Immigration Agents Arrested Two Firefighters Battling a Wildfire in Washington

Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security arrested two firefighters who were battling the largest wildfire in Washington state.

The incident, which occurred on August 27, was first made public by the Seattle Times, and then confirmed to Outside by a spokesman with the state’s department of natural resources.

On August 28, Washington Governor Bob Ferguson wrote on social media that his office was investigating the incident.

“Deeply concerned about this situation with two individuals helping to fight fires in Washington state,” Ferguson wrote. “I’ve directed my team to get more information about what happened.

According to the Seattle Times, federal agents wearing police vests confronted firefighting crews on the morning of Wednesday, August 27. The crews were part of six separate firefighting teams battling the Bear Gulch fire in Washington’s Olympic National Forest, about two hours from Seattle. The blaze, which started in early July, has burned approximately 9,000 acres and is 13 percent contained.

Eyewitnesses told the Seattle Times that agents demanded identification cards from members of two private contractor fire crews. They prevented crew members from leaving the area during the check.

Speaking anonymously, firefighters who witnessed the confrontation told the Times that they were prevented from speaking to the detained members of their crew.

“I asked them if his [family] can say goodbye to him because they’re family, and they’re just ripping them away,” one firefighter told the Times. “And this is what he said: ‘You need to get the [expletive] out of here. I’m gonna make you leave.’”

A spokesperson for the firefighter’s incident management team said that the federal agents did not interfere with the firefighter’s response to the blaze.

Arresting firefighters marks a major change in policy by the Department of Homeland Security. In 2021, the agency announced that it would not conduct immigration enforcement in locations where disaster or emergency response teams were working.

The incident prompted an angry responses from U.S. senator Patty Murray, who represents Washington. In a statement, Murray demanded answers from the federal government about the arrests, and then called the Trump administration’s immigration policy “fundamentally sick.”

“Here in the Pacific Northwest, wildfires can, and have, burned entire towns to the ground,” Murray said in a statement. “We count on our brave firefighters, who put their lives on the line, to keep our communities safe—this new Republican policy to detain firefighters on the job is as immoral as it is dangerous.”