At least one firefighter arrested in Washington state while battling a blaze on the Olympic Peninsula is a resident of Oregon, his attorneys said Thursday.
Attorneys at Innovation Law Lab said they have not been able to contact the man after officers from multiple federal agencies appeared at a wildfire work site Wednesday and arrested the two men.
“Although we have been searching for him since yesterday afternoon, CBP has concealed his whereabouts,” said Rodrigo Fernandez-Ortega, a staff attorney. “Our client has not been able to make contact with his lawyer or family.”
“We demand that they allow him to access counsel as is his right afforded by the U.S. Constitution,” Fernandez-Ortega added.
Agents from the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Customs and Border Protection entered the work site and checked the identities of 44 firefighters who work for privately-owned firefighting firms, a Border Patrol spokesperson confirmed.
It’s not clear what prompted the visit, but Border Patrol spokesperson Jaime Ruiz said that they intended to “verify the identities of all personnel present.”
After the review, two private firefighting firms that contract with the federal government saw their contracts canceled. Both firms — Table Rock Forestry and ASI Arden Solutions Inc. — are based in Oregon.
“Several discrepancies were identified, and two individuals were found to be present in the United States illegally,” Ruiz wrote in a statement.
The Seattle Times first reported on the arrests.
The site is near the Bear Gulch fire, currently Washington’s largest active wildfire, burning near 9,000 acres in the Olympic National Forest.
Ruiz said one of the firefighters had previously been ordered to leave the U.S. — both are being detained at a facility in Bellingham, Washington.
The arrests quickly led to outcry from representatives from both states. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, slammed the arrests as an “evil stunt” by the Trump administration.
“Arresting firefighters putting their lives on the line to protect our communities doesn’t make us safer,” Wyden wrote on the social media website X.
A helicopter drops water on the Bear Gulch Fire on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula on Aug. 5, 2025.
Courtesy of U.S. Forest Service