Tower Climbing During Fire Season: Safety Protocols for High-Risk Conditions

Why Fire Season Changes Tower Work Fundamentally

Tower climbing already carries significant risk under normal conditions — it's consistently ranked among the most dangerous occupations in the country. Fire season adds a set of hazards that don't exist in other seasons and that require specific pre-climb planning, real-time situational awareness, and defined abort criteria that every crew member understands before boots leave the ground.

The fire-season hazards specific to tower work:

• Rapid fire behavior near tower sites: Many communications towers in Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii are sited on ridgelines and high points — exactly the terrain where fire moves fastest. A fire burning in the valley below a tower site can crown and reach the summit in minutes under the right conditions. Crew members on a tower have no path of retreat while tied in above 100 feet.
• Smoke obscuration and disorientation: Dense smoke at tower height creates disorientation, reduced visibility for spotters, and impaired communication. A climber at 200 feet in thick smoke cannot see the ground clearly. A ground crew member cannot visually verify the climber's status. Both conditions degrade the safety system that tower work depends on.
• Red flag weather at height: Red flag conditions — low humidity, high temperature, and elevated winds — are identical to the conditions that make working at height on a tower dangerous from a fall-risk standpoint. The winds that create fire weather also create dynamic loading on structures and equipment that affects climber safety independently of any fire threat.
• Access road closures and evacuation orders: A crew on a tower when an evacuation order is issued for their zone is in a complex situation. Descent takes time. Pre-established evacuation routes may be cut by fire. Communication with the ground may be degraded. Decisions about when to abort a climb must be made well before conditions become critical.
• Post-fire structural damage: Towers in or adjacent to burn areas may have sustained heat damage, hardware corrosion from fire retardant, or structural compromise from falling trees — none of which is visible from the ground without close inspection. Climbing a fire-damaged tower that looks intact from below is a documented cause of tower fatalities.

Pre-Season Fire Safety Planning: What We Do Before June

For Richesin Engineering tower crews operating in Oregon and Alaska, fire season preparation begins in the spring — not when the first dispatch comes in.

Tower site fire risk assessment: We evaluate each site we maintain regularly for fire exposure risk: proximity to wildland-urban interface, vegetation fuel load in the immediate area, historical fire occurrence in the township, and access road conditions. High-risk sites get documented specific abort criteria — "if active fire is within X miles of this site, climb is suspended pending evaluation from incident command."

Coordination with fire management: Sites in or adjacent to public lands require pre-season coordination with the relevant land management agency — USFS, BLM, ODF — to understand their protocols for site access during fire conditions. Some public land tower sites require specific access authorizations that must be established before fire season, not during an active incident when everyone's attention is elsewhere.

Crew fire awareness training: All field crew members working in fire-prone areas complete annual wildfire awareness training — understanding fire behavior, reading weather conditions, recognizing danger signs, and using personal protective equipment appropriate for smoke exposure. This isn't a substitute for firefighter training, but it gives crews the situational awareness to make sound go/no-go decisions in the field.

Emergency communication protocols: Every crew operating in fire-affected areas carries a satellite communicator (Garmin inReach or equivalent) independent of cellular and radio systems. When smoke takes cellular service down and fire-ground radio traffic overwhelms local channels, the crew needs a reliable way to communicate with their supervisor and confirm location.

Red Flag Hold: When We Don't Climb

Red flag conditions — specifically, the combination of low relative humidity (<15%), high temperatures (>95°F), and wind gusts exceeding 25 mph — trigger a hold on tower work at exposed sites for Richesin Engineering crews. This isn't a difficult call to make from a business perspective: the risks of a fall caused by wind loading, equipment failure in high heat, or a rapidly-developing fire situation near the tower exceed any scheduling urgency a client might express.

No tower job in Central Oregon is worth a life during a red flag event. When the NWS issues a Red Flag Warning, we stand down at exposed ridgeline sites. Period. Any client who disputes this doesn't understand what we're managing on their behalf.

The specific hold criteria for fire-season tower work:

• NWS Red Flag Warning in effect for the county where the site is located
• Active fire within 5 miles of the tower site, regardless of wind direction
• Evacuation Level 1 or higher issued for the zone containing the tower site
• Smoke so dense that the climber cannot be visually confirmed from the ground at the work height
• Any crew member expresses that conditions feel unsafe — our culture supports raising concerns without pushback

These criteria are documented in our site-specific JHA (Job Hazard Analysis) for fire-prone sites and reviewed with the crew at the tailgate meeting before every climb during fire season.

Working in Smoke: PPE and Health Considerations

When climbs proceed during moderate smoke conditions — AQI in the Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups range (101–150) — personal protective equipment for smoke adds to the standard fall protection kit:

• N95 respirators: Standard surgical masks are ineffective for wildfire smoke particles. N95 respirators (NIOSH-approved) filter PM2.5 particulate and are required for all crew members during smoke events. Climbers working with N95s should verify their respirator is properly fitted — a loose seal defeats the protection.
• Eye protection: Wildfire smoke carries ash and ember particles that cause eye irritation and impair vision. Safety glasses or goggles are worn at all times in moderate-to-heavy smoke at height.
• Hydration: Smoke exposure and heat combine to accelerate dehydration. Fire season tower climbs include mandatory hydration checks before and after climbs and a lower threshold for calling a medical hold if any crew member shows signs of heat or smoke-related distress.

When AQI exceeds 150 (Unhealthy) or visibility at tower height is significantly impaired, climbs are aborted. Smoke-impaired visibility is not just a health issue — it's a safety issue that degrades the entire two-person safety system that tower climbing depends on.

Post-Fire Tower Assessment: Never Assume Structural Integrity

After a fire burns through a tower site, the structure may appear intact while having sustained significant damage that makes climbing it extremely dangerous. Heat from wildfire fire burns can anneal steel, reducing its tensile strength. Guy wire anchors may have shifted if the soil around them was heated. Hardware — bolts, lock washers, splices — may have loosened from thermal expansion and contraction cycles. Fire retardant (Phos-Chek and similar) is corrosive and damages steel when left in contact over time.

Richesin Engineering's protocol for any tower that has been within a fire perimeter or adjacent to one:

1. Ground-level visual inspection from multiple angles before any crew approaches the base
2. Drone inspection of the full tower height before any crew climbs — looking for visible structural deformation, missing hardware, damaged guy wires, and debris on the structure
3. Structural engineering assessment if any doubt exists about the integrity of the structure — we coordinate with a licensed structural engineer before climbing a post-fire tower that shows any signs of heat damage
4. Hardware inspection and replacement as needed — every bolt and connector that was directly exposed to fire heat is treated as suspect until inspected

This process takes time and costs money. It costs far less than the alternative.