It is July 9, 2001, and a camper near the Thirtymile Trailhead in Washington State’s Okanogan National Forest in the United States has left a campfire unattended. The previous winter was one of the driest in decades and the summer temperature has been near record highs. Later in the evening, a passing plane reports smoke.

The next morning, a fire crew that has spent the night mobilising to fight a 1,000-acre (400-hectare) wildfire nearby is redirected to the emerging Thirtymile Fire. Most of the crew is young and inexperienced – for many it is their first fire season with the service. This group is in fact an aggregate of two undersized crews, half of whom have never worked with the crew boss, and there is a lack of cohesion in the unit.

To make matters worse, the command is split between the crew boss and another inexperienced crew boss trainee. Typically they would have reported to a more seasoned crew captain, but he got drunk the previous night after an argument with his wife and slept through the fire call. This has resulted in organisational confusion from the get-go, and everyone is tired from the midnight call and long night of rallying to the blaze.

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When the crew arrives at Thirtymile, they are told that the initial response team has already largely put out the fire. The new crew takes over, but they’re working too slowly to secure the progress made and their lack of knowledge of the equipment becomes a major problem. They can’t figure out how to use water pumps, wrongly thinking they are broken.

As the hours pass, afternoon wind and heat cause the blaze to flare back up. Helicopters are called for a water drop but don’t arrive until it’s too late. Now the fire is out of control and 14 firefighters are trapped behind a wall of flames.

The crew boss orders them to take cover on a stretch of river beach using last-ditch devices called fire shelters which shield firefighters from heat and deadly gasses, but six of the crew either can’t hear or don’t listen, and instead shelter on an exposed rock slope. When the fire overtakes them, four – Tom Craven, 30, Devin Weaver, 21, Jessica Johnson, 19, and Karen FitzPatrick, 18 – die from inhaling superheated smoke. Craven went into the situation with more than 10 years of firefighting experience, but the other three victims were new recruits.

That fire went on to burn nearly 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) and cost $4.5m to put out. An investigation determined that the firefighting command structure had failed, orders had not been properly communicated and numerous rules and safety procedures had not been followed.

The disaster was a turning point in how the United States Forest Service fought fires. It exposed the importance of having trained, qualified and rested firefighters with access to the resources they need and experienced leadership capable of providing a clear plan, and the agency developed a more organised and professional firefighting force in its wake.

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But, nearly a quarter of a century later, many of these firefighters now say the agency’s fire response is once again looking more and more like it did back then, with understaffed crews being thrown together at the last minute and leadership positions filled by less-seasoned candidates, driving a dangerous experience gap.

The cause? Federal firefighters are quitting in droves, with the Forest Service losing half its permanent staff since 2020.

An essential aspect of the United States’s wildfire response, these firefighters – who, unlike local and state structural firefighters, fight wildfires nationally as part of the Forest Service – say they’re fed up with low pay, arduous schedules and abysmal working conditions, with their union accusing the agency of “wage theft”.

As one firefighter told Al Jazeera: “It is in many ways a beautiful job that asks its workers to destroy themselves and their lives.”

‘You choose between a normal life or the job’

Most federal firefighters will only speak with journalists under condition of anonymity, some even expressing concern about sharing even vague details like the number of years and where they’ve worked.

This is due to a strict ban on talking to the media, which has made it difficult to spread the word about issues that not only hamper firefighters but diminish the country’s readiness to confront the rising danger of fire in the face of climate change – such as the recent, devastating fires in California.

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“I hope that people maybe just aren’t aware of how poorly paid and poorly treated their federal firefighters are,” says Bobbie Scopa, executive secretary for Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, an extralegal lobbying group of retired and anonymous firefighters campaigning to improve pay and labour conditions. “They feel underappreciated.”

Nearly 70 years old and now retired, Scopa speaks with the confidence of a leader, having ascended to deputy fire director of the Forest Service, eventually leaving when she was deputy director of a region spanning Alaska, Oregon and Washington State. No longer bound by the media ban, she is more than willing to discuss a status quo that increasingly hinders the United States’ ability to prevent and battle wildfires.

“To the politicians, politics are more important than the lives, livelihoods, and families of firefighters,” says Scopa, before breaking off to cough. She excuses herself and explains, “This is the result of working as a firefighter for 45 years.” A side effect of a lifetime of inhaling smoke.

While polls consistently show that Americans hold an overwhelmingly positive view of firefighters and a growing concern over wildfires, Scopa and other advocates assert that public investment in the federal firefighters tasked with battling these blazes does not match such perceptions.

“If you go to a big fire … and you look around the fire camp at the city firefighters, state firefighters, contractors, the guys who drive the truck that hauls away the wastewater, the people who manage the wash basins – they all make more money than our Federal Wildland firefighters,” says Scopa. “That should be an embarrassment.”

‘I can barely afford my rent’

Federal firefighters say this has been the situation for decades, with many currently earning as little as $15 an hour. State wildfire firefighters in California, by comparison, average about $40 per hour, with the national average at roughly $25.

While Congress approved a temporary annual retention bonus in 2021 providing $20,000 per year or 50 percent of a firefighter’s base pay (whichever is less) to supplement their salary, the programme could expire unless it is codified into law. Several bipartisan bills have been introduced to do just that, but little progress has been made. The new Trump administration’s tightfisted fiscal approach and the president’s recent threats to withhold federal wildfire aid do not bode well for such efforts.

