Minnesota firefighters and nine trucks will head to the front lines of wildfires raging in the state of Oregon Tuesday.
The Minnesota State Fire Marshal’s office announced that two teams from seven fire departments in Minnesota were requested in an effort to regain control of the fires. Gov. Tim Walz authorized the mission Monday.
Tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes as destructive wildfires roar across the West Coast, and many of them could end up in shelters, raising potential health risks during the coronavirus pandemic.
The shelters' impact on public health is “an unusually important and under-researched topic,” said Karl Kim, executive director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, which trains first responders. “People are really scrambling right now to figure out how this affects the guidance and messaging and so forth.”