r/Wildfire • u/One-Initiative-8902 Wildland FF2 • 8d ago

Wildland Firefighter Mask lawsuit

Is there talk about a lawsuit over smoke masks?

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8Bpfmna/

17 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

View all comments

48

u/Hard_Rock_Hallelujah WFM Nerd 8d ago

I mean, the video does make it sound like there's at least talks occurring about gathering information to see if there is a legal basis for a lawsuit.

I'd be fine wearing certain wildland-specific respirators during certain activities like holding/monitoring, but I have a feeling if this goes through it'll lead to yet another knee-jerk USFS reaction and they'll mandate cheap and shitty respirators with high levels of breath restriction to be worn at all times, even when cutting line and burning out.

-27

u/Buzz407 8d ago

Wet bandana has worked for decades. Making firefighters carry more weight is a detriment to safety. Might be worth packing one of those baby scuba bottles the size of a coke bottle, I know a few times I wished I had one. Still, I saw some vollies try to fight a small forest fire in full battle rattle, one almost died from heat exhaustion within 45 minutes. Another crew a few counties over did lose 2 people that way.

The people fighting the fires should be the ones deciding what to take on a fire.

20

u/BungHolio4206969 8d ago

No one uses a wet bandana. Moreover they’re less effective when you wet them. Are you dumb or something?

-8

u/Buzz407 8d ago edited 8d ago

Stupid? Probably. 25 years ago it was still very much done. Seemed to work fine to keep the particulates out. I can get downvoted to oblivion but it doesn't make it any less true.

13

u/RadioFreeCascadia 8d ago

Tons of folks have died of cancer due to the smoke. We literally did not track the deaths or health impacts until like last year.

Just because it “seemed to work fine” in the moment =\= it actually worked.

1

u/Buzz407 8d ago

Fair enough. I didn't even know. Hell most of us smoked too.

2

u/voroid 8d ago

Dawg objectively you are wrong. Wet bandana is MARGINALLY better than wearing nothing. You’re very confidently wrong hahahaha.

-1

u/Buzz407 8d ago edited 8d ago

That happens I reckon.  Hey, ya can point and make fun all you want but I was doing this job when most of you were in diapers.  When I left, the "state of knowledge and tech" is what it was.  I came out the other side intact.

I'm just saying it is what we did and it enhanced comfort dramatically.  If you have better, use better.  

Wet vs dry was an argument back in the day. We didn't do scientific testing. Wet seemed to grab onto the crap in the air better in exchange for being harder to breathe through. Difference was meaningful in the hardwoods. Do what works for you.

0

u/voroid 8d ago

Yeah you’re right. I get where you’re coming from.