Homelessness, PTSD and paltry pay: The crisis in wildland firefighting

For federal wildland firefighters, homelessness has been, at times, just another hazard of the job.

Pete Dutchick, a firefighter for two decades, recalled being part of a crew in Colorado back in 2006 when the entire team was without stable living situations.

“There were eight people in an apartment and a group of folks car-camping at a church, trying to make it work,” he told The Independent.

There are roughly 19,000 firefighters employed by the US government — many of whom earn far less than a liveable wage despite working in deadly conditions.

Next month would have been the start of the former May-October peak fire season, but large, unpredictable blazes now erupt year-round.

Federal firefighters have the unique mandate of responding to fires anywhere in the country. The workforce has specialized crews who parachute into remote fires (the smokejumpers); tackle the most problematic areas of fires (hotshots), and rappel into blazes from hovering helicopters (helitack).

And for years they have been underpaid, underrecognized and under-resourced compared to municipal and state colleagues who can be paid up to double for the same work.

The climate crisis is also shifting the equation in an already dangerous job. In February, Texas had its largest wildfire in state history and 10 new large fires were reported last week across the US.

Luke Mayfield, a firefighter. “It was like, .”