An Unsung Pit Crew of California's Wildfires: skeleton crew of hotel staff feed/house firefighters

[Demovictory9]

An Unsung Pit Crew of California’s Wildfires: Hotel Workers Left Behind
As ash falls from the Caldor fire, skeleton staff stay to feed and refuel thousands of firefighters battling the blaze.


STATELINE, Nev.

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Where could she run to? Ms. Bonifacio, 21, a college student from the Dominican Republic, had landed in the United States three months earlier to work at one of the high-rise casinos that flank the Nevada shoreline of the mountain lake. She had no family here. She could not afford a hotel room in the nearby towns, jammed with more than 20,000 evacuees.

So as ash from the Caldor fire snowed on Lake Tahoe, Ms. Bonifacio and a handful of other workers stayed behind. They have since become an unsung pit crew working the country’s highest-priority wildfire, feeding and refueling thousands of firefighters arriving here to battle a blaze the size of Dallas.


Eight miles from charred front lines of the fire, a cluster of Vegas-style hotels on the California-Nevada border has morphed into a base camp for emergency workers. With boutique hotels and alpine lodges shuttered on the California side of the border, fire trucks now occupy valet parking spots in the Nevada-side casinos. Exhausted fire crews accustomed to camping in the woods trundle takeout pizza up to their rooms.


While hundreds of hotel employees joined the mass evacuation from Tahoe, skeleton staff who decided to stay now serve quesadillas and iced coffee to hundreds of emergency responders filling the rooms. They check in guests and pick up trash. They send up clean sheets and towels to replace linens suffused with ash. They endure the smoke wafting through the hallways like some phantom guest.





https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/06/us/TAHOE-CALDORFIRE-WORKERS.html

[Lovie777]

1. Snow machines . . .

Could be the key for future fires.

[niyad]

2. Blessings to all these brave souls. It breaks my heart to see the destruction of a

place I loved so much.

[chowder66]

3. I hope something nice is done for Ms. Bonifacio and those that are helping here.

Something with significance. Maybe a promotion or raise when things turnaround. They deserve to be recognized handsomely for their contribution.