On August 27, 2025, the usually tight-knit and disciplined world of wildland firefighting was rocked by a controversial immigration raid during the battle against Washington’s Bear Gulch Fire. The incident, which saw two crew members arrested and entire teams sidelined for hours, has ignited fierce debate among firefighters, agency officials, and political figures, with many questioning whether the very protocols designed to protect emergency responders were deliberately breached.
The Bear Gulch Fire, already a formidable foe that had scorched more than 9,000 acres in and around Olympic National Park, became the backdrop for a showdown that few on the fire line could have anticipated. According to Stateline and The Seattle Times, the disruption occurred when immigration agents, acting in coordination with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, descended on a remote site where two contractor crews had been sent—allegedly under the pretense of cutting firewood for a local community. Instead of fire managers, the crews were met by federal agents in unmarked vehicles, who began questioning all 44 members and ultimately arrested two workers for allegedly being in the country without legal status.
What makes this episode especially explosive is the widespread belief among nearly a dozen firefighters and contractors that the California Interagency Incident Management Team 7, led by Incident Commander Tom Clemo (who also serves as Deputy Chief of Administration for the Santa Monica Fire Department), orchestrated the deployment that led to the raid. One firefighter, speaking anonymously to Stateline to protect his career, voiced a sentiment echoed throughout the wildfire community: "I felt beyond betrayed. What they did was messed up. They’d been talking in their briefings about building relationships and trust. For them to say that and then go do this is mind-boggling. It boiled my blood."
The sense of betrayal wasn’t limited to those on the ground. Riva Duncan, a former wildland fire chief with over 30 years of experience in the U.S. Forest Service and current vice president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, didn’t mince words. According to Stateline, Duncan said, "There’s really no way [the wildfire management team] could not have been involved. We’re all talking about it. People are wondering if they go on a fire with this team, if that could happen to them." She also pointed out that fire areas are typically closed and heavily secured, making it unlikely that federal agents could have reached the crews without inside assistance.
In the wake of the raid, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) attempted to control the narrative. On August 29, DHS posted on social media platform X, asserting, "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." This statement was quickly picked up by various news outlets and political figures, including Washington State Republican Party chair Jim Walsh, who wrote on Facebook, "Facts matter. But the Left doesn’t let facts get in the way of its ignorant sanctimony and virtue signaling."
However, public documents and wildfire veterans tell a very different story. Planning documents from the management team, posted to a federal database, list the crew from ASI Arden Solutions, Inc. as a "CR2I" crew—a Type II Initial Attack wildland firefighting crew, just one step below elite hotshot teams. The other crew, from Table Rock Forestry, Inc., is classified as "CRW2," a Type II wildland firefighting hand crew. Both groups were certified under National Wildfire Coordinating Group standards as firefighters, complete with "red cards" verifying their status. According to Stateline, these crews had been performing active firefighting roles in the days leading up to the raid, including securing fire edges, protecting structures, constructing fire lines, and mitigating hazards left by suppression work.
For many in the wildfire community, the notion that these men and women were anything less than firefighters is not only misleading but deeply insulting. "Everybody in the profession sees through it, but the public doesn’t and that’s concerning," Duncan told Stateline. "It’s a lie. Everybody I’ve talked to is very upset about it. It does not just those two crews a disservice, but it does all firefighters a disservice." She added, "To paint this picture that they would never do that to actual firefighters, it’s total spin."
The justification for the raid, according to federal officials, was a 30-minute discrepancy on a timesheet submitted by Table Rock Forestry Inc. Scott Polhamus, secretary of the Organization of Fire Contractors and Affiliates, described such discrepancies as commonplace in the high-pressure, chaotic world of wildfire response—where long shifts and ambiguous break times are the norm. "This is not the first time a crew has been called on the carpet for maybe padding their time a bit," Duncan said, as quoted by Stateline. "You deal directly with the company. It’s just absolutely mind-boggling to treat it as a criminal issue."
Despite claims from federal agencies that the contractors’ government agreements had been terminated, Polhamus clarified that while the crews were demobilized and sent home, the companies remain eligible for future deployments. The Customs and Border Protection news release announcing the arrests made no mention of time-sheets or evidence of fraud, focusing instead on the immigration status of the workers.
One of the detained men, a longtime Oregon resident, has become the center of a burgeoning legal battle. According to his attorneys, he has lived in the United States since the age of four and holds certification for a U-Visa, a special immigration status for victims of serious crimes who assist federal investigations. Legal advocates argue that his detention violates Department of Homeland Security rules barring immigration enforcement against individuals with pending victim-based immigration benefits. Isa Peña, director of strategy at Innovation Law Lab, expressed alarm to Stateline over the apparent coordination between the management team and federal agents: "Conducting immigration enforcement while brave members of our community are risking their lives to protect us is really disgusting."
The fallout from the raid has been swift and severe. Fire crews, particularly those with diverse backgrounds and immigration statuses, now face an added layer of uncertainty and fear. "The three principal wildland fire values are duty, respect, integrity," Duncan told Stateline. "Utmost in that is taking care of your people. If you can’t trust the people you’re working with when things get hairy, that’s a concern."
As the Bear Gulch Fire continues to challenge responders, the controversy has left a scar on the wildfire community’s sense of trust—not just in leadership, but in the very systems meant to protect those who risk their lives on the front lines.
