US plans reimagine fighting wildfires amid crews' virus risk

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — In new plans that offer a national reimagining of how to fight wildfires amid the risk of the coronavirus spreading through crews, it's not clear how officials will get the testing and equipment needed to keep firefighters safe in what’s expected to be a difficult fire season.

A U.S. group instead put together broad guidelines to consider when sending crews to blazes, with agencies and firefighting groups in different parts of the country able to tailor them to fit their needs. The wildfire season has largely begun, and states in the American West that have suffered catastrophic blazes in recent years could see higher-than-normal levels of wildfire because of drought.

“This plan is intended to provide a higher-level framework of considerations and not specific operational procedures,” the National Multi-Agency Coordination Group, made up of representatives from federal agencies who worked with state and local officials, wrote in each of the regional plans. “It is not written in terms of ‘how to’ but instead provides considerations of ‘what,’ ‘why,’ and ‘where.’”

Federal and state agencies have been scrambling to plan for wildland firefighting since the coronavirus took hold in the U.S. The standard approach to fighting fires means bringing in large numbers of firefighters from different places, housing them together in often unsanitary conditions, then redeploying them to new locations. That's the opposite of social distancing and other restrictions that health experts say can slow the spread of COVID-19.

A Forest Service risk assessment predicted that large fire camps could have a disproportionately high mortality rate in worst-case scenarios, according to an April 30 letter from a group of lawmakers. They are raising questions about how that risk is being...