Over the weekend, 20 Florida wildland firefighters traveled to California to help the U.S Forest Service fight wildfires out west.
Four of the crew members are from North Central Florida. They hail from Alachua, Columbia, Putnam, and Union Counties.
The crew is assigned to the July Complex on the Modoc National Forest in northeastern California.
The members have to go through a tough training program that includes a yearly physical work capacity rest and refresher training in order to qualify for these wildfire assignments out west. The crew will go through daily COVID-19 screening and will be following USDA Forest Service COVID-19 protocols.
The deployments usually last 16 days.