Firefighters face two battles: Wildfires and COVID-19
For the men and women fighting Arizona wildfires this summer, amidst a pandemic, almost every aspect of dayto-day life has changed drastically.
Pre-pandemic firefighters had their own way of life, including routine morning briefings, respectful handshakes and community meals.
Now, everything has changed.
Every meal is pre-packaged and firefighters have to eat 6 to 10 feet apart, crew members wave at each other instead of shaking hands, and they attend virtual briefs on their smart phones or radios instead of massive and crowded in-person ones.
To add to the challenge of a pandemic, this has been one of the gnarliest wildfire seasons due to a wet winter and dry summer conditions which fed massive wildfires across Arizona, including the Bighorn Fire, Mangum Fire and Bush Fire, which ranged from about 71,000 acres to more than 193,455 acres.
“This is the biggest impact that I’ve seen to the wildland firefighting,” said Quentin Johnson regarding COVID-19 precautions. Johnson is an operations section trainee on the Bighorn Fire, who has worked for the U.S. Forest Service for 30 years.
“It’s definitely a different scenario out there from what we’re used to,” said Tony Peprilli, Safety Officer for the Northern Rockies Incident Management Team 1.
Peprilli said that living in a COVID-19 pandemic world means fire management is now “very much concerned about the safety of our firefighters as
well as the communities that we’re near.”
“I can’t even describe how drastically different the environment is, as far as camp and how we do things” said Steve Best, the COVID-19 coordinator for the Type 4 incident management team that was on the Bighorn Fire. “You know, you go to meetings now and everybody’s standing 6 or 10 feet apart, everybody’s wearing face masks.”
The Bighorn Fire, which was ignited by lighting northwest of Tucson on June 5, eventually grew to nearly 120,000 acres. The blaze was 100% contained as of July 23.
So far, efforts to mitigate COVID-19 cases among firefighters have been successful according to fire officials. Arizona State Forestry spokesperson Tiffany Davila said that only one crew member tested positive for COVID-19 in May and has since quarantined and recovered. Best also said they had zero cases during his time as coordinator.
Eating and sleeping changes
“This is crazy out here,” Best said. Previously, their daily routines consisted of fire camps packed with crew members, daily briefings with hundreds of officials, greeting every new crew member with a handshake and eating buffetstyle meals.
Now, they keep people spread out, handing them packaged meals and they aren’t supposed to touch anything or anyone.
“There’s no salad bars or go get-yourown coffee or drinks or anything,” Best said. “Somebody’s handing you stuff. They’re constantly sanitizing, everybody’s wearing face masks. It’s just a very, very radically different environment than I’ve ever seen.
“I’ve worked in the fire service for 33 years and it’s very different,” he continued.
Washing hands and hand-sanitizing is stressed at all meals, he said. They provide masks, but they don’t enforce firefighters to wear them at all times.
“We don’t make them wear [a mask] out on the line because it’s so hard to breath already with dust and dirt and smoke,” he said.
Peprilli said he sees a number of crews just using the toolboxes on the side of their truck to eat their meals.
Sleeping camps are also spread out. Some sleep up on the mountain to keep distance. Peprilli said this is the first time they put Arizona firefighters in hotels, because they are trying their best to stress social distancing.
Before the pandemic, they had gatherings of hundreds of people for daily briefings where they discuss an operations plan, a weather forecast, fire behavior analysis and a safety message.
“We’ve done away with it as much as possible,” Peprilli said.
Now the briefing is recorded and broadcast on the internet, and firefighters get the link on their phone or device to watch it alone.
A system of modules
Ever since the pandemic has started, fire officials have enforced a system of modules. These modules consist of a group of firefighters who stick together and work in sections, avoiding coming into contact with other modules or management officials as much as they can.
Alan Sinclair, incident commander for Southwest Area Incident Management team number one, said in a briefing on the Bighorn Fire that firefighters are out working in tough conditions, camping, working and living in areas “prime for viral spread.”
They started preparing for COVID-19 by utilizing their “module separation,” Sinclair said.
“If you’re a five-man crew, you stay in your five-man crew,” Best said. “You don’t interact with the other groups that much.”
Administrators and public information officers are staying home now to avoid contact with crews, Davila said.
“To help decrease the risk, they’re also utilizing more aircraft on jurisdictional fires,” Davila said. ”That just helps us decrease the amount of boots on the ground.”
“Of course we’re following the CDC guidelines, but once again, no fire is the same,” Davila said. “There’s not a cut and dry template so we’re having to adjust on every single fire and how we’re managing the COVID-19 situation.”
Regular testing and quarantines
The moment a firefighter gets symptoms for COVID-19, they are isolated from crews and tested.
Peprilli said his concerns raised when the crew had to come to the southwest region of Arizona which has a high amount of cases.
“We have had zero cases,” Peprilli said. The Bighorn Fire at its largest had over 1,200 personnel on the fire. “It’s quite amazing that we’re doing so well.”
Once a person isn’t feeling well, they alert the fire commander, and they are pulled off the line and immediately quarantined, Davila said. She said that up to July 31, she only was aware of this one case.
To be safe, the one Arizona State Forestry firefighter who did have symptoms of COVID-19 was immediately quarantined for 14 days and tested.
“We reached out to everyone who may have had contact with this individual on the fire,” Davila said. “All state personnel in contact with this person were quarantined and tested as well.
Firefighters are getting their temperatures taken every day before they get on the line, she said.
“Truthfully, it’s not always going to work,” Davila said. “There’s fires that you’re seeing now where we have 1,000 firefighters on a fire. When we’re on a smaller incident, it’s easier to manage”
Team building
Johnson, who has been a firefighter said the biggest differences for him as an operations trainee are the changes to team building and communication.
Working on the ground hasn’t changed a lot “but communication and team building has been a little bit strange for us and a big adjustment,” he said.
Respectful behavior that was expected for firefighters, especially shaking the hands of new crew members, is now basically prohibited.
“You always shake their hand and you want to get to know them,” Johnson said. Now they just wave at each other.
“You want to get to really get to know people and build a team quickly so you can kick butt on the fire,” Johnson said. “But a lot of that is cut out because of the physical distance that’s needed and wearing masks and just not eating together or hanging out together.”
Johnson, Peprilli and Best all said the pandemic has put extra stress on their already heavy load in the firefighting job.
Best said his COVID-19 manager position was created for this pandemic and every time they get a potential report of exposure, “it adds a layer of safety mitigation to our fire,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a distraction from the fire but it’s so important, you gotta deal with it.
“As soon as you hear a report of exposure, you start thinking about the bread crumb trail of how many people have been touched on this fire, so I guess you could say, yeah, that does add a little bit of stress,” Best said.
Johnson said what affects his state of mind the most is that the team “was sort of broken apart into pieces.” Now people he would normally interact with don’t get to come help because they may be too concerned about affecting their own families or spreading the virus to crew members.
Peprilli said it’s hard because, “The fire community is very tight and you can develop relationships on one fire and then not see that same person until the next year on a different fire and so, you totally want to go up and give them a nice big handshake.”