Border Patrol agents arrested firefighters fighting Washington wildfire after they asked the fire crew to line up to check their IDs.

[u/AngronOfTheTwelfth]

What do we all think of this? Seems pretty nuts to me. They are actively getting in the way of wildlands guys as they do their job out there. I dont think this should be allowed or encouraged. Firefighting is a lot more important than .... risking 20 guys dressed exactly like firefighters crossing the Canadian border?

[u/CornfieldStreetDoc]

The additional info that has come out is that these were private contractors and the BLM had terminated those contracts following its own criminal investigation. So these were not crews any longer involved in the fire fighting operation if the contracts had been terminated. The BLM then asked the BP to assist them in identifying the crew members in relation to the original criminal investigation. Two were found to be illegals so they were then also detained by BP, but that was not the origin of the interaction. So while everything else stated here may be true (like no one carries ID on the fire line), they weren’t active FFs and LE still has a right to try to identify people by other means as it relates to criminal investigations. We (regular, wildland, paid, volunteer) aren’t above the law and should be striving to set the examples of law-abiding. While this was framed like a trooper arresting a FF for blocking a traffic lane in the middle of an extrication, it’s turning out to not really be that egregious.