Fighting Wildfires in the Season of the Coronavirus

Here’s an article on a topic I’ve been thinking about:

How will COVID-19 impact wildfire response?

“This presents a host of problems for wildfire response, said Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) commissioner Hilary Franz. The state will have to figure out how to keep firefighters from getting infected, how to secure enough incident management teams and rethink the way it attacks fires.”

I’d like to hear from folks with fire experience about how this might play out.

2 thoughts on “Fighting Wildfires in the Season of the Coronavirus”

  1. Interesting timing on the post. I was thinking about this as well and even though it has been years since I was on a fire line, the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 will require changes to operations and contract requirements.

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  2. The data is showing that younger people are having more serious reactions than expected but, they do recover with help. They also are seeing asymptomatic carriers in young people. Social distancing is impossible in crew buses and engines. They will need more vehicles with fewer people per rig. It’s too early to say “We got this under control”.

    Hazard Pay, everyday? Mandatory testing? Barracks isolation?

    In a related issue, the Union is concerned about employees being ordered to work at home. The Union wants some concessions to allow that.

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