In ‘Perspectives’: Community-based wildfire fighting creates much-needed jobs in South Africa

Both wildfire and unemployment have long been pervasive problems in South Africa. Chaparral and shrubs burn fiercely in the west, as do dry grasses and thickets in the north. Meanwhile, some one in four South Africans is unemployed. So how do these relate? In 2003, the South African government piloted a program called “Working on Fire” (WoF) that addresses both by recruiting disadvantaged South Africans, training them extensively, and then hiring them as wildland firefighters. The program creates much-needed jobs while keeping wildfires at bay. WoF now has some 5,000 participants across 200 bases. The wages these firefighters collect help...