NFPA Journal - Winter 2021 - 19

truck and to see if we can get a direct
attack on the flames. If we can knock
it down with water, we will. If it's more
extreme, if the flame height and heat are
too much, we'll back off, get equipment
like bulldozers, and make a fire line. If
it's even more extreme than that-and
this is what happened in August-then
we have to get assistance from state
and sometimes federal firefighters, who
come in with air attacks and all the toys
in the toybox, so to speak.
When I was first allowed to start
responding to fires with my dad, we
didn't have a system like this or tools
like this. Maybe a rancher would have
a little [Caterpillar] 'dozer and he'd
scratch a line in the ground. But looking
back, those fires also weren't as
nasty as they are now.
These fires are getting more severe,
they're getting scarier. I think there's
a couple of reasons for that. The first
reason, I think, is our climate is changing.
I think people in my line of work
don't always want to admit that, but
I've seen some drastic changes, so that's
part of it. The other problem is fuel
loads. We don't want to overgraze our
grass on the ranch, so we always have
some place that's rested for a year or
two, so we can turn cattle in there and
graze it. But the problem with that is
that's a huge fuel load, and when that
catches on fire, it's really hard to stop.
We've had flame heights this year in
some of these pastures of five or six
feet. You just can't get close to that.
Looking to the future, after the devastation
of the fire in August, we've
had to make the difficult decision to
sell all our cattle three years old and
older, take that money, and in the next
two years start buying cattle back. It's
difficult, but we're also counting ourselves
lucky to even have cattle we can
sell. In 2012, we had a terrible fire year,
and a cousin of mine lost 170 head of
cattle. A neighbor lost 400 head.
So this time, we knew we had to get
ahead of this fire. We opened gates,
cut fences, and let those cattle go. It's
always a risk doing that, but it's better
to find cattle 15 miles away but alive
than to find them dead. We had cattle
scattered everywhere after the fire.
We're still getting them back.
Experts fear firefighters and other first responders
who face significant exposure to the COVID-19
virus could struggle with long COVID symptoms if
infected. GETTY IMAGES
FIRE SERVICE
LASTING EFFECTS
Metro Chiefs endorse papers
on long COVID and more at
2021 Urban Fire Forum
By Angelo Verzoni
W
hen Rhode Island firefighter
Tom Walker was
diagnosed with COVID-19
in December 2020, he was
hopeful his symptoms
would pass in a week or two. But Walker
wasn't so lucky.
" For weeks, I could not walk up a
flight of stairs or carry on a conversation
without getting completely
out of breath, " he wrote in an article
published on the firefighting news
website firerescue1.com in June.
Walker was part of the 10 to 20 percent
of COVID patients that scientists
estimate develop what's known as
" long COVID " or " long-haul COVID " -
cases of the virus that can linger for
several months or longer. Experts
fear Walker's experience is one many
firefighters and other first responders
have faced, or will face, as the COVID19
pandemic continues to grip the
globe.
In September, the Metropolitan
Fire Chiefs Association (Metro Chiefs)
officially recognized this threat at its
2021 Urban Fire Forum (UFF), hosted
by NFPA. The Metro Chiefs, an NFPA
membership section that includes
fire chiefs from urban areas around
the world, endorsed a position paper
urging fire chiefs to prepare for the
possibility of long COVID affecting
their departments. The paper specifically
instructs chiefs to take four steps
toward addressing the problem: educating
their departments about long
COVID; collecting data on department
members who may be experiencing
long-term COVID symptoms; identifying
local doctors who have experience
treating long COVID; and closely
monitoring or even participating in
research on long COVID.
While no comprehensive data is
kept on COVID infections among
firefighters in the United States or
elsewhere, a recent NFPA report
shows COVID was the leading cause of
on-duty firefighter deaths in the US in
2020. (For a summary of the report on
firefighter fatalities in the US in 2020,
see page 80.) Despite this, vaccination
rates among first responders continue
to lag, according to media reports.
In addition to the position paper
the Metro Chiefs endorsed on long
COVID at this year's UFF, the group
also endorsed papers related to the
threat of domestic terrorism, data in
the modern fire service, and the effect
of crew size on firefighter health and
safety. All of the position papers can
be downloaded at nfpa.org/uff.
NFPA .ORG/JOURNAL * NFPA JOURNAL | 19
http://www.firerescue1.com http://www.nfpa.org/uff https://nfpa.org/journal
NFPA Journal - Winter 2021

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