Guidance for Prevention and Management of Infectious Disease During Wildland Fire Operations (2024)

Source: Wildland Fire Medical and Public health Advisory Team (MPHAT)

Rationale

The wildland fire community’s greatest resource is our personnel. Ensuring our fire personnel continue to remain healthy and safe while performing their important work is a priority and the first step in meeting the wildland fire mission. The wildland fire environment is often considered a higher risk congregate setting with a limited number of fire personnel available throughout the fire season. Infectious disease impacts wildland fire camps every year, and there have been fire camp outbreaks of cold and flu viruses, strep throat, measles, norovirus, and COVID-19, among others.

The best way to minimize the impact of infectious diseases on fire operations is to continue to prioritize and implement strategies to ensure fire personnel can take steps to stay healthier and engage safer. It is important to note that the best way to prevent infectious diseases is to implement all the strategies outlined below. However, due to the nature of the wildland fire work environment, not every strategy listed below will be feasible or practical, and some may need to be modified depending on the uniqueness of one’s workplace or the fire environment. Despite the challenges with implementing health and safety protocols, fire managers must remain consistent on emphasizing the importance of health and safety of resources as their key priority during wildland fire operations.

This document includes guidance and recommendations for wildland fire personnel to better prevent infectious disease and maintain a healthy workforce and includes required agency-specific policies for the mitigation and prevention of COVID-19. 

Safety Strategies and Recommendations and Requirements for Wildland Fire Personnel

Background

The following guidance was developed for wildland fire personnel and is based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and agency COVID-19 Workplace Safety Plans. This guidance has been and will continue to be modified as additional research is conducted and information is learned about identifying, preventing, and treating infectious diseases.

Layered prevention strategies (or implementing more than one strategy) can help limit the spread of infectious disease. For fire, the Medical Unit Leader, Firefighter Health Coordinator, and/or Medical Director on the fire are responsible for determining appropriate practical infectious disease strategies, adhering to agency policy, and other federal/state/local/Tribal/territorial direction.

Maintaining a Healthy Workforce

The following strategies may limit the transmission of infectious disease in the wildland fire environment.   

• Continue to encourage all fire personnel to remain up to date on their vaccines to best protect their health and to better maintain a healthy critical fire operations workforce. Vaccines are one of the most effective tools available to protect health and reduce severity of disease symptoms, hospitalizations, and deaths. 
• Encourage fire personnel to monitor for signs and symptoms of infectious illness. While symptoms vary, they may include:
  • Fever
  • Nausea/vomiting
  • Diarrhea/abdominal pain
  • Cough
  • Runny nose
  • Red, itchy or painful, draining eye
• Remind employees who are currently experiencing symptoms consistent with infectious disease or who are sick with an infectious disease to rest and refrain from engaging in wildland fire suppression or support activities (especially arduous work or work in shared work environments) to protect themselves and others. While agency policies may vary on when employees may return to the workplace, CDC recommends that employees return to normal activities when, for at least 24 hours, both:
  • Their symptoms are getting better overall, and
  • They have not had a fever (and are not using fever-reducing medication).
• CDC also recommends when employees return, they should take additional precaution when around other people indoors over the next 5 days, such as enhanced hygiene practices, wearing high-quality masks, practicing physical distancing, and/or testing.
• The emergency travel regulations at 41 CFR 301-30 outline the provisions available to federal employees in emergency travel situations (i.e., injury or illness that impacts travel).
• Limit face-to-face contact with others by implementing dispersed fire operations. This includes practices that have shown to be effective in the wildland fire environment such as: 
  • When possible, minimizing the number of fire personnel in one area using smaller spike camps to disperse and insulate crews, modules, and other fire personnel from each other. 
  • Using remote positions and radio or video briefings to avoid face-to-face interactions. 
  • Consider providing no contact options by the food unit to reduce contact with communal items that may spread infectious disease.
  • Deploying the Module as One approach to insulate as one unit and reduce exposure to the public and other crews when in an area or county of an infectious disease outbreak. 
• Encourage routine sanitary and personal hygiene practices to not only prevent the spread of illness but remove other forms of contamination that may impact health.
• Regularly clean surfaces.
• Mitigate smoke exposure for firefighters when tactics can be adjusted, and operational objectives can be met. Evaluate smoke impacts for spike camps and Incident Command Posts (ICPs). Smoke exposure may exacerbate the effects of acute and chronic illnesses.
• Prioritize health and wellness throughout the fire season. This includes ensuring fire personnel are well rested, have access to healthy foods, have access to resources and are encouraged to participate in activities/practices that provide for positive mental health and well-being, and are practicing appropriate sleep hygiene when possible. 
• A Firefighter Health Coordinator can be an essential Incident Management Team (IMT) resource to lead COVID-19/infectious disease related mitigation requirements for the Medical Unit/IMT. The Firefighter Health Coordinator can integrate with the IMT, Agency Administrators, and local health authorities to assure that COVID-19/infectious disease mitigations at all incident sites implement agency standards and MPHAT guidance. A Firefighter Health Coordinator position can be a scalable position based on incident size and should be identified in the delegation of authority.

COVID-19 Safety Protocols

Federal fire personnel should consult and be familiar with their agency’s COVID-19 Workplace Safety Plans and support documentation. Agency policy documents are linked here: Department of the Interior and USDA. Per Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements, all employees must report work-related cases of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases (except influenza, RSV, or flu) in the employers injury/illness reporting systems.

Federal fire personnel, federal administratively determined hires (ADs), personnel contracting or volunteering with federal agencies, and those fighting fire on federally managed lands are required to abide by their employer’s COVID-19 policy documents or requirements in firefighting contacts.

While agency requirements are not as restrictive as they have been in the past four years, it’s critical that management and firefighters are proactive and take action to protect their health and safety. One of the most important steps is encouraging and allowing personnel who are sick to take time off to rest and recover and taking proactive steps to ensure sick individuals are not around others until they meet the recommendations above.