Explosive Wildfire Season Exposes Vast Training Gaps Among Louisiana Firefighters

By Tristan Baurick

NOLA.com

When firefighters rushed from across the state to battle a massive wildfire in Beauregard Parish, a firefighter from Texas noticed something unsettling about his Louisiana colleagues: most of them had no idea what they were doing.

“They’d say ‘we’re just going to go hit it,’ and want to rush in,” said Taylor Lott, a volunteer firefighter in Beauregard who trained in wildland firefighting in his home state. “No, in the conditions we’re having and the fires we’re having, you can’t do that. There’s just a lot they didn’t understand.”

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