Al Jazeera spoke with many federal firefighters who said they would quit if the bonus ended.

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“I have 10 years of experience and am trusted to make possible life or death decisions for up to 20 [firefighters] but make less money than a cashier,” said one. “If the pay supplement goes away, I’m leaving. I can already barely afford my rent and necessities.”

Federal firefighters also struggle with excruciating schedules, prolonged family separation and insufficient (or even nonexistent) housing. Work periods often last for weeks or up to six months at a time, over the course of which firefighters may respond to blazes across the nation, taking them far from their families to work gruelling, often dangerous 16 to 18-hour days.

According to the wife of one firefighter, she and her children can go weeks without seeing or even speaking to her husband due to a lack of cellular service in remote areas – a “lonely and unpredictable” life with little to no familial support from the agency. She described how her husband is often forced to leave unexpectedly at a moment’s notice due to a sudden fire, and that while the older two of their three children have learned to cope, it’s impossible to explain Daddy’s monthlong disappearances to their two-year-old.

“It’s not sustainable,” says Scopa. “Especially for someone who might have a young family or wants to have a family.”

On top of ruined relationships and losing close connections with family and friends, many firefighters spoke of the health issues that continue to plague them once they’ve returned home, from chronic coughs to mobility issues, joints that need replacement to precancerous tissue from years of working in smoke.

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“Don’t forget about the poor living conditions,” said another firefighter, referencing the temporary accommodation they stay in when working away from home. “Our housing has mice, mould and no running water.” Al Jazeera spoke with numerous firefighters who shared stories similar or worse, with several reporting they had at times been forced to sleep in cars or open fields when housing was declared unlivable.

“This job ultimately makes you choose between a normal life or the job,” said one. And more and more firefighters are quitting in preference of the former.

The experience gap

As fed-up firefighters have left for other agencies or areas of employment, the Forest Service claims it has so far maintained near-replacement level hiring, though stories of staffing shortages abound – especially in leadership positions.

“In 2020 I was put in charge of about five engines, two hand crews, and a bulldozer – about 50 people,” says one firefighter. “I was legally certified to lead a squad of about seven to eight people at the time.”

Scopa explains that higher-paying local and state agencies tend to poach supervisors, depleting one of the most vital resources of all: experience. In a five-person fire crew, for example, “we may only lose one out of five, but we lose the experienced one out of five. And that’s happening up and down the agency”, she says. To fill the holes, roles that once took more than a decade to attain are now routinely filled by people with half the required time on the job.

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Any overspending tends to result in the decision to hire fewer seasonal employees, many of whom perform important work that is essential for preventing wildfires.

Says Scopa: “That’s going to come from the [maintenance of] trails, people who work in recreation, the people who are maintaining the campgrounds, the biologists that help us get vegetation management projects done, timber people.” All of this, in turn, will affect the agency’s ability to manage wildfires.

‘Our fire environment is changing’

According to Scopa, the simple truth is that climate change demands greater investment in federal firefighting efforts.

“Personally, I’m a fiscal conservative,” says Scopa. “I believe in trying to be efficient with our money, but here’s the deal – our fire environment is changing. The fire environment is not like it was when I started in 1974. In 1974, a big fire was 10,000 acres, and now a 10,000-acre fire is nothing. So you can’t expect not to spend more money on a problem that’s getting worse.” The Palisades fire in Los Angeles, for example, covered more than 23,000 acres (9,300 hectares).

Scopa explains how when the Forest Service began in 1905, firefighting was and could be more improvisational.

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“Everybody just gathered, picked up a shovel, and went,” says Scopa. “We can’t do that any more, because our fires are bigger and more severe and there’s more of them, and the seasons last longer. So now we have specialised firefighters.”

These are trained in everything from life-saving safety procedures and using complex equipment to cutting vegetation to control a fire’s burn and parachuting into remote areas without road access. “But we’re still stuck in this mindset that we think we’re still in 1960 when it was cooler and wetter.”

And as the recent eruptions of fire in Los Angeles prove – those began as wildfires before moving into residential areas – these aren’t matters for a later date.

“I’m looking at a burned-out neighbourhood outside Pasadena, California, on the Eaton fire right now while I eat some lunch,” a 26-year veteran of the Forest Service texted Al Jazeera from amid the fight against the recent Los Angeles fires. “And all I am seeing is more and more absolute destruction like this in the future when no one is left to fight the fires.

“If we don’t fix the problems ASAP, we won’t have the management and experience capacity left to take on fires like this. It takes many, many years to grow, learn and develop a basic entry-level firefighter into someone who can step up and lead others.”

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Scopa says she hopes more Americans will realise the urgency of the situation and press Congress for action.

“These fires are not going to get smaller,” she warns. “Do we need to cut timber? Yes. We need to do thinning and control burns. Do we need to have better zoning and requirements for building materials and building standards? Yes. Do we need better road systems and better water systems? Yes, we need all of that. But a key component of that is the firefighters.”

Of the dozens of firefighters who spoke with Al Jazeera, none expressed optimism about the situation improving.

“The stories have been told and retold. For decades,” said one. “Find something the people care about to report on because it sure as hell ain’t us.”

“Our younger firefighters are starting to lose faith that the country just doesn’t respect them. That’s disheartening,” says Scopia. “How do you tell a young firefighter to hang in there, it’s going to get better. I’ve been saying that for 30 years.”