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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Wildland firefighting is a misnomer, there’s a lot less “fighting” than you’d think for those on the ground.
For those on the ground the name of the game is containment. Most wildland firefighters are experts on clearing out 20ft+ wide tracts of forest for tens of miles at a time.
Clearing is more than just cutting down trees/brush, the teams usually have a train of people behind the chainsaws with Pulaskis ripping out any burnable fuel from the topsoil.
Most of the actual fighting is done by water planes and helos. Although there are Smokejumpers who are inserted much closer to remote fires as initial attack crews.
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