After wildland firefighter Ben McLane fought California’s deadliest fire, he started second-guessing his line of work. The November 2018 Camp Fire near Paradise had killed 85 and leveled 18,000 homes. McLane was used to hiking steep terrain and digging endless fire breaks. He was accustomed to the spectacle of entire hillsides of pine and fir aflame. He wasn’t used to this scale of devastation — or feeling he’d worked in vain. Meanwhile, he rarely saw his family, and couldn’t fathom affording a house. Was firefighting worth it?
McLane was still second-guessing when he heard about Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit organization for federal firefighters founded in 2019 by former firefighters Luke Mayfield and Kelly Martin. Climate change had extended fire seasons by as much as eight weeks, while development pressures mean more people live in fire zones. Starting wages were around $27,000 a year. The resulting turnover made the job even more dangerous for whomever was left. Even with more than half of federal firefighters unionized, change felt far off.
