Thurston Co. proposes new ordinance after Bear Gulch firefighters detained

THURSTON COUNTY, Wash. - A Thurston County commissioner is proposing new protections to stop federal agents from detaining people during emergencies, after two men working at the Bear Gulch Fire were taken into custody and are now in ICE detention.

Commissioner Wayne Fournier, a career firefighter who has spent months at fire camps like Bear Gulch, said he has never seen anything like what happened last week.

"This is a completely new thing. I've never, I've never heard of, you know, federal agents going in and taking enforcement actions," Fournier said, calling the move "completely unacceptable."

WA firefighters detained by ICE

The backstory:

Last Wednesday, federal agents halted a contracted crew of nearly four dozen workers battling the Bear Gulch Fire and detained two men.

A senior Department of Homeland Security official disputed accounts that the arrests interfered with fire suppression.

"The two illegal aliens apprehended were NOT firefighters. The two contracted work crews questioned on the day of their arrests were not even assigned to actively fight the fire; they were there in a support role, cutting logs into firewood. The firefighting response remained uninterrupted the entire time. No active firefighters were even questioned, and U.S. Border Patrol’s actions did not prevent or interfere with any personnel actively engaged in firefighting efforts," a senior official said in a statement.

Fournier, however, argued that wildfire crews involve a range of jobs essential to containment.

"Firefighters are people that are out working on the fire scene and at wildland fires. Sometimes that's somebody that is making food for the firefighters. It's somebody that is working on the, you know, the fire engines, running heavy machinery. They're all part of the fire operation," Fournier said. "You do not go inside that emergency and interfere with the suppression efforts or the emergency response. You don't do that, and you don't do that for trivial issues. Time card issues happen all the time, if that, in fact, is the issue."

What they're saying:

Fournier said he heard the detentions may have stemmed from "timecard issues," but insisted that should never halt a wildfire response.

"What happened at the Bear Gulch Fire was not routine, and we should not pretend it was," Fournier said in a statement Wednesday. "When CBP agents entered the Bear Gulch fire zone and detained personnel without coordination, without justification, and without identifying themselves, it created a dangerous disruption to critical emergency operations." 

"You should not be going on emergency scenes, detaining emergency workers and asking for their papers; there's a time and a place for everything. And when you're putting out a fire, when you're, you know, protecting lives and property. That's not the time or the place," Fournier said.

Big picture view:

The commissioner said the Bureau of Land Management, which defended the arrests in a press release, has no jurisdiction at Bear Gulch.

"Their press release read more like public relations spin than a serious explanation," Fournier said. "Meanwhile, the state’s Incident Management Team, which is actually responsible for running the fire response, has yet to issue a public statement."

In response, he drafted an ordinance that would create what he calls "non-interference zones." The measure, which is now under legal review, would give counties authority under RCW 38.52 to restrict outside enforcement actions during active emergencies.

New WA law to protect firefighters

Dig deeper:

Under the proposal, outside agencies — including federal authorities — to coordinate with the incident commander before taking action. It also mandates that agents identify themselves, show a valid warrant, and avoid disrupting response work unless there is an immediate threat to public safety.

At the time of the arrests, the Bear Gulch Fire was 13% contained, according to Watch Duty. Containment dropped to 10% the following day. Fournier called it "a tremendous amount of disruption."

"You have to get ahead of the flames, and you have to be putting out the hot spots behind it. Otherwise it doesn't stop burning, and it costs, the cost of continuing that fire is going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, just from a business perspective, it makes sense to let these folks get the work done."

When asked if the incident could discourage emergency workers from coming to Washington, Fournier said, "I mean, wouldn't — wouldn't you be scared? Wouldn't you be worried? You know, if, if that, if that is, you know, your job is to travel, you know, the country, as a part of an emergency crew putting out wildland fires, and you've seen that happen, it absolutely would cause a chilling effect to […] those crews in that industry."

Why you should care:

Fournier emphasized that while immigration enforcement is politically charged, his ordinance is not about partisan politics.

"I'm not looking to send any message to the Trump administration. I'm just trying to send a message to our community and any emergency responders that come here to work that they can work unimpeded," he said. "If lives and property are threatened, all your political nonsense goes to the side and you let us do our job."

The board is expected to vote on the ordinance within weeks. If passed, Thurston County would become one of the first jurisdictions in the nation to formally establish non-interference rules for emergencies.

Fournier hopes others follow.

"I would encourage every county in Washington to look into this," Fournier said. "Because once this kind of thing becomes normal, once people accept that it’s okay to pull firefighters off the line, then we’re in real trouble."

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