US Forest Service Border Fire Prevention Crew

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The United States Forest Service's Border Fire Prevention Crew in San Diego, California, is the only one of its kind in the world.  Their mission is to hike through the Cleveland National Forest searching for camp fires and remains of camp fires set by illegal immigrants.  The crew extinguishes the fires and disburses the remains in order to prevent wildfires.

The US Forest Service created the team 10 years ago in response to heightened illegal immigration traffic, and have been credited with preventing a major wildfire.  Jennifer MacDonald, a member of the crew, says that often the immigrants will light piles of sticks on fire without anything surrounding them, which is dangerous.  Despite the economic downturn in the United States and the resulting reduction in illegal immigration, the crews have found that the number of camp fires they have discovered has actually doubled.

In addition to preventing wildfires, the US Forest Border Fire Prevention Crew is also responsible for collecting trash in the Cleveland National Forest.  According to MacDonald, the immigrants leave behind an extraordinary amount of trash.  She says, "The crew's primary purpose is to look for campfires and to put them out, make sure they're not hot, but if we are not out here picking up thrash also, this would be a landfill." 

Cary Walker, another US Forest Service Fire Prevention Crew Member, says his team usually collects about 25 pounds of trash per person on a long hike, and in 2008 they collected over 13,000 pounds of trash.  Recycling this trash is often difficult because plastics from Mexico are not recyclable in the United States.  Getting to the trash is a very physical job and often requires crawling, as the immigrants use unmarked trails as they hide from the boarder patrol.

Ironically, the illegal immigrants cut up blankets to put on their shoes in order to hide their footprints; however, they do not hesitate to leave trash, camp fires and discarded clothing.  Jennifer MacDonald explains, "When they come across they usually wear a certain set of clothes, and they usually have backpacks with a fresh set of clothes in them.  They get to a certain point where they're going to be picked up by the pick up car.  So then they change into the clean clothes, and they leave the dirty clothes behind."

Some of the other interesting items the fire prevention crew finds include identification cards, birth certificates, religious items, money and cell phones.

Three members of the United States Forest Service Border Fire Prevention Crew are US Forest Service permanent employees, while the rest of the crew is seasonal.  They work from May to the end of November because of California's budget restraints, although illegal immigration does not end in the winter.

Click here for Part 2 of this story to learn more about another component of the crew's job, finding and helping lost immigrants, and how they deal with instances when they find the bodies of immigrants who have perished.


Author:Deanne Goodman - FDNNTV.com