Firefighters Face Obstacles

By Eve Christensen

The California fires that started on August 7th have burned more than 180,000 acres since they have started burning. These massive fires left people homeless or worse. As I talked to Thomas Thornton, a firefighters of four years, he has worked as a crew member but also a captain of a crew.

Firefighters are always there when a fire wreaks havoc on buildings, forests and more. It is not as easy as it looks; it takes great dedication, planning and training to respond to fires, but these are just a few of the struggles firefighters face.

The severity of the firefighters’ challenges in California are a huge factor in the time it takes to fight the fires and to put them out. he type of gear firefighters have to wear or and the calls the captain makes for his team determine how long it takes to get the fires under control. Thornton explains that when going to a fire, one has two types of gear. One of them is for forest and grass fires: it’s a lightweight material but offers hardly any protection against the fire. The other gear is structure gear, and this is a heavier type for building or car fires; it can withstand five hundred degrees worth of heat. It weighs up to twenty pounds, and that’s before the firefighters start attaching more things to the gear such as tools and hose line.

Carrying the gear is only a small the challenge of the job. For the captain of the team, the constant thought of what could happen when they give an order is always nerve-wracking due to the orders and danger level always changing with every every situation. These could all be factors that could affect how the California firefighters are dealing with the fires.

Captain Thomas Thornton at a fundraiser