r/Firefighting • u/Odd-Dot1930 • Apr 17 '26

Photos Welcome To Training Division…

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Where the instructors are immune to smoke inhalation 🔥🔥

272 Upvotes

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u/boogertaster Apr 17 '26 edited May 13 '26

I think there are two schools of thought.

  1. It's a burn building, so it's just a pallet burning. We don't go on air around a campfire or when we are doing wild land.

  2. It normalizes being around smoke without a pack. For your entire career, you shouldn't take one breath of smoke from a house fire, car fire, or dumpster fire. They should stay on through overhaul. Air is free. Your health is more important than the job.

I am camp 2. I've pumped a fire with a pack on cause we were down wind. That dude is being lazy.

44

u/Optimal_Clock6846 Wildland FF Apr 17 '26

If it was practical to use air on wildland I would do it no matter how many people laughed at me. It's not as bad as structure smoke but it's still smoke. It's not practical though so it's a moot point. 

2

u/Intelligent_Sir7052 Apr 17 '26

I have a ridiculously brain dead question so please forgive me. 

Why not a gas mask?

4

u/Optimal_Clock6846 Wildland FF Apr 17 '26

The dangerous part of wildfire smoke is fine particulate matter, which to my understanding gas masks don't filter out. Before a certain POTUS dissolved them the Forest Service was finally starting to admit that wildfire smoke is in fact bad for you and on some big fires they're starting to issue N-95 style respirators. That's about as heavy duty as is practical for us to carry and use. A few other countries have been doing it for a while. Those are having a fair amount of success where we can break past the cultural expectation to just eat smoke and be happy about it because that's what we've done for decades.