Officials in Washington State are demanding to know why federal agents arrested two firefighters working to battle the raging Bear Gulch blaze on the state’s Olympic Peninsula.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said on Thursday that “two individuals were found to be present in the United States illegally, one with a previous order of removal,” after agents supported the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in “verifying the identities of the contracted personnel” trying to extinguish the wildfire.
The names of the firefighters and the circumstances surrounding their arrests on Wednesday were not immediately listed by the Seattle Times, which first reported the news.
Customs agents further stated that contracts with two firms who provided a 44-person crew to help fight the fire were terminated as a result of a “criminal investigation” led by the BLM.
U.S. Senator Patty Murray expressed concern over the arrests.
“[President] Trump has undercut our wildland firefighting abilities in more ways than one — from decimating the Forest Service and pushing out thousands of critical support staff, to now apparently detaining firefighters on the job,” her office said in a statement on Thursday.
Washington Rep. Emily Randall also addressed the arrests on Facebook.
“The strategic, coordinated response to the Bear Gulch Fire has been impressive and inspiring — local, state, out of state, federal partners coming together to fight a very hard-to-fight fire,” she wrote on Wednesday. “BUT TODAY the Seattle Times reported federal officers from US Customs & Border Patrol showed up to ask for IDs, order the firefighters not to record the incident, and arrest two members of the firefighting crew. THIS IS NOT MAKING AMERICA SAFER.”
Officials tending to the fire in northwest Washington claimed border agents “did not interfere with firefighting operations or the response to any active fires in the area.”
The Bear Gulch Wildfire, which started on July 6, has scorched nearly 9,000 acres of forest land and was only 13% contained on Thursday, according to official state data.
