BOISE, Idaho-- As wildfires burn throughout the United States, crews are called from a number of states to help put out the flames.
Many of those crews are non-English speaking, presenting a challenge for crew bosses.
A new federal law requires crew bosses to be bilingual and speak the language of the people they supervise.
The law has been around for years, but only recently have some states begun enforcing it.
For months fires have been burning throughout the West, and a large wildfire continues to burn today in Southern California.
Crews from several states are there, working fast and furious to put out the flames.
While those men and women have firefighting in common, their backgrounds are very different.
They come from a number of places and there are many nationalities with many speaking different languages.
And because of that, the language spoken by those who run the crews has become a federal issue.
"If we have a crew primarily of individuals that speak a language other than English, then they have to have a certain number of people within that crew that are bilingual," said Kurt Houston, Idaho Department of Lands.
Three years ago the federal government passed a law requiring crew bosses to speak English and the language of those on their crew.
Recently, Oregon enforced the law. Now some there worry firefighter bosses could lose their jobs.
That hasn't happened yet in Idaho, but contractors in charge of fire crews believe it's better for safety.
"The leadership positions need to be able to converse in the language of their crew's members. This is just a basic safety requirement," said Rod Nichols, Oregon Department of Forestry.
"I clearly support the speaking the language of the people you're leading, because if you can't communicate with them, that's a no brainier," said Dillon Sander, owner of a firefighting company.
Spanish is the most commonly spoken language among fire crews, but the languages vary nationwide. For example, Native Americans who converse in their native tongues make up a number of crews.
"This is something that has evolved over time, it was identified as an issue, fortunately it was identified early so no one was hurt and it's a proactive approach to make sure we can get the job done," said Houston.
He says there is no threat right now of crew bosses in Idaho losing their jobs.
Surprisingly, very few crews here are Spanish speaking.
Copyright 2006 KTVB-TV.
Republished with permission of KTVB-TV.
