to pay for their own test, and the DOL, and whichever agency the firefighter is working for, is off the hook. The firefighter is left sick and out of work for however long it takes to recover. If they recover. Wildland firefighters, unlike structural firefighters, don’t wear the kind of PPE which prevents them from inhaling smoke. As a forest firefighter, they inhale smoke for sixteen hours a day if they’re on an active fire- maybe longer. As a hotshot we often camped in places where there was smoke. More than once we set up for the night only to have to move or get back to work because of advancing fire. Inhaling smoke is considered part of the job. Boogers and mucous are often black with ash and dirt, just like the tiny indents of our fingerprints.

What I’m saying is: many firefighters are likely more vulnerable to complications from Covid-19. If they can identify and prove that they contracted the virus on the job, then they have to go through a lengthy checklist, detailing the process of contraction and involving their superiors. This, all in the middle of fire season, when firefighters are working sixteen hour days on the ground. And what of the long fuse of Covid-19, and the possibility of asymptomatic carries? That’s not addressed in the document.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, reading the document, but I was. I’d been thinking: what’s going to happen to all of these vulnerable employees? Will they hire more permanent employees as a way not only to ensure labor but to provide more benefits, including health insurance? (some ads are flying for permanent positions) Will workers quit before the season starts? (some have) Will the start of the season be delayed? (yes, many employees are working remotely, and crews are bringing on firefighters two weeks late).

Never did I think: how will the government absolve themselves of responsibility? I’m too much of an optimist, still. What a dummy.

There are a lot of other logistical factors to consider regarding how fires are going to be approached this year. There will likely be more of an emphasis on patrolling and initial attack. More satellites and IR and maybe even some drones. More air attack. There’s a lot to figure out. But in the midst of all that figuring out, we absolutely have to take care of our firefighters. All of them.

With love,

Anastasia