r/Wildfire • u/mittenborn • 2d ago
Bear Gulch immigration raid
Hey r/Wildfire — I'm a Seattle-based reporter working on a story about the immigration raid at the Bear Gulch Fire. Hoping to get more info from anyone who's been out there or has an account of what happened. Also looking for insight about the larger implications of immigration enforcement at active wildfires. I can talk off the record or on background with anyone who's willing to share. Please PM me if you'd like to connect. Thanks!
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u/Natural_Flan_2802 2d ago
Insight? Ok… Full disclosure, I am NOT on this incident and this is purely my opinion. The last 25-30 years has seen declining wages/ buying power across the board. Additionally, numerous cuts to federal programs, fire included, means we can’t afford to hire enough full time, permanent seasonal or seasonal workers to fill and or create federally managed fire crews (another problem that bears discussion at another time). So what did we do? We started contracting out fire crews work. Much like any other business, the less the workers are paid, the more the contract “owner” ultimately puts in their pocket. BTW on an annual basis contract crews are less expensive, because they aren’t paid for by the government while not on fire, BUT on an hourly basis are significantly less productive (as fire suppression resources) AND cost significantly more than a federal fire crew. Apologies for deviating off the topic, but there are unfortunately much larger issues at play in the federal fire service, that again can be discussed at another time.
Anyhow given what I wrote in the previous paragraph; who can these contractors hire when they won’t give the same pay and benefits as the federal government (who again comes up short)… they hire migrant workers! The same workers who harvest crops, replant trees after a timber harvest and countless other back breaking jobs. Now, in addition to not having people to harvest crops, plant trees, replace roofs on homes, we also are going to see a significant decline in the number of available crews to work on fires and consequently we will have larger and more damaging fires. The American people will pay for it in more lost homes, higher insurance costs, more expensive fire and the associated health conditions that come from being exposed to smoke more and more often. This is just another example of the people who are in power being completely out of touch. Firefighters are the kind of people who LOVE their job. Really you either love it or you don’t do it. If the people ICE arrested were “taking American’s jobs”, the crews would be full of Americans who were willing to work for the wages the companies are willing to pay. The same as in Agricultural harvest. If Americans workers were willing to work for $3 an hour under the table, they’d be doing it. And all due respect, I don’t see a lot of white people lining up to pick crops either.