Washington State is preparing for wildfire season, but one man is prepping for his 50th and final season as a firefighter.
Brock Shero is on the Northwest Incident Management team and has decided to retire after he finishes his fifth decade of service later this year.
“I’ve seen a lot of challenges, I’ve seen a lot of changes, the one thing that hasn’t really changed is the hand tools we use, they’re the same we started with 50 years ago,” Shero told NBC K5.
Back in 1970, Shero thought that fire season was going to be the worst season he fought, but said the past five years have been comparably bad. As things continue to get worse, he hopes more people think about becoming firefighters because the need is great.
“We’re losing firefighters to society because a lot of the younger generation will not commit to firefighting. A lot of them will not commit to a full fire season instead of people who will commit to a weekend here, a weekend there,” Shero said. “That’s one of the things I look at is how can I help recruiting people, and that’s what I’m going to do is keep recruiting people to understand that we need that work base to fight fires, not only the people on the ground but the overhead to manage that fire.”