The relentless march of climate change is fueling drought and extreme temperatures across the western United States, creating a crisis for wildland firefighters. A May 2021 study presented at the International Association of Wildland Fire 6th Annual Human Dimensions Conference found that stagnated wages have led to problems for overworked and understaffed firefighters, including homelessness, suicide, and cancer.
A temporary two-year pay raise helped the service retain many of its firefighters, but that expires in September and will reduce wildland firefighters’ salaries by about $1,500 a month. Without it, most earn under $40,000 a year, which is below the living wage in every state in the country, according to an analysis using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator.
Those low wages have historically led to an exodus of experienced personnel, while those who have stayed struggle to find affordable housing and suffer from financial stress and PTSD, according to various reports and studies.
In Africatown, Alabama, the legacy of slavery and the reality of environmental racism continue to intersect. The historic community, founded by formerly enslaved Africans in Mobile’s port city, is now home to a large population of low-income residents who face disproportionate exposure to pollution from nearby industrial facilities.
As a young boy living through the end of the Jim Crow era, Walter Moorer collected old red bricks from a nearby landfill, selling each for a penny. He and his friends traded their earnings for cookies and candy at the old Chin Street convenience store. Those bricks helped build one of the nicer houses on his block, which today is pockmarked with vacant lots, dilapidated homes, and the environmental scars inflicted by relentless industrial activities.
‘This was a beautiful place to live until the world came for us again,’ Moorer, now 66, recalls. As he speaks, a train laden with highly toxic chemicals and coal trundles through the historic neighborhood on its way to the nearby port. It’s a reminder that Africatown remains a battleground where the legacy of slavery meets the reality of environmental racism and industrial expansion.
On Sapelo Island, Georgia, slave descendant families are facing a different kind of threat. The island, which has been home to a vibrant Gullah-Geechee community for centuries, is now facing development pressure from outside investors. Homes and land have been sold in the past to settle property tax debt with the local county. Those taxes have increased as a result of new islanders building more expensive homes. The tax shot up by as much as a thousand percent in a single year back in 2019, forcing some descendants to make tough choices about whether they can even afford to stay.
