Nathan Howard
Originally published on July 22, 2021 5:44 pm
As the nation’s largest wildfire neared 400,000 acres burned on Thursday, nine firefighters assigned to the blaze tested positive for COVID-19. That’s prompted state health officials to work with incident management teams to set up quarantine areas away from fire camps, though officials also noted that they had already taken steps to minimize transmission risk after developing pandemic response plans during last year’s wildfire season.
“This fire season has been slightly different due to the broad availability of vaccines and the prioritization of structural and wildland firefighting resources for vaccination in the spring,” incident managers wrote in a statement announcing the outbreak. “However, many of last year’s COVID-19 exposure mitigation measures are still in use at fire camps statewide.”