Thread: Immigrants are forest firefighters

Immigrants are forest firefighters

Some with private firms here illegally

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

May 28, 2006

SALEM, Ore. – The debate over immigration, which has filtered into almost every corner of American life in recent months, is now sweeping through the woods, and the implications could be immense for the upcoming fire season in the West.

As many as half of the roughly 5,000 private firefighters based in the Pacific Northwest and contracted by state and federal governments to fight forest fires are immigrants, mostly from Mexico. And an untold number of them are working here illegally.

A recent report by the Agriculture Department's inspector general for the U.S. Forest Service said illegal immigrants had been fighting fires for several years. The Forest Service said in response that it would work with immigration and customs enforcement officers and the Social Security Administration to improve the process of identifying violators.



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At the same time, the state of Oregon, which administers private fire contracts for the Forest Service, imposed tougher rules on companies that employ firefighters, including a requirement that firefighting crew leaders have a working command of English and a formal business location where crew members can assemble.
Some Hispanic contractors say the state and federal changes could cause many immigrants, even those here legally, to stay away from the jobs. Other forestry workers say that firefighting may simply be too important – and that it may be too difficult to attract other applicants – to allow for a crackdown on illegal workers.

“I don't think it's in anybody's interest, including the Forest Service, to enforce immigration – they're benefiting from it,” said Blanca Escobeda, owner of 3B's Forestry in Medford, Ore., which fields two 20-member fire crews. Escobeda said all of her workers were legal.

Some fire company owners estimate that 10 percent of the firefighting crews are illegal immigrants; government officials will not even hazard a guess.

The private contract crews can be dispatched anywhere in the country through the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho – and in recent years have fought fires from Montana to Utah and Colorado, as well as Washington, Oregon and California – anywhere that fires get too big or too numerous for local entities to handle.

The work, which pays $10 to $15 an hour, is among the most demanding and dangerous in the West. A workweek fighting a big fire can go 100 hours.

“You've got to be physically able and mentally able,” said Javier Orozco, 21, who has fought fires in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, California and Montana since 2002.

The plight of the fire companies underscores the surprising directions that the debate over immigration can lead, like government-required bilingualism to ensure everyone on a fire line can understand one another, while threatening to scare away needed workers.

Some firefighters say the growth in private crews reflects the government's willingness to look the other way on immigration issues in the interest of keeping the forests protected. The federal work force has been reduced by budget cuts, and the fires expose the resulting vulnerability.

“It became a game of winking and nodding – we're not going to check – so more and more contractors went almost exclusively to Hispanic or Latino labor,” said Scott Coleman, who ran a forestry company in the Eugene, Ore., area for more than 30 years until his retirement this year.

A spokeswoman for the Forest Service, Rose Davis, said the agency follows federal law in hiring contractors but relies on the contractors to make sure individual workers have the documents they needed.

“In the contract, it specifies that if you're going to bring us a crew, they must be eligible to work in the United States,” she said.

Davis conceded that oversight in checking up on those contracts had not been the agency's top priority but that the inspector general's report would lead to more attention.

Fire company owners say they rely on workers to tell the truth and provide documentation. “They show me documents and ID. That's good enough for me,” said Jose Orozco, who runs two fire companies of mostly Mexican workers from his base in Sheridan, Ore., just west of Salem.

My son asked me to check on jobs as a forest fire fighter here in the states. I found this little ditty!

Yes, POSY
and American Fire Fighters are losing their jobs to ILLEGALS.

BTW, there is another saying going around:
Illegals are fire starters

I believe we've an article or two posted from approx. 2 months ago pertaining to the possibility of fires being started on purpose so that they have work. Also, we do know that ILLEGALS are starting fires due to carelessness at their camps while hiding out.

Won't be long and there will be no decent paying jobs left. IF you can find one now! I read about the fires they set. I've seen a few in my travels. This just makes me madder!

So in other words, there are 5,000 less jobs for out of work legal residents?