Eli5: why do firefighters wear oxygen masks when fighting a building fire, but often not in a wildfire? You’re still breathing in smoke…
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I have packed up on a couple of wildfires, but it is rare. The main thing is that the SCBA only lasts for a little while before running out of air. Even on a structure fire we only wear them while going interior or being right in the smoke. Depending on the department, once you have used up a tank (or two for my department) then you have to go to rehab for a specific amount of time and can’t be working.
On a wildland fire… that amount of time won’t really work. On the big ones you are out there for days packing around the wilderness and carrying all that extra weight on top of all the gear you are already packing around be a lot. It just isn’t practical. If there was some way we could (like some cool filter mask) we would do that.
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