{"id":20552,"date":"2021-09-16T16:12:47","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T23:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/?p=20552"},"modified":"2021-09-21T15:24:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T22:24:08","slug":"fighting-more-than-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/fighting-more-than-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting More Than Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Facing bigger blazes, longer hours and low pay, wildland firefighters ask Congress and federal agencies for help<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Fighting More Than Fire | Our Land\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7tmz79YMOZY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>By Laura Paskus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last 24 months have been particularly brutal for wildland firefighters in the western United States. As wildfire season lengthens and fires burn hotter and bigger, firefighters are immersed in emergency situations for weeks and months on end\u2014knowing the years ahead will bring worse.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s a public service that I think a lot of us feel satisfied with at the end of the day,\u201d says Marcus Cornwell, who earned his Red Card, or certification, in 1998. He spent 15 years on interagency hotshot crews and now works on an incident management team. \u201cBut the realities that we&#8217;re starting to face now with potential climate change&#8230;I would say firefighters are in a crisis mode.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rising temperatures and drought drive some of the problems. But wildland firefighters face other challenges that have burrowed deep into the fabric of the federal workforce.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/marcus-1-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20582\"\/><figcaption>Firefighter Marcus Cornwell Courtesy Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Assignments keep them away from home for at least three weeks at a time\u2014longer if they can&#8217;t make it home during their short breaks. Men and women work 16-hour days, usually sleeping on the ground and eating military-ration meals. Some live in their cars.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The majority earn low pay and lack medical or retirement benefits, all while facing the daily risk of injury and death.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When smokejumper Tim Hart was injured fighting the&nbsp;Ecks&nbsp;Fire this spring in southern New Mexico, his family set up a GoFundMe campaign to help cover medical bills. Hart died from his injuries. And Cornwell says it\u2019s common for families to rely on donations, like from the nonprofit Wildland Firefighter Foundation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Federal agencies are trying to improve, he says. But he calls the Office of Workers\u2019&nbsp;Compensation&nbsp;\u201cbroken.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe have firefighters struggling, they get injured on the job, they\u2019re struggling year after year to basically just survive these catastrophic incidents [and] they have mountains of paperwork and very little help from the federal government,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd basically, it&#8217;s easier to just get outside donations to make it through.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the ranks of wildland firefighters, depression, trauma, drug and alcohol abuse\u2014even suicide\u2014are all more common than people realize.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And fewer people want these jobs, which are highly specialized and physically demanding.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTen, 15 years ago, we would have 400 or 500 applicants for an entry-level fire job on some of the crews I worked on. Now, we\u2019re lucky if we see 50,\u201d Cornwell says. \u201cWith those kinds of numbers, we&#8217;re headed to a train wreck, where one time there&#8217;s going to be a town here in New Mexico that&#8217;s going to call for federal assistance, federal help. And guess what? Nobody\u2019s going to show up.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1512WildlandFirefighters-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"A group of firefighters with headlamps coordinate with each other next to a forest fire.\" class=\"wp-image-20553\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1512WildlandFirefighters-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1512WildlandFirefighters-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1512WildlandFirefighters-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1512WildlandFirefighters-24x14.jpg 24w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1512WildlandFirefighters-36x20.jpg 36w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1512WildlandFirefighters-48x27.jpg 48w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/1512WildlandFirefighters.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Wildland firefighting is grueling work, and fewer people are willing to do it. | Photo: Jonathon Golden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For 11 years, Jonathon Golden worked as a wildland firefighter, clocking up to a thousand hours of overtime \u201cjust to afford life,\u201d he says.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It wasn\u2019t just low pay and lack of security that spurred him to leave the profession. He felt overwhelmed by the isolation from family and friends and the burden of missing birthdays, anniversaries, graduations.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;You miss out on these significant moments and when it comes time to lie down at night and try to get some sleep you think about these&nbsp;things&nbsp;and it really begins to weigh on you: &#8216;What am I missing out on? What am I doing here?&#8217;\u201d Golden says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/jonathon-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"A man holding a &quot;Happy Birthday&quot; sign\" class=\"wp-image-20583\" width=\"512\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/jonathon-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/jonathon-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/jonathon-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/jonathon-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/jonathon-24x18.jpg 24w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/jonathon-36x27.jpg 36w, https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/jonathon-48x36.jpg 48w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><figcaption>Jonathon Golden says wildland firefighting means countless missed events. | Courtesy Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Many firefighters feign machismo or suppress these thoughts.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re privately struggling on a day-to-day basis,\u201d Golden says. \u201cBut there are only a few people who stand out, where we would have candid conversations about how we were doing mentally.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, Golden volunteers with Grassroot Wildlands Firefighters, a nonprofit that advocates for higher pay, professionalizing the workforce and more.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Biden-era initiative recently bumped starting pay by two dollars, to $15 an hour. And the Infrastructure Bill before Congress includes a salary increase and a change that would specifically classify wildland firefighters, instead of lumping them in with \u201cforestry technicians.\u201d But, says Golden, Congress also needs to fund land management agencies to address the underlying factors related to fires\u2014and commit to building a \u201c21st century civil service that America deserves.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grassroot Wildlands Firefighters President Kelly Martin started fighting fires as a college student in the 1980s. For more than three decades, she worked for the US Forest Service and the National Park Service at places like the Grand Canyon, Moab and Yosemite. She also worked on national incident management teams and as a fire behavior analyst.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The immersion that we\u2019re seeing now is way completely different than when I started 35 years ago, when I might have gained maybe 400 hours of overtime during a summer season,\u201d says Martin, who retired in 2019. Now people regularly work at least 1,000 hours of overtime, sometimes twice that in a year.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis current system that we\u2019re talking about, built 50 years ago, is unsustainable,\u201d Martin says. Federal agencies lack money to hire more people and compensate them fairly\u2014nevermind&nbsp;fund work to decrease the risk of catastrophic fire and improve ecosystems and watersheds.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Martin says federal agencies and Congress need to&nbsp;plan ahead, not 10 or 15 years, but 30 years or more.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, the world around us isn\u2019t waiting for politicians or policymakers.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a young firefighter, Cornwell worked on the Cerro Grande Fire near Los Alamos.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen that happened in 2000, it was a huge fire for New Mexico. It was the biggest fire in the books\u2014and now that thing\u2019s been dwarfed many times over with Los Conchas, Whitewater-Baldy,\u201d he says.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cerro Grande burned 43,000 acres. In 2011, Las Conchas burned 156,000 acres, and in 2012, Whitewater Baldy, 297,000 acres.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNew Mexico really dodged the bullet in the last few years&#8230;But all this scary stuff you see in California can easily be here,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is coming to our door unless we start to address labor shortages, address the fuels situation.\u201d&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Fighting More Than Fire (Full Interview) | Our Land\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Lcq40CKCSFA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For More Information:<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.grassrootswildlandfirefighters.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.grassrootswildlandfirefighters.com\/<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wildland Firefighter Foundation, <a href=\"https:\/\/wffoundation.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/wffoundation.org\/<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>U.S. Hotshots Association, <a href=\"https:\/\/ushotshots.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/ushotshots.com\/<\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facing bigger blazes, longer hours and low pay, wildland firefighters ask Congress and federal agencies for help By Laura Paskus The last 24 months have been particularly brutal for wildland firefighters in the western United States. As wildfire season lengthens and fires burn hotter and bigger, firefighters are immersed in emergency situations for weeks and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":20553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1257],"tags":[8058,8057,8055,3477,7643,8060,8059,8056,8062,8061],"class_list":["post-20552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-land","tag-climate-change-and-fire","tag-federal-wildland","tag-firefighter","tag-firefighting","tag-forest-management","tag-grassroots-wildland-firefighters","tag-jonathon-golden","tag-kelly-martin","tag-marcus-cornwell","tag-wildland-fire"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Fighting More Than Fire - New Mexico In Focus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/fighting-more-than-fire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fighting More Than Fire - New Mexico In Focus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Facing bigger blazes, longer hours and low pay, wildland firefighters ask Congress and federal agencies for help By Laura Paskus The last 24 months have been particularly brutal for wildland firefighters in the western United States. 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