A fire crew clears brush away from the side of Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, Calif. Wildfire veterans say an immigration raid earlier this week targeting fire crews in Washington state was an alarming development that could threaten the nation’s wildfire readiness. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Federal immigration officials in Washington state arrived on the scene of the largest wildfire in the state on Wednesday and arrested two firefighters who had been working to contain the blaze.
Wildfire veterans say it’s nearly unprecedented for federal agents to conduct immigration enforcement near the front lines of an active wildfire. Some fear the raid could reverberate throughout the wildland fire community, making it more difficult to fully staff the crews putting out blazes at the peak of fire season in the West.
“There’s a lot of brown bodies out there on the fire line,” said Bobbie Scopa, who had a 45-year career as a firefighter and now serves as executive secretary with Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of wildfire professionals.
Scopa noted that President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has swept up even some workers who are in the country legally.
“When the rumble from this goes around, we’re going to have contractors unable to put out as many crews as they were,” she said. “We don’t know what the requirement is not to get shipped off by ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Even if you’re a citizen and you look the wrong way, you could still get picked up.”
On Wednesday morning, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents pulled aside two crews of firefighters that had been working for companies contracted to help fight the Washington fire. The Bear Gulch Fire, spreading through rugged terrain in and around Olympic National Park, has burned nearly 9,000 acres.
“They were told they were going to cut firewood,” said Scott Polhamus, secretary of the Organization of Fire Contractors and Affiliates, a nonprofit industry group. “The people that were supposed to meet them never showed up, and eventually immigration showed up instead.”
Many contract crews rely heavily on immigrant labor.
“[Immigrants] make up a huge portion of forestry and fire, they’re an integral part of this industry,” Polhamus said.
Now, wildland fire veterans fear that the immigrants who have been protecting communities from fires could make fire camps a target for immigration officials who are trying to meet deportation quotes. And more high-profile raids on fire crews could cause many in the workforce to reconsider their profession.
“If you’re a migrant worker and this starts happening, are you going to keep on doing that and risk getting picked up?” Scopa said. “If [immigration authorities] keep visiting fire camps, we will definitely have fewer contract crews.”
In a news release, U.S. Border Patrol said the operation was the result of an investigation by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Federal agents, the release said, found discrepancies on the rosters provided by contract fire companies. Immigration officers arrested two people who were in the country illegally, the release said, while removing 42 additional firefighters from the fire scene. The release said the government has terminated its contracts with the companies.
Table Rock Forestry Inc., a member of the Organization of Fire Contractors and Affiliates, was one of the companies whose workers were checked, Polhamus said. The company was able to show that its firefighters all had legal H-2B visas, he said, which allow foreign nationals to fill temporary, nonagricultural jobs. Still, the company’s crew was demobilized and sent home, which he said was allegedly due to a half-hour discrepancy on a time sheet. The company has not yet gotten official word from the feds about its contract, Polhamus said.
Neither Table Rock Forestry nor the other company targeted by the raid responded to requests for comment.
The Border Patrol statement said the operation did not interfere with firefighting operations. Tom Stokesberry, public information officer with California Interagency Incident Management Team 7, which oversaw the fire crews until Thursday, said the team was aware of the Border Patrol raid. Incident management teams deploy across the country to help coordinate the response to large fires. He would not comment on whether the raid affected wildfire operations.
Polhamus, along with many others in the wildland firefighter community, said it is widely believed that the same incident management team called immigration authorities to investigate another Hispanic crew last year. The raid this week took place on the California team’s last day in charge of the fire, hours before a Washington team took command.
While most fire crews with government agencies hire only U.S. citizens, officials also contract with private companies to help fight many wildfires. Those companies often hire workers on H-2B visas or immigrants who are working to earn their U.S. citizenship.
The effects of workers being detained could go well beyond those individuals, experts said. If a crew loses two or three members, it may no longer meet the specifications it needs to fulfill its contract. That could result in the entire crew being grounded — without pay — until replacements arrive.
“We utilize thousands and thousands of contract firefighters,” Scopa said. “It absolutely could impact our ability to manage fires if we’re losing crews.”
While firefighting contracting companies have varying opinions on the hiring of workers without legal status, Polhamus said, there’s consensus throughout the industry that conducting an immigration raid at the scene of an active wildfire was dangerous and irresponsible.
Washington Public Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove, who heads the state’s lead wildfire response agency, issued a statement that the state is still gathering details on the Border Patrol operation.
“[T]he Trump administration’s crude and inhumane approach to immigration enforcement has intentionally and unnecessarily stoked fear and mistrust among members of the public —including firefighters putting their lives on the line to protect our State,” he said in the statement.
Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at [email protected].
